Tenacious pine

What a tenacious pine, man, there's about 5 meters or more of tree trunk above this thin connecting piece....quite remarkable.

Accountability

I'm posting this because I feel it's important, we've been failed by our government, a government that put the economy and money before the well-being of it's people, before their actual lives, and as such peoples lives have been destroyed and sadly many lives have been lost, made even sadder due to their avoidability, and that the ledger on the death toll is far from closed. What this guys says is true, it's what many of us have been thinking and saying for over a month now. When this is done the government must be held to account for their failures, none of this is on us, and we must ensure that we never find ourselves so unprepared and slow to act when a similar epidemic/pandemic develops...and it will, our current behaviours in both the human and natural world will ensure that.  As Michael Rapaport puts in his rather sweary tirade, and he's right, we have to survive and advance. Stay strong, stay safe, endure, as there's work to be done when the storm has passed.  

The wheel keeps turning

Lockdown's really locked down, no more walks abroad beyond my home roam. I'm aware that living on the edge of the conurbation, where farmland and woodland border the forest and with the coast just 10 minutes walk away, that we're luckier than many, blessed to still be able to get into nature on our walks. Today we wandered around the fields and the edge of Walkford Moor Copse, through which the Walkford Brook flows. Walkford Brook meets the sea through Chewton Bunny, historically it was one of the streams which smugglers used to make their way up into the forest's heart with their valuable contraband, today though it's quiet but for the pheasants. I noticed as we walked, that the wheel keeps turning, even if the world of man has temporarily stopped. Some of the eagerer oaks are already pushing out this years growth, with a yellowy green hue creeping across parts of the canopy.

Primrose

The Primrose (Primula vulgaris) is one of my favourite spring wild flowers, they're always a joy to behold, particularly when found on mass...so pretty.

Lockdown

I laid on the ground in the middle of Burley Old this morning, the leaf litter on the floor of wood is dry and crunchy. I settled in and just gazed up at the still bare canopy as its constituent parts gently swayed around each other, it was hypnotic, mesmerising, my mind wandered. I pondered our present trajectory into dark territory, into lockdown and the heart of the storm, although there's a strange unreal-ness to our current reality, this shit's getting real, I thought.  

Spring cleaned

The enclosed clearing in Burley Old has been cleaned and the boundary barricade strengthened. Whether used for ritual or not, the site has an evolving magic about it.

Blackthorn Blossom

Currently Blackthorn blossoms deck the hedgerows in a dense blanket of white, you can really see how frequent a fruiting shrub this member of the Rosaceae family is in the English landscape.

Back in the woods

It's been a while since we'd walked in our beautiful forest. Cowed by the persistent mud which meant Geoff was always wet, no matter how vigorously I try and dry him, then his skin suffers, we'd taken to walking along the coast or over the hills. Today we were back amongst those familiar stands, and it felt wonderful, the light was lovely, everything about made for a perfect spring day.  It felt as if the forest had missed us as much as we'd missed it, and welcomed us back with open arms, it felt good.

Ebble Valley

On a clear day like today whilst traversing the high ridge running through the Chase above the Ebble Valley, you can see into five counties...wonderful. Today's walk looked something like this, except it wasn't badly stitched together, because that would've been too trippy.  This view is north towards Somerset and the horizon from Wood House Hanging, a short walk off the old drove running along the ridge. Not a bad spot to stand a while and take in the world.

Man the barricades!

Someone's thrown up a ramshackle barricade of boughs and branches blocking the causeway into Mistleberry Enclosure, not that it matters though, the bank and ditch don't make a full circuit, so the obstacle is easily circumnavigated and the bank is far from insurmountable anyway. Also known as Mistleberry Fort, the site is described by the RCHME as an unfinished hillfort, though you know, I'm not so sure.  Mistleberry appears to be too small to be a fort, and the shape doesn't seem work either, I think it was possibly a defended settlement, maybe, or something else...the prehistorian in me would obviously suggest 'ritual' (archaeology joke).  Doing a geophys survey of the interior would shed some light, I reckon. Anyway, I digress. Someone's thrown up a ramshackle barricade of boughs and branches blocking the causeway into Mistleberry Enclosure...I don't know what that's about.

