Brexit's sunlit uplands

Turns out that the contractor delivering Brexit's sunlit uplands, may be the same one who brought us the 2008 Lapland-style theme park in the New Forest...similar M O.  Rule Britannia, and all that.

Great Huntley

Great Huntley Bank

Early Spring clean

You'd be surprised at how quickly the forest's streams will rise and fall.  Really the whole forest is a huge water catchment, draining into a handful of streams, and after rain falling on already sodden ground, the volumes of water draining are significant. Highland Water is one of the three streams which, through it's myriad tributaries, drains the forest's centre. Although this morning the stream had receded to gently flowing levels, evidence of a more substantial bore was clear through Highland Water's course, sections of the stream's immediate environs were scoured clean of debris and detritus. It would have taken quite a rise in water levels to have cleared some of the areas cleared. And, you know, even after all that draining, the forest is still like walking on a soggy sponge. Still beautiful though. 

Grace under pressure.

Over the last 10/15 years the forest has become noticeably busier. I can remember when on a weekday most parking spots would have been empty and you could go for days, or even weeks, without seeing other walkers whilst out. Both those things are a rarity now (unless you walk off piste, so to speak); it's the marketing of the forest over the last few years which is responsible. I was chatting with a ranger and they remarked that government had encouraged the National Parks Authority to increase usage to promote health and well being, and this was putting pressure National Parks Authority and the forest, and both were struggling. More footfall means more wear and tear, more maintenance of all sorts. Which maybe ties into another thing noticeable about the forest over the last decade or so, that's a subtle reduction in accessibility. I've seen several small bridges removed rather than replaced, and countless gates and stiles disappear, reducing routes across the landscape and forcing more feet onto fewer tracks. The National Parks Authority just hasn't got the resources to maintain everything, it's another example of the government trying to get something for nothing, rinsing a natural resource to make them look like they're doing something. I can't help but wonder (and worry, if I'm honest) how the forest will cope with ever increasing visitors numbers, coupled with under funding from government and the removal of the EU grants which helped fund many of the National Park's projects.

Ramsons

This years Ramson's (Allium ursinum) are beginning to come through on cue, nice to see, though it'll be a while yet until they're carpeting the woodland floors. A wood of flowering Ramson's is a wonderful sight, properly magical in the right light, as well as being a tasty and versatile wild food. Don't use too much though, it's powerful stuff. I had to throw a soup away one time, it was just sooooo garlicky, that it was inedible... and I'm a fan of garlic. 

Harvest Slade Bottom

Harvest Slade Bottom, a wetland valley and one of the headwaters of Mill Lawn Brook. Just one of the forests many hidden spots which has an eerie isolated beauty to it. You can understand why in the past landscapes like the forest’s were viewed as scary places filled with dangers, real and imagined, mythical beasts and strange unnatural forces. Today the hollow was nice, very still, with a certain peaceful tranquillity to it, though when shrouded and muffled by thick mists or in the midst of a storm these places will stir your primal fears...no matter how much you deny them. 

Moon Knight 'Lunatic'

What's Khonshu up to? Has Marc Spector lost his mind...again? Master writer Jeff Lemire puts the Moon Knight through the mangle, reuniting him with friends, and taking the character on a nightmare journey through his various persona’s and the fractured worlds of his mind and of Khonshu's creation, where what's real and what's fantasy merge, putting his life and sanity on the line. Greg Smallwood's lines do Lemire's words justice and as always Jordie Bellaire's colours are the cherry on top of the glorious cake. Lunatic is great reading. If you like Moon Knight then you'll love this, more so if you're versed in his history as there are character references that go well back, if you don't know the character or his background then this might be a touch confusing...though, maybe not, I'm lending my copy to a friend to read who hasn't read Moon Knight before, so I'll find out.

Slimey slopes

The deciduously wooded slopes of Holmhill enclosure are some of the wettest, slimiest and sloppiest slopes in the forest, even through the drier months it's slippery under foot in places, so you can imagine what they're like at the moment. Always damp, the trunks and fallen boughs are all clothed in vibrant green moss. The contrast between moss clad wood and the expansive carpet of russet coloured leaf litter in which they stand is quite contrasting. 

Enchanted woodland

Burley Old, an enchanted woodland.

St Catherine's Hill graffiti

The reservoirs atop St Catherine's Hill have long been canvases for local graffiti artist, with most faces adorned by pieces, words or tags...some nice works too. Periodically the faces are repainted by the authorities, which merely serves to create a fresh canvas, sometimes older pieces are overwritten by new ones. There are a couple of new works on the round reservoir since last we walked up here, good stuff.  I noticed one piece was by 'Camo'(top), the same artist whose work we saw in the forest underpass, a 70's flavoured offering, very tidy. There were a couple of others as well, one used silver paint to great affect, the other had a sort of Terry Gilliam-ness to it. I love to see public art, we should celebrate art more, including graffiti, it has so much value, it adds colour and energy to our too often drab man made environments and edifices.

Mogshade Hill

Adjacent to Mogshade pond is a small cluster of trees holding claim to hill's open summit, they show incredible tenacity and fortitude in their tenure, standing firm on what must be the most exposed hilltop in the forest. Time and the elements are against them though, weathered, battered and broken, they show the visible scars of countless elemental duels. Mogshade Hill has exceptional views, it's the perfect place to breath in the forest...and the pond is handy for washing your muddy hounds too.  

Woolsmoor Meads

Woolsmoor Meads this morning.

Black Water ford

You'd be surprised at how high Black Water has risen, I know I was. Of course I'd expected to get wet, earlier I'd been shin deep crossing Ober Water, though when I found myself less than a quarter of the way through and already thigh deep, with Geoff on his lead, swimming next to me, I realised I was literally getting out of my depth. It would have been unnecessary folly to have continued, and one of the prime directives of survival is no unnecessary folly.

Island hopping

Island hopping in the forest this morning.

The illustrated tree

An objective of our walk this morning was to visit that venerable old fellow of the forest, the illustrated tree. Still standing proud, if not weather worn and battle torn, this gnarled and withered old oak, with it's fabulously patterned boughs and trunk, never fails to enthral. Well met, sir.

Graffiti by Camo

It's always nice discovering art unexpectedly. Out here in the forest too, there's an added something. A pleasantly jarring juxtaposition between strikingly coloured graffiti set in a modernist concrete underpass which stands isolated, a piece of urban furniture abandoned in nature.  I love things like that. Some of the fresh graffiti in the Lazy Bushes underpass. Nice.

View from the hermitage

The Hermitage has been a feature here in Burly Old for as long as I remember. The interior of this beehive mound of fallen boughs, branches and assorted woodland debris is just big enough for one person sit (hence the name), once in it's reasonably comfortable, although your view of the stands is somewhat limited. I often wonder what it would be like to spend a night here...weird, I imagine.

First full moon of the year

The first full moon of this turn of the wheel.

Coniferous Wilverley

Out in the forest it's that time of year when if you need a hit of green foliage you've got to find yourself some coniferous stands. The juxtaposition between the open, exposed and bare deciduous stands, and the closed and close nature of coniferous woodland is stark. Two completely different world, even more so with the sun streaming through the canopy. It was lovely to disappear into the green world this morning, over it's soft mossy floor, we moved between cool dark shady halls of young conifers and open pockets of tall straight mature pine bathed in light. It was like stepping into another time, or suddenly finding yourself somewhere else, the only tell that gave away the season were seas of russet bracken, beyond that it could have been any time. The air was nice too, clean and fragrant. You can't beat a serving winter greens. 

Forest magic

Forest magic.

The naked forest

The naked forest brings to mind the fairy tale forests of childhood tales, those often imagined as existing in a state perpetual wintry emptiness, with a sense of things unseen. Some days these stands are imbued with a magic even