There are those who say the art can’t be taught;/you’re born with it or not, like second sight/or a twin clutching your heel….[From ‘Drystone Walling’ by Duncan Chambers]

Our field has a boundary drystone wall, over a quarter mile long, which winds its way to the wooded valley of the north burn, and has been in place for at least 100 years. It’s one of an estimated 125,000 miles of such walling nationwide, and the Pennines are where most are situated. You probably see them as an iconic part of the upland landscape; extracted from the earth they stand on, fashioned by hand, home to invertebrates and amphibians, shelter in a storm, historical boundary markers…Who doesn’t warm to the the sight of a maintained well dressed wall?

The deeds of the Corner House date from 1878 when the property was built as a shepherd’s cottage, along with two adjoining small barns and shippen, part of Southridge farm’s holdings. For the next century or so that’s what it continued to be, until sold and converted. Its large surrounding garden was created at the same time, parcelled up with an extra four acres of rough grazing. The owners would be responsible for maintaining that field’s boundary wall with the farm’s adjacent large meadow. And that’s why we’ve got the wallers in.

The middle section, which Jonny marks out at 50 strides, had worsened since I last walked it with him in the summer. He and younger brother Ben had a lot of work on in our region, and beyond, so we’ve had to patiently wait our turn. They finally rocked up in their 4X4 this back end, working solidly, dawn to dusk over a few weeks in testing weather before and after Storm Arwen. They methodically dismantled, sorted, laid out and reassembled the multi-sized grades of sandstone, supplemented with the odd lump of hard and heavy dolerite whinstone.

I wander across to talk to the brothers and admire their speed in hand and eye understanding what will fit, where and how. It’s a 3D jigsaw puzzle made solvable by the ingrained routine of a working filial relationship. They chat with me whilst carry on working, wielding chisel and lump hammers as they fit and place, with overlapping phrases, or sentences that one will start and the other finish, nuance and meaning enriched through the lilts and phrasing of the accent.

Both wear goggles and gloves. Jonny says he’d previously ended up in hospital A&E with flakes of stone chips in his eyes so sees the need to always wear PPE. They use a stash of plastic tubs that formerly held ovine mineral licks to store the smallest stones or ‘fill’. This they pack in between the outer facing stones that many wallers call ‘heart’ but which they term ‘middle’. The walls in our district are mostly constructed from locally quarried sandstone. Jonny points with some pride at a distant field wall – his first job when starting out as a lad some 25 years ago.

Over time dry stonewalls either move away from their foundations or – as in our case – the foundations move away from the wall. The task on this stretch is to reset the wall to where it was originally, securing it for another century or more. ‘What causes that shift to happen?’ I ask. The pressure of animal bodies (sheep or cattle) can hasten the natural attrition that a range of weather brings in its wake but in our case the main problem is the differing ground levels either side of the structure. Just a matter of inches, but on wet ground that’s enough difference to set the process in train.

On better weather days Ben had brought Daisy, his seven year old tricolour Jack Russell, a rescue dog of cheeky and determined character. (“Meet the Boss” Ben quips). After giving me a thorough bark and sniff going over she follows me as I walk on to cut an overhanging small tree threatening to topple fencing at our field’s end. On the way back, dragging branches for the chipper, she circles me with great excitement in fast flowing loops. Ben says Daisy ran a weasel down the other day when they were working away. He’s not happy about it but accepts that’s what terriers do and there’s not much he can do about it. The next morning  Daisy appears in the garden, barking long and loud at the kitchen door…loosely translated as ’Where are you – we’re waiting’. I emerge, togged up for work and weather, and am closely escorted to join her human companions. ‘I told you she’s the boss’ laughs Ben.

I’m curious too to find out what sort of things are uncovered when walls are deconstructed. Presence of animals apart – birds nests, spiders, hibernating toads and so on – they’ve found many bottles and other containers, in whole or part. These range from inter-war ‘Eiffel Tower’ brand lemonade and ‘Beef Oil’ bottles, (a one time popular tonic, extracted from boiled beef) to stout bottled by Collins & Co, Dublin. Lots of local brewers too, soft drink and chemist embossed glassware and the occasional mineral water bottle. (Jonny reckons that the latter, once consumed, was likely to be re-used for other liquids until broken when it would find a final purpose as filling). They’ve also found early 20^th century coins, which they believe were most likely placed as date tokens, on completion or repair. In the same tradition the guys have brought in some hardcore rubble to add to the fill mix and will in turn be depositing a bright new penny to date their rebuild.

The lads remain convivial and chatty each time I walk over. They’re much amused by my experience of playing a stonewaller on the radio, contracted by the late Nigel Pargetter in an episode of The Archers back in 2008. The stage manager doing the requisite spot effects in studio as virtual work on the imaginary wall progressed under the dialogue.

I volunteered to help as apprentice, or rather, their goffer. We’re still short of material to finish the stretch so my task is to retrieve as many stones as possible from the remains of our field end wall, long since replaced with fencing, pole and barb. The grass covered mound is situated on the field’s steepest slope so I’m using the kids red plastic sledge to transport the recovered haul up to a gate where the boys can drive down later to load up. I labour slowly to flip any wide big slabs excavated up the grassy incline on to the flat. They’re invaluable as through stones, helping to stabilise and keep the structure tight.