Death Valley Girls, Darkness Rains

When I'm listing to the radio I'll often note down bands that prick my ear, a couple of years ago whilst listing to Iggy's 6 Music show I jotted down the 'Death Valley Girls' and, as is too often my way, forgot about them. Then recently I came across a performance of theirs on KEXP (always worth checking out), and promptly ordered 'Darkness Rains' their 2018 album...that's me all over, always late to the party.  And wow, what a fantastic album, currently to be found spinning on my platter with great frequency. Death Valley Girls have a fabulous sound, reminiscent of when elements of the emerging punk scene met experimental rockers in the mid late 70's with some finding mutually fruitful ground, the proto-punk types, essentially it's quality rock and roll with a really nice punk atheistic running through it, and a sprinkling of psychedelia for good measure...I love it! It also reminds me, energy wise, of some the late 70's to early 90's Free Festival bands, there's that immediacy that's synonymous with the best of punk rock and DIY festy music. With the powerful rhythm section of Laura Harris on drums and Alana Amram on bass/vocals setting a solidly heavy foundation, the short punchy tracks really thunder along, their energy bursts right out of your speakers. It's an uplifting energy too. Larry Schemel's guitar is appropriately fuzzy and dirty, outstanding work, which jabs out at you demanding attention. And then there's Bonnie Bloomgarden's vocals, and well, man, she has a voice made for a band and songs like these, just frickin perfect. I find Bonnie's voice so engaging, and she's no slouch on guitar and organ either.  A classic four piece, well yeah, to a point. That's the core line up of the Death Valley Girls, but, man, there were so many others participating on this album: Nicole 'Pickles' Smith on bass, Laura 'The Kid' Kelsey on drums, Mark Rains on percussion, Mark Cisneros on saxophone, Sean Solomon on saxophone, Glenn Brigman on Organ/keys and Kisten Leonard, Alex James and Shannon Lay on vocals...and you know what, I have no idea who's doing what on which tracks, as there's no detailed legend. Baa, so what, all I know is that it all sounded excellent, and I say bravo y'all, I doff my cap, your gestalt creation is a beautiful thing. I have to say though, I'll single out the sax players for praise for their particularly marvellous performances, I do enjoy a bit of sax, they really brought something cool to the party.  As did Bloomgarden and Brigham's performances on organ/keys which also shone. Proficient musicians one and all, Death Valley Girls have done well to keep a raw and real feel to their sound, Darkness Rains is an outstanding album...check it out. I imagine they're flipping ace live too.

Custard Flux 'Echo' vinyl release............the bonus CD

With his upcoming release, that respected ambassador of psychedelia Gregory Curvey is really spoiling us. Custard Flux's fabulous 2019 second album 'Echo' is due out on quality raspberry vinyl in April, and as if that wasn't cool enough, with it comes a 6 track bonus CD of new material. I've been lucky enough to hear said CD, and well, Gregory continues to set a high bar for himself, the new material is fabulous! To my ear there's a subtle difference in the sound, some feel stripped down a bit maybe.  Curvey's guitar lends a late 60's flavour to a couple of the tracks, a Laural Canyon-ness, if you will, giving them a psyche folk air and a nice natural feel. Whilst his guitar on 'Indian Ocean Road' takes you soaring on the thermals created where the land meets the sea; the involvement of harmonium and harpsichord really adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the tracks. It's nice to hear Timothy Prettyman return on double bass too.  You can give 'Indian Ocean Road' a listen here, it's a lovely track. They're all lovely tracks, all individual, all flying off on different psychedelic vectors, though all audibly originating in the creative flux of Curvey's Custard cauldron. And, ere, come in a bit closer to the screen...if you're digging the Custurd Flux you've heard to date, word is there'll be a third Custard Flux album 'Oxygen', arriving, maybe, maybe by the end of the year. As I said, we're being spoilt. If you haven't already, check out Echo here (and Echo's equally fantastic predecessor 'Helium'). They're wonderful albums... your ears will thank you.

Distant hills

Across the bay from Southbourne beach I watched as the Purbeck Hills were slowly enveloped by and disappeared in to misty clouds this morning, as over the horizon poor weather moved in. Those distant hills across the bay mean so much to me, they hold so many memories, and as such are imbued with a certain magic that never dulls or fades. It felt quite cinematic, all you needed was a suitably menacing soundtrack as the clouds approached. A visual metaphor of the storm engulfing us all...maybe. 

First Ramson flower bud

Hail and welcome, the first Ramson flower bud I've seen this year, and I've walked through acres of Ramsons over the last couple of weeks. I can't wait until the woodlands are pungent with their blossoms. Tis a joyous time, one of the year's highlights.

Perfect isolation

I really needed our walk this morning. I really needed to escape the growing pressure of our developing reality if only momentarily. And what better place to blow away my cobweb of worries than the Chase with it's wind swept hills, peaceful pockets of woodland and tree line trackways. I'd spent far too long on the internet yesterday, saturated in the Covid crisis, worrying about it's potential and fuming at the failure of our government to deliver anything close to cogent advice in the face of the looming storm. If I'm honest I was overwhelmed and had a bit of a meltdown. My wife's one of those on the most vulnerable list, with several co-morbidities and immuno-compromised, her risk is so high. I'm hearing all sorts of initiatives and strategies to support OAP's, and that's good, man, as half arsed as those plans are, I want everybody to be cared for through this crisis. But as a carer in the situation we're in, there appears no battle plan for people like us, it feels as if we, and thousands like us are being left out of the equation. Too complicated, maybe. We're being left to fend for ourselves, with no real credible advice. That's one thing for me, I'm a sort of survivalist come prepper mentalist, I roll with a degree of contingency already baked in, but for others it must be truly terrifying and isolating, as, man, I’m relatively terrified. Don't be taken in, and I'm sure you're not, our government (and if you're in the States, your Government) is failing huge swathes of society, not just people in our situation, their whole strategy lacks nuance, it lacks....., it just lacks. Excuse me going on, this is somewhat of a cathartic exercise. Anyway, I found myself a spot beneath a tree and settled in. It didn't take long for the world of, and sounds of, man to dissolve, replaced by the sounds of nature, early insects, unseen rustling and eager birds creating the soundtrack to my meditation. I took three breaths, sky above, earth below and waters flowing around, you know the routine, I chanted the Awen... as it resonated through and around me, the weight lifted and I found calm descending. I could remained in that calm for who knows how long, like the embrace of a lover, I didn't want to emerge from it....I found myself in perfect isolation, safe in natures and my Goddesses embrace...and all the better for it. Wonderful.

Viene una tormenta

Viene una tormenta! Ain't that the truth, man, in more ways than the obvious one.

Doggers on the beach

If you thought I was going to be talking about clandestine sexual activities associated with the outdoors, you're going to be disappointed. Doggers are ironstone boulders (siderite) which have been deposited or have formed (I'm no geologist) in layers of Eocene strata. Through natural erosion over the years,  boulders have fallen from the cliffs and now lay along it's base.  Usually most of these doggers are covered by deposits of sand and gravel washed in by long shore drift, although during the winter season they're often exposed by stormy weather. During the 17th century considerable quantities of doggers were collected from around the Head in what was to be a failed project to build a pier, later in the 19th century the same doggers were quarried out, valued for their high iron ore content, luckily this exploitation was short lived as it caused substantial damage and reduction of the headland.

Dark harbour

The surf part of today's walk was along Studland Beach again, well, what other beach would it be in the Purbecks. Hang on a minute though, that's not strictly true, Swanage has a lovely beach too, more your traditional seaside beach though, and there are plenty of smaller beaches snuggled in coves below the rugged cliffs of the Jurassic Coast. That said, the dune backed expanse of Studland, with its undeveloped broad open sandy beach is unique. The walking, as you'd imagine, was glorious, the sea air sweet in your lungs, young Bel warming your face, and hardly a soul amongst the dunes. What was noticeable though, was the dark menacing clouds approaching from the west, although they were still well in the distance. As luck would have it we made it back to the ferry just as said clouds rolled over the harbour and darkness descended.  Lady Luck had smiled on us today.

Corfe Castle

The turf segment of our walk today also took us past the magnificent ruins of one of England's most important castles. One of the earliest Norman castles in the country originating in the 11th century, though it really became a fortress, the ruins of which you see today, by the 13th Century. One of the strongest castles in the kingdom, through the years it was an royal castle, arsenal, prison, at one point the crown jewels were stored here. Under siege twice during civil wars, the castle was never slighted or taken in battle, rather it fell through treachery and the destruction you see was done afterwards by engineers, so that the castle could never be used to any effect again. It's a wonderful site, and sight for that matter, and well worth a visit if you're in the vicinity.    

Nordon Wood

Today's outing over to Purbeck came in two parts, a sort of surf and turf outing if you will. The turf part took us up and along the Purbeck ridge west of Corfe, with it's glorious views in all directions. It was exactly a month ago we wandered these parts, though this time I engaged my brain and kept to ridge, avoiding the misery of the lower mud clogged tracks. I wanted to check on the progress of Nordon Wood, see how it's Ramson carpet was developing, and by all accounts it's developing nicely.  Compare this photo with the shot I took from the same place in February, and you can see how well they're coming on. What with one thing and another, I missed the Ramson carpeted woodland in it's prime last year, I don't want to do that this year.

Ironclad Canute

This morning an ironclad mechanized Canute lumbered back and forth across the Southbourne sands engaged in man's timeless battle with nature and her elements. I've lived locally since I was four, and have seen man endlessly struggle to control of the intertidal, to stop the cliffs and sea being reunited. Periodically a huge and expensive campaign is waged, pumping sand from out in the bay on to the beach, building ever stronger, larger groynes to mitigate long shore drift, and building defences of rock and bolder filled gabion. It only serves to slow the inevitable. Every year the ironclad mechanized Canutes work tirelessly through the stormy months keeping the sand where man wants it, on the beach, a buffer between land and sea. Of course it's futile, nature has the upper hand, it's her playing field and the sand will soon be stripped. I wonder if the dinosaurs though they were all that, before they found them selves extinct that is. 

Pebble bank

Maybe it's the Head's geographical nature, it's position in the bay, maybe there's another mechanism of transformation in action that I'm not aware of.  Though the sandy beach, which covers the entire bay from the harbour mouth at Sandbanks is replaced by pebbles where Head rises and then peter out, becoming sandy again, towards the Head's end.  What ever it is,  the nature of the pebbles beach below the sandy cliffs is amazingly fluid, it's like living art, a shape shifter, and it can change form day to day. Currently the pebbles, already formed into a bank, have been pushed further back towards and up the cliff face into a narrow steep sided bank high above the sea. At a couple of points where the bank pushes against jutting cliff, weakening it and making it so narrow that it's barely there, it has succumbed to the rasping waves. It can feel wild and isolated out here sometimes (even though it's far from) with an wisp of danger, this morning was like that. We took a different route back, I didn't want Geoff going into the sea here, the waves would have potentially rolled him. That's not to say it we poor walking, on the contrary, it was an energizing walk.

Return

This is Cedric the tortoise, he's a proper character, tenacious, faster than you'd imagine and hugely entertaining, he usually lives in the garden through the Spring/Summer/Autumn, though we've always boxed him up for his winter hibernation. Last Autumn though he disappeared before I could box him, it was the first time he'd gone off and self hibernated, and to be honest it's been a bit of a worry, especially with the wet winter we've endured. This afternoon though he reappeared. Huzzah!

Nice light

There was a nice light today.

Muted day at the bay

A muted day was had amongst the dunes of Studland Bay. That's no slight mind. A mottled sky of grey blue hues, a soft light upon the landscape, and the gentle breeze which made the grasses intermittently dance, all had a subtle beauty of their own.

Studland

What with it looking like the best day of the week, and after our glorious walk on Sunday, we were once again over Studland this morning...and it was lovely. Walking amongst the dunes reminded me of the hours I'd spent criss crossing this sandy landscape searching for Second World War features and finds; during the war the area saw anti invasion and coastal defences, later in the war the area was used for weapon experiments and D-Day preparation training. It reminded me too, that one of my many character flaws is a tendency not to finish things. Between 2002 and 2010 I spent thousands of hours on research, desktop surveys, field walking, plotting, photographing and recording. I'd identified and recorded hundreds of features from the monumental concrete features like pillboxes and Gun Batteries to the more ephemeral features such as trenches, weapons pits and other earthworks, as well as hundreds of small finds, all in all I’d written around 60,000 words, well, I am quite verbose. It, along with far too many other projects and countless drawings and paintings, must be added to my expansive  'to do' list...if I get round to finishing that! Another thing that struck me today, a weekday in early spring, was as with the forest, just how much busier Studland was, far busier than it would have been 15 years ago.

Dogs life

This morning may have been a meditation for me, although for Geoff it was flipping buzzing. Initially blissfully quiet walking, as we approached Knoll Beach Café the sands and dunes began to become busier. People appeared to move along the beach in waves; a loose cluster of people, a 300 meter gap, another close cluster of people, and another 300 meter gap, and just like waves on the shore many of them reached a point and turned back on themselves. There were so many dogs too, all breeds, all ages and sizes. Geoff was as happy as Larry, if Larry were a dog with a particular fondness for the beach who was enthusiastic about meeting other dogs. With the ferry being out of service for so long, I'd neglected Studland, dropped it from the roster; walking here today I quickly remembered why we used to walk here so frequently.  

Walking meditation

Our perambulation along Studland beach this morning was as much a meditation as a walk; inhaling the clean fresh sea air, and exhaling your troubles, malaise relieved, if only temporarily. To add to the elemental calm, the initial part of our walk saw Studland's broad sandy beach devoid, for the most part, of folk.  Again you're struck by the stark dichotomy between the Isle of Purbeck with it's air of isolation and rugged semi wilderness, and the adjacent Poole/Bournemouth conurbation, an urban sprawl with a population of around 480,000, running well in excess of ten miles east along the coast and extending a considerable distance inland. Two distinct environments separated by Poole Harbour, the second largest natural harbour in the world. Access between these two disparate worlds is facilitated by a short chain ferry journey across the narrow harbour mouth, although when the ferry breaks down, and in recent years it has,  the alternative route is a lengthy, and during the summer frequently frustrating, drive around the harbour. Although, however you get to Studland, once here, you feel a million miles from the rest of the world, with all it's noise and commotion, and that's priceless. As I said, it's a meditation.