When the work is finally completed and the lads packed and gone I stroll the renewed length and identify with quiet satisfaction the uncovered brown hued rocks I’d contributed set in amongst the existing stock of lichened grey stones.

The brothers are rewilders at heart and comprehend the bigger picture outside their own rural occupations. They’re part of the wider nature friendly generation working for a more coherent sustainable future for UK agriculture. Members of an extensive local farming family both boys grew up on a holding just to the north of Hadrian’s Wall, below the Great Whin Sill ridge on which it stands, at its most remote and highest point. We speculate that might have been a factor in their becoming professional wallers. I ask how they manage working together as brothers and Ben says ‘We get along fine….As long as there’s a wall between us.’

You might like to know that Ben features as a contributor to ‘The Wall,’ a 24 minute long BBC Radio 4 ‘Open Country’ programme first broadcast on Thurs 16^th Dec. You can listen or download here: https://ww

Most folk in the north have had a story to tell about Storm Arwen and its aftermath. Here’s ours. Power went off at the Corner House at suppertime on Friday 26^th November. The vicious northerly winds howling and screaming around us, with ominous thuds and bangs outside. One of those knocks may‘ve been made by an Amazon driver because later I find the ‘Sorry I missed you’ card which said that a package was ‘In the bin’. Smart move. The big bin was empty of rubbish so able to retrieve the delivery safely. Next morning the same bin had been embedded by the wind into the big hawthorn hedge. The weather had calmed considerably by then but reports were coming in from our postie and over the battery powered radio of catastrophic damage on a vast scale across the north. Having experienced brief outages before we’ve lots of candles in store; plenty of logs for the living room burner, a bunker’s worth of smokeless coal, a recently serviced oil fired Aga to cook on and heat water so the heart of the house can keep on beating. Everything else for the moment has gone. No electricity, internet or mobile connectivity.

Wind speeds of up to 100mph had brought down a vast number of trees, blocking roads and trashing infrastructure. We live a mile from the country’s biggest man made forest. Commercially grown conifers being tall and shallow rooted are more vulnerable to toppling than most deciduous trees. The weekend slips by and nothing happens to reset the situation. Our spur of power, we learn, comes through forest rides (clear areas either side of power lines) where equipment will have been wrecked or sunk in a remote hinterland of peat bogs and dark mires. Reconstruction rather than repair seems to be the order of the day and, given difficulty of access, weather conditions and demands on the emergency crews brought in from all over the country to help out, this will account for the delay in restoring power.

A good quarter of Southridge’s shelterbelt has been bowled over. Three ash trees on their farm road, already earmarked for felling due to die-back, have been smashed by the storm with broken branches threatening to snap off and block access. Kim walked up there to see how our friends were faring. She reports that the menfolk had rigged up a palette on the tractor’s hydraulic forks, raised up and wobbling in the wind, with the younger farmer taking his saw to the offending tree limbs. Perilous but necessary, as there’s no other available mechanical help to hand.  

Water supply is the main domestic challenge for us (see previous posts). Having the electric powered pump out of action means the header tanks for hot and cold up in the loft cannot be refilled from the spring source, so the tedious process of water bearing begins. Most days I fill the plastic 15 litre holders with water from the sealed butts fed by our gutters and downspouts. Plastic ones have tops so one can lower a bucket in each time. The old whisky barrels only work when the weather stays mild as they freeze up at the tap otherwise. Bitterly cold days alternate with wet mild ones that quickly refill the containers. Baths take on extra significance as deeply pleasurable and refreshing experiences. The old bath water then doubles as grey water to flush the adjoining toilet, so nothing wasted. Fortunate that those water butts installed to sustain us through summer droughts are proving just as useful in meeting this winter crisis.

A walk along the long distance path & good chat with our neighbour taking a break from wielding the chainsaw. It takes him five days to clear the row of elders that had been brought down, blocking the path. Meanwhile we’re re-directed through their garden. The days add up to a week and still our postcode batch of properties have not been reconnected. The sympathy and support from family, friends and neighbours increases. AA batteries, LED camping lights, big candles & so on arrive and we make forays out for other supplies or to plug in devices at the local hotel while having a drink or reading. Some locals are having to lodge there (paid for by the power company) but we’ve not got to that stage yet.

Old Bastle Farm, Southridge and us – four households in all – are without power whilst other neighbours just a few fields in either direction were reconnected within a few days of the storm. To make matters worse on Day 5 a Northern Power Grid person rings to say we can expect to be back on the next day, but nothing happens. National news on day 7 tells us re-connection for the 1,500 or so remaining properties & businesses is not likely to be achieved until next week.

The two freezers are being gradually emptied as they thaw out. The one in the garage/workshop the slowest to unfreeze as the low temperature there helps. We get stuck in to making jam from last year’s fruit. There are also hams to be boiled, mince for chilli con carne for selves and neighbours, elderflower cordial to drink etc. Hate waste but become resigned to losing most of our frozen store.

Kim has retained an old analogue phone to replace the non operational digital one so we can receive and make landline calls, which is a real lifeline. Like other rural dwellers we dread the day when BT completes its national scheme to replace all copper wires with digital connectivity, leaving us with no alternative.

Enforced lockdown has incentivised us to make the best of daylight hours. Kim’s home made Christmas cards (already printed), are written, stamped and along with family presents get posted at the village sub PO. I’ve been quarrying for old wall stone at the field’s end to supplement the needs of the dry stone wallers’ rebuilding our field boundary (more in a future post) while Kim has started creating a series of illustrations for a literature and archeology commission, to be completed in a month’s time (Again, more about this project in a future blog).

By night 6, and sorely deprived of visual stimulation we head out to the bright lights of our market town, 15 miles distant, to marvel with childlike wonder at the myriad of snow white Christmas lights decorating the old streets. We then snuggle down in the warmth and comfort of the independently run art deco cinema to see Jane Campion’s latest feature ‘The Power of the Dog’, enhanced by surround-a-sound audio. A visually stunning, emotionally powerful film that took us, enraptured, to another place entirely. The following night we went to see the local amateur dramatics company production of ‘Whisky Galore’ in the big village’s fine town hall. Another triumph of technical excellence creating wonderful set, lighting and effects for the large acting ensemble, ranging in age from 10 to 80. Everyone contributed in creating a cracking night’s entertainment to lift our spirits.

Night 9 and another mighty storm from the north bearing snow. That evening a knock on the door and flashlight around the corner – It’s our friend and local county councillor Nick, calling on afflicted households to check that residents are coping, and bearing batteries, water cans, blankets etc. in his van. We have a catch up chat and he’s away back down the valley for a long delayed meal waiting in the slow oven at home. Later we learn it was a touch and go journey on treacherous roads with another tree down on the highway at one point.

Sunday morning and the usual drive down to the village to pick up papers. Pull over to watch the wheeling flock of fieldfares, recently arrived a few weeks back from the far north, alighting in a ghostly wave to join a score of lapwings quartering a neighbour’s boggy meadow for food. Back at the house, we catch fleeting glimpses most days of the garden’s resident winter birds – dunnock, robin, wren and blackbird. Winter’s onset reveals more previously hidden former nests; a dunnock’s secure in the spikey heart of a pyracantha bush and a pied wagtail’s atop the woody tangle of an old montana rubens clematis.

The 10^th day of blackout (Sun 5^th December). Driving back in the dark that early evening from friends – where we’d charged batteries and did a load of washing – arrived home to see lights on in the kitchen. Hurray! We’re back in the 21^st century after our extended surprise vacation in the 19^th. Still no internet but that can wait. (Posting this on a visit back to Lancaster). When we get that compensation from Northern Power it’ll go towards buying a small diesel powered generator and the necessary junction installation so we’ll be as ready as we can be to face future big weather events.

And no bobbins and spindles and shuttles are left / Where weavers once tended the warp and the weft /To fettle to fabric with fine-spun thin threads /But axes have fallen and silenced the sheds /And only the bleat of the sheep on the hills /Gives a musical beat to the crumbling mills. From ‘Cotton Mills’ by C Richard Miles

The visit to Middleton-in-Wirksworth recorded as my last diary entry was enhanced by an immersive visit to the nearby village of Cromford and the historic mill complex that caused it to grow and flourish.

An excellent tour by one of the volunteer guides introduced us to a globally significant event in economic and social history wrought here in the 1770’s. An achievement so singular it has earned the Derwent Valley Mills UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Sir Richard Arkwright’s Cromford Mill became the model that effectively spearheaded Britain’s industrial revolution. This never- before-seen building design and its method of production was the achievement of a single minded personality who conceived and designed this novel industrial complex and oversaw its financing, construction and operation from start to finish. In the process he became a template for successive reincarnations of the self made, larger than life capitalist; from Josiah Bounderby in Dickens Hard Times to Gordon Gecko in Wall Street.

Richard Arkwright was born, the 13^th child of a Lancashire tailor, in 1732. He became a wig-maker in Bolton and in the course of his travels buying up human hair from working people willing to part with their spare locks for cash got to know the rural hinterland of Derbyshire well. In partnership with clock-maker John Kay and technician Thomas Highs he developed and manufactured a roller spinning machine made from wood – the water frame – that could make mechanical cotton spinning possible. Once patented in his own name Arkwright ruthlessly dumped his inventor associates for business partners who could supply the venture capital needed to make his vision a reality. The key power element – water – came from drainage out of the area’s old lead mines, which Arkwright had dammed for a reservoir that is now the village pond. That allowed him to engineer and regulate the brace of millraces to power his nascent enterprise.

He advertised for and attracted a small army of willing workers (men, women and children) to operate, in continual shifts, the water frames installed in the newly built seven story stone mill, internally lined with imported brick.

So successful was this first mill that a second larger mill, together with extensive warehousing, were soon added. In design the works were now resembling a medieval castle, with a sheer cliff face topped by a wooded eminence – Scarthin Rock – completing the site’s fourth ‘wall’. Any resemblance was intentional. The great industrialist, keen to keep out unwanted attention from competitors, also maintained a cadre of apprentices housed in a barrack like communal building (since destroyed by fire), and they acted as a resident security and oversight force. Given that, in the years that followed, rioting handloom weavers would storm these new factories to destroy the hated machines that had left them jobless and destitute, Arkwright’s astuteness in adopting a defensive design was apt.

When its pioneering glory days had passed, Cromford Mill became just another old industrial building and gradually fell into decline. By the time it was rescued from neglect and decay parts of the fabric had been altered, destroyed or badly damaged. The Arkwright Society, a local charity, purchased the site in 1979 and started the process of restoration, interpretation and development. Though a huge amount has clearly been achieved the site is still a work in progress, and somehow all the more interesting for it.

I particularly appreciated the section of our guided tour where a hologram version of Arkwright, as played by a suitably portly be-wigged actor, took us through the original mill’s interior floors that no longer exist, but are here miraculously recreated through impressive audio-visual effects. Some of my family on dad’s side worked in the Lancashire cotton mills and I remember aunt Annie telling me about the noise and dust generated by machinery at full pelt, so hearing it recreated here informed me about conditions as much as any script. Annie had a loud clear voice too. She needed one (alongside sign language) to communicate at work with the other mill lasses back in the 1930’s.

Today small businesses, offices, shops and visitor facilities fill many of the remaining buildings and provide much of the necessary income to restore, maintain and develop Cromford Mills. Stepping outside its towering confines we took an easy walk beyond the wooded car park area to the riverside along paths with views of the distant grand ‘castle’, now a hotel, that Arkwright had built for himself (He died, in 1792, before it was finished) and the church of St Mary (yet another foundation) where Arkwright and other family members are interred.

The Arkwright Society have plans to harness the waters that still flow through the mill complex, this time to supply green electric power for the local community, which would be a fitting 21^st century contribution to the revolutionary process that is constant history in perpetual motion.

Just returned home from a long lovely weekend based at hillside village of Middleton-by-Wirksworth Derbyshire, where we were catching up with family and friends. The White Peak’s highlands and steep valleys are characterised by large quarries, many disused and self seeded with ash, hazel, birch and scrub. The abandoned rusted sheds and stores are being slowly absorbed into the landscape, becoming near invisible to the naked eye, as noted here, from the path above.

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Middleton’s limestone quarries once supplied the stone for thousands of war memorials erected in the wake of WW1. The limestone produced here was of the highest quality, akin to marble, ideal for carving and polishing. We were told by the owners of our rented cottage that in 2018, to mark the centenary of the end of WW1, on Remembrance Sunday a hearse drawn by horses with black plumes transported a dressed block from one end of main street to the other, stopping off at the church for a blessing, before installing it on the hill top green as a permanent memorial.

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Took a walk with the family one afternoon up on to Middleton Top, the plateau above the village, which afforded us extensive views over the Derwent River valley down to Derby and the Midland plains beyond, and in the opposite direction northwards to the Dark Peak ridges. The circumference and depth of the worked out quarries becomes more obvious seen from above. Nearby, 21^st technology presented itself as wind turbines on quarry company owned land, generating the industrial power to meet the industry’s current energy needs.

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Sycamores and sizeable berry laden hawthorns dot the farmland hereabouts. The imposing mature trees of the sheltered valley woodlands are still sporting leaves of flame, russet and gold but these hardy exposed trees have been stripped of their remaining foliage by autumn gales. The grey dry stone field walls at their feet are nearly all tumbledown and serve no purpose other than to mark former boundaries where now cattle and sheep range at will.

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Fascinated by a ventilation shaft in the middle of one of these old fields, recently re-capped with a sturdy cattle grid style cover. The grandchildren, aged 4 and 8, delight in dropping small stones down the rock lined ovoid shaped gaping hole, counting the seconds as the pebbles descend, bouncing off the walls as they disappear from sight before landing in a tunnel far  below. Apparently there are some 25 miles of road tunnels on three different levels down there, linking Middleton and Hopton Wood, effectively making them more like mines than quarries. Now largely unworked, sections have collapsed, radon gas is present and access is strictly controlled or barred entirely..

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Another walk, but this time we’re strolling in the opposite direction with clear weather views of fells and yet another quarry, hillside fields and patchwork of valley woods. The lane’s tarmac gives way to rock and mud then rutted grass track between maintained stone walls. I smile at the sight of a washed out lilac coloured scabious flowers (lover of limestone soils) holding on in the narrow grass verge.

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Either side are a clutch of smallholdings, with sheds, caravans, piles of gear under cover, with 4x4s or a lorry or two wedged in where space allows. We stop to chat to a friendly local couple on their patch. There’s a Jacob ram – with a prize set of horns, ready to go off to do his duty by a neighbour’s flock – while they continue to the needs of their fine looking Jacob ewes. Learning we’re down from Northumberland there’s further chat about their small flock of Cheviots, kept on pasture elsewhere. We all agree the price of wool is abysmal and this wonderful natural rich resource is both underrated and underused.

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Sunday night spent in the Old Bowling Green pub in the postcard pretty, former lead mining village of Winster, in the heart of the Derbyshire Dales. We’re guests of old friends & creative colleagues David and Pat for supper and catch up at their home before marking this particular Remembrance Sunday with a words and music commemoration down at their local. I’d last performed in and around the village back in 2008, playing English folk dance & song revivalist Cecil Sharp, in a special lottery funded weekend of community celebrations marking the musicologist’s 1908 visit.

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David, a long standing local resident, had thoroughly researched his subject and one of the most touching moments of the evening was when audience members read out the names and stories of those men from the village who were killed in action during WW1. (Approximately a quarter of the 125 who enlisted). David opened with a powerful selection of famous and lesser known contemporary poetry from both world wars, and told us how they came to be written. Meanwhile Pat read Buxton born Vera Brittain’s account of the wartime loss of her fiancé Roland, as related in her 1933 biography Testament of Youth.

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It was a pleasure, and indeed a privilege, to read passages from the biography of local man, Horace Johnston, written in the 1970’s. He was a private fighting in the disastrous Dardanelles campaign against the Turks in August 1915. The old soldier’s artless and harrowing account was cleverly counterpointed to maximum emotional effect by David’s reading of contemporary verse by Sassoon, Owen & other soldier poets at key points in the narrative. The programme’s different sections were evocatively opened and closed through the close harmony rendition of wartime songs performed by Winster based folk music stalwarts Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham.

The summer nests uncovered by autumn wind, /Some torn, others dislodged, all dark, /Everyone sees them: low or high in tree, /Or hedge, or single bush, they hang like a mark. (From Birds Nests by Edward Thomas)

‘Nests’ is a new large format hardback to be found on bookshop shelves. Susan Ogilvy’s contribution to the study of birds’ nests is a beautifully luminous volume with obvious appeal. Her finely detailed paintings are matched with pithy companionable observations of birds and their building means and methods. I’ve collected our garden visitors seasonal homes over the years, as and when they’ve fallen vacant. Clearing a creep of ivy that threatened to dislodge a drystone wall revealed two moss moulded wren nests a few autumns back. An opened bird box threw up a blue tit’s nest snugged square to fit. Pied wagtails had lodged themselves in an open sided box under the eves of the railway hut behind the bean stick stash. A blackbird’s wonderfully sturdy woven nest was mudstuck to a log in store. The swallows sturdy mud masticated old nest had fallen from the iron hoop of the railway hut’s interior. Occasionally boxes are comandeered by wasps and I love the delicate paper tissue cocoons they create within the captured space (below).

From joy to sorrow. A growing mound of rocks, that might otherwise hinder the plough’s progress, have been extracted from this upland pasture a few miles from us, owned by one of the local landed estates. It has turned what had been permanent grassland into marginal arable land with alternate year fallow rest in order to maximise returns under the current subsidy system. Former hedgerows which subdivided the sloping pastures – home to birdlife and endangered species like hedgehogs – were grubbed out a few years back and replaced by fences with only a few straggly hawthorns left to show they had ever existed. Hedges would’ve shaded input heavy cereal crops and impeded the big machinery needed to work it. In turn that heavy plant has compacted the increasingly rock free soil, leading to even greater amounts of run off and yet more soil erosion. Those silt laden waters run off down the lane to pour into the stream below, which when in spate, increasingly breaks its banks to flood the downstream village street and threatens to enter the terraced houses off it. 

Here, as on their other fields where hedges act as boundaries of arable land, they are machine flailed almost to the point of non-existence every back end, depriving wildlife of winter food and shelter in order to gain even greater yield from unshaded crops. Nature is a nuisance and must be put firmly in its place. Just how disconnected can our current farming and environmental policies be? We’re promised, post-Brexit, ‘public money for public good’ via ELMS (Environmental Land Management Schemes) and a greener, more coherent, agricultural policy. When I witness outdated dysfunctional practices like the ones described come to an end I will rejoice. But I’m not holding my breath just yet.

Carbon compromise. Like a lot of country people we still use coal for domestic heating. When your elderly farming neighbours both independently swear by then make a sample present of ovoids you take notice, as they know value when they see it. We duly put our order in and the coal merchant delivered. Ovoids, or ovals, are constituted from anthracite and have to meet DEFRA definitions for smokeless fuel (with less than 2% sulphur content). They certainly last longer and give out more heat compared to untreated coal, and are comparatively environmentally friendly for use in in multi-fuel living room stoves like ours.

Fruit favours. Am becoming increasingly fond of our Christmas Pippin apples. Despite its exposed position this little free standing tree is a good cropper. A dessert cox-style variety – an accidental roadside find from Somerset and only put to commercial use a decade ago – neatly small, a firm keeper that tastes crisp and sweet. Best of all, as the name implies, this late producing fruit brings cheer to any late Autumn kitchen garden with a promise of being still fit to eat by Yuletide.

Our Williams Bon Chretian Pear continues to thrive in its wooden tub in the south facing walled part of the garden. Despite its French name this variety is actually of C18th Berkshire heritage. Its spring blossom couldn’t be prettier and the autumnal lingering gold leaf is equally delightful. Yield is low, but you can’t have everything from being so confined. The last of this year’s three pears dropped to the gravel below and I found it one morning part consumed by some creature. I suspect most likely a rat, but I may well be wrong. Any ideas?

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We had a lovely surprise last weekend when some farming friends came for a long delayed lunch at the corner house. They turned up in the tractor bearing gifts at forks end. In with the newly felled birch tree logs was a branch with large moss covered burr to add to our wood form collection set around the garden. They also bought us a special gift to mark recent celebrations, a baby oak tree from the fine ancient woodlands on their land. Where we’ll put that little beauty to grow on our more modest patch is yet to be decided.

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Fungi are everywhere this autumn, a good year for them. Apart from field mushrooms, gathered to add extra flavour to a Sunday breakfast fry up or grace a supper dish, I spy non edibles which I believe to be Protostropharia semiglobata (above) These are small (10-30mm high) slender mushrooms with yellow to pure white caps, common on land like our neighbour’s sheep dung enriched permanent pasture. In youthful years I’d have been far more interested in cropping the similar looking fungi of the Psilocybe genus, (below) otherwise known as magic mushrooms.These days I leave them strictly alone but wonder in passing what effect, if any, they might have on flocks of grazing stock at this time of year.

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Our own field needs attention. We’re still waiting for the waller to come to patch our stretch of drystone boundary. Meanwhile invasive bracken from our northern neighbours wood has been steadily increasing its claim on our better grassland so I’ve been down and taken the scythe to it. Makes for hot work and given its carcinogenic reputation have had to wear a mask to prevent inhaling any spores from the dying fronds. The following day loaded and dragged two dumpy bags worth up to the house to spread as ground cover under the mixed tree cover of our eastern shelter belt.

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Last grass cut of the season. Hurray! Put the machine away now until next spring. Do a final scarify and rake around the meadow’s east border. Pleased to see the west side is now firmly fixed with plantain and other perennial plants established over the previous two seasons of wild flower sowing. In late September I did another, smaller seeding of annuals; more yellow rattle and a ‘butterfly mix’ that included foxglove, red campion, knapweed and scabious. I’ve collected burnet, fleabane, meadow vetchling and common tare seeds from walks along the lane and have broadcast them in the harder to colonise heart of the meadow. Next Spring should bear witness to the results of these labours.

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Every morning I religiously do 10 minutes worth of warm up exercises before breakfast (a hangover of drama school training). Have now added to that routine an occasional wander into the kitchen garden to ingest the get-you-awake autumn air and then empty my bladder over the contents of the compost bins. The body’s liquid waste is high in nitrogen which stimulates breakdown of composting matter and uric acid levels are at their highest after a night’s sleep. Also balance the bins ‘green’ input of kitchen scraps and plant material by adding carbon in the form of ‘brown’ or dry matter like cardboard, paper, leaves and wood chippings. Forking over the rotting mass as much as possible helps air the mix to speed the process. Nothing beats the satisfaction of knowing you’ve made your own dry, rich, crumbly compost ready to add to raised beds and borders.

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The well was dry beside the door, /And so we went with pail and can / Across the fields behind the house / To seek the brook if still it ran. From ‘Going for Water’ by Robert Frost

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We recently had a power outage. The electricity company gave notice before setting to work replacing old telegraph poles in fields nearby. It was only a couple of days later we (literally) woke up to an unwelcome side effect. With no electricity to run the internal pump that shifts our spring water up to header tanks in the loft we’d unknowingly exhausted supply through the usual round of baths, showers, laundry, dishwashing etc. Cue buckets, filled from the garden water butts, lugged up and down stairs, boiling of kettles and neighbour’s help filling containers.

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This little emergency prompted us to consider getting a borehole sunk in our own field or getting an engineer in to check the pipe between home and the spring in the neighbour’s field opposite that supplies us and the family households at Southridge. Ominously, in recent years the supply tank that retains the water at source has had a reducing average capacity. Hence our neigbours move in sinking a borehole to secure enough supplies for their sheep and cattle. Our own problems stem from airlocks in the system, either generated by stop/start issues like the recent outage or from overuse where demand outstrips supply. The latter reason was the case in the wake of this Summer’s garden party, compounded by hosting a houseful of overnight guests. At least we’re now adept at running off water from the pump in the kitchen out onto the garden gravel in order to free airlocks before reconnecting the pipework.

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Our scattered rural community is not unduly plagued with theft so it was a bit of a shock to hear that Southridge had had their quad vehicle stolen overnight from the home barn. The National Farmers Union (NFU) Mutual Insurance company reported in August that rural crime in 2020 was down by an average 20% as Covid-19 effectively locked thieves out of the countryside. (Dog attacks on livestock and rural fly tipping however soared during the same period, which saw a surge in pet ownership and countryside visits alongside the closure of recycling facilities). Thieves are back this year with new tactics and targets. Top of the ‘must have’ nick list are Global Positioning Systems (GPS) fitted in tractor cabs, while the latest means of criminal access and escape are silent electric scooters that can speed off unheard along quiet country roads.

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Last of the apples are being gathered for juicing. From the pink colouring bestowed by sweet red Katy & Discovery varieties to the sharper notes of James Grieve they all make for simple welcome refreshment. In previous years we’ve shared our crop with ever opportunistic blackbirds. No peck attacks from them this year but much increased attention instead from gangs of wasps who mine the produce while still on the bough. They scramble from their burrowing to fall earthwards or fly drunkenly off when I (very gingerly) pluck the fruit to drop into my basket.

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Utilise a size two Devon stave basket for this task – my birthday present for Kim this year – made to order by John Williamson, a charcoal maker and woodworker who lives and plies his craft in the Teign valley. Fashioned at the work bench from locally grown ash (handle & trim) douglas fir (staves) and oak (bottom) these heavy duty baskets were traditionally used across the county for the carriage of goods produced in kitchen, dairy, garden and orchard.

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Spotted a couple of caterpillars on walks near the house recently. Here’s a picture of the first, found under some soft rush in our field. Looking it up I discover it to be the caterpillar of the fox moth, named for its colouration at this larval stage. Up to 7cm long and commonly found on variety of grassland habitats across the country from June to April.

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The second caterpillar encountered was much smaller and a more uniform brown. It was sashaying across the tarmac when we came upon it. When it changed direction to go up, as opposed to across, the lane I attempted to chivvy it gently with my walking stick towards the verge, away from obliteration by passing vehicles. However, it would not be interfered with and promptly rolled into a ball; then the breeze lifted and wheeled the little creature rapidly off and away, depositing it in the verge further up. This amused me greatly and prompted speculation. Do caterpillars deliberately harness the power of the wind to travel  distances, or was this just an instinctive emergency escape measure accidentally aided by air lift? The creature’s curled form and cushion of fine hairs make it remarkably light and aerodynamic, that’s for sure.  

Another small wonder of the natural world that made me wonder in turn occurred this week. As I’ve mentioned in these columns before we have a number of closed and open rainwater containers about the garden, from old wooden whisky barrels to plastic plant troughs. My eye caught slight movements in one of these low troughs as I passed. It was an adult palmate newt, floating near the surface.

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Closer examination in the net used to lift it out with indicated this was a pregnant female. Had it migrated from the pond at the other end of the garden to get to an alternative water world? And if so, how had it managed to get into this particular container? Given the trough was low lying yet sheer sided with an extruded top the only way must have been by climbing the dense berberis bush, whose prickly stems reach over one end, then dropping in. The lone amphibian would have eventually perished for lack of food and inability to ever extract itself. I returned the wanderer to the shallow beach of the pond, where its dark still form merged perfectly with pebbles and water. Try again. Returning 10 minutes later it had disappeared. Better luck next time, I thought.

And finally…another small creature story to end with. Once a year in late August or early September Chris the landscape gardener comes to cut the mini-meadow, or Jungle as he calls it, being a no nonsense local man. Usually it’s just his trainee lads that turn up in the van to cut our garden sward with strimmers. This time around it was the boss himself who showed up to do the job, with just one helper to clear. They arrived with a ride on tractor to do the cut, as pictured.

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At one point Chris stopped the engine, walked forward, leaned down and cupped his hands over the tall grasses. He then strolled across me on the sidelines with his catch – a small tortoiseshell butterfly. ‘You’re more of an old softy than I thought’ I said, as he smiled and released the delicate flutterby from his mighty hands.

On a small island, the feeble purchase that the land obtains between the sea and the sky, the drifting of mist and the intensity of light, unsettles the intellect and opens the imagination to larger and more liquid configurations.

(From the poem Riasg Buile by Thomas A Clarke)

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Our recent five day sojourn here was well spent. Lazing, walking the shores and hills, dining out at the hotel and pantry, swimming at Kiloran Bay (above), or exploring the environs surrounding Colonsay house where we were staying, in the former nursery, with a view over the extensive sheltered gardens & woods.

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Colonsay is home to some 130 permanent residents, with we visitors coming mainly from Oban, a two hour ferry trip away. The elongated isle measures roughly 10 miles by two and lies west of mountainous Jura, out of the highland rain shadow and along with the island of Tiree it enjoys Scotland’s highest number of sunshine hours. An avian paradise, with more than 100 breeding species of birds and many more visiting. Its extended mild climate, non intensive agriculture and range of environments makes for interesting and diverse plantlife.

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The winding high track from Kiloran over three miles to Balnahard Bay took in some distinct and thrilling sights. The wild goats we caught grazing on the mountain side above us are reputed to be descended from animals that came ashore from a wrecked Spanish vessel, part of the invading armada in 1588. Later we saw a golden eagle perched on the ridge, surveying the scene below before lifting off and circling, its massive wingspan not failing to impress.

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A lively flock of twites accompanied us along the approach through new mown meadows to Balnahard farm. Seed eating finches, often confused with linnets, they’re a bird of the Celtic fringes, little seen outside the north Wales and west of Scotland coasts where they live and breed all year round.

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A section of the rough farm track we followed had ditches and rough grazing lined with bog myrtle. Common in the highlands, if rarer elsewhere, this dwarf deciduous shrub thrives in wet acid soils and supports many insects. More importantly its distinctive smell and antibacterial properties have seen it used traditionally to help deter midges! These days its essential oils are a key ingredient in skin conditioners and soaps. (An alternative name is sweet myrtle). 

Machair is the Gaelic term for low lying coastal land. Formed from sand and shell fragments, it is the mainstay of traditional crofting agriculture in the Hebrides. A unique habitat and one of the rarest in Europe. A delight then for us to discover some less common flowers there, most of which we’ve had to look up in identifying. No bad thing of course in extending knowledge and awareness!

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Bugloss. Half the size of, and with smaller flowers than, its more exotic sibling Viper’s Bugloss. Apparently packed with alkaloids too so rather poisonous. A member of the borage family and distinctly bristly the leaves resemble an ox’s tongue; hence its name origin, from the Greek. Love the pretty sky blue flowers nevertheless.

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Common Storksbill. Attractive pink flowers and a typical member of the Geranium family with distinctively long pods like a crane or storks bill that will eventually explode, scattering the seeds within some distance. A sprawling, low lying plant with finely divided fern like leaves it is the main food plant of both  common and brown argus butterflies. 

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Scarlet Pimpernel. Once a common weed of arable land around the UK this member of the primrose family is now a rarer sight due to modern intensive agricultural practices. This one’s flowers are more salmon pink than the bright red seen elsewhere. The other common name I remember from childhood days is ‘shepherd’s weatherglass’ on account of the plant’s responding to atmospheric pressure in closing up its flowers on the approach of bad weather.

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Hawkbit is a cheery ubiquitous presence in the grassland by the coast as well as inland.

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Red Bartsia, An attractive small plant suffused in redish pink which thrives in the well drained low fertility soils of the machair. Maybe even more so, as it is also semi-parasitic, feeding on the roots of grasses.

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There are no snakes, moles, squirrels, hedgehogs, foxes, stoats, weasels, badgers, frogs, toads or deer…but there are lots of rabbits, with fewer predators to control them, and their presence in the sandy soils is obvious in many places.

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We came away with samples of Colonsay’s finest home produced products, along with gin, whiskey and honey. It’s perhaps no surprise that as this nature rich and temperate isle has over 50% of UK flower species present it makes for a fabulous diversity and range of nectar for bees over an extended period. Best of all the producers here have some 50 colonies of the native black bees, an officially protected species in Scotland. Hardier and more adaptable than the yellow or Italian species on the mainland these bees are perfectly adapted to and thrive on the conditions here. The rich produce of their labours speaks for itself, as we can testify!

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This season’s second swallow brood hatched earlier than last year’s and of course fledged sooner so chances of survival on the great migration begin to look better. Their departure from the nest under the eaves of the garden door deck took place the very Sunday morning we held a celebratory outdoor party, which saw some 60 – 70 family and friends in attendance. Perhaps some sixth sense told them that they better get flying now or else they’d be crowded out. Guests were later entertained to catch the parents feeding their young – beaks agape and wings fluttering – while perched on the rungs of the access ladder between roof and chimneystack. Some days, at certain times, the skies above and around us are filled with the frenetic activity of family flight schools, 30 birds or more.

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The fledglings return to their nest of an evening to roost. Initially heads in and tails out. (Something of a comedy turn it has to be said). Only three could be accommodated in this fashion and we witnessed a short scrap to see who of the four would lose out. Since then the quartet have given over trying to fit back in their mud and straw cup and currently snuggle up together in a row along the supporting beam.

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For one reason or another our four acre field has had hardly a visit from either Kim or myself during the summer. Southridge’s Texel tups, shorn of their fleeces, are back in residence this past two weeks, which is welcome. I followed paths they and wild animals like hare and fox have made, by fences and through the verdant foliage, getting slowly and happily soaked in the soft rain.

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My delight was in seeing oaks and willows in lush leaf at the foot and a widespread dusting of yellow flowers everywhere else. Starry ground hugging Tormentil, alongside two members of the pea family; meadow vetchling and birds foot trefoil, just falling to seed. Hundreds of weak flying crane flies on the wing clinging to the long grass stems.

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Some umbellifers too, standing proud in the marshy bottom among the swaying mass of bog grasses and meadowsweet. Not sure what variety these purple stemmed damp loving plants are, as seen here….Suggestions welcome!

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The crags at the high end give our rough grazing land its name. Here’s the defiant rowan, displaying like a banner and already in berry, rooted in a crevice of the rock face. This vertical surface is a safe haven for tree, fern and heather while the lesser grazed slopes nearby shelter the delicate looking but tough harebell flowers from ovine grazing.

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Casually lingering by the garden pond recently I got a big surprise. Came within a couple of feet of a large dragonfly, of a type I’d never seen before. Returned too late from the house with a camera as it had helicoptered off by then so here’s Ian Worsley’s fine image from the British Dragonfly and Damselfly Society’s website….A female Southern Hawker. Research tells me it prefers ponds to rivers, is particularly curious and will investigate at close quarters, is common down south (hence the name) but localised elsewhere. Using its powerful jaws to hunt prey on the wing gains this type of dragonfly the appellation of hawker. Knowing that dragonflies as a species have been around for at least 250 million years is a sobering thought. What beautiful finely engineered creatures they are with huge compound eyes, transparent two paired wings and multi directional high speed flight abilities. Awesome indeed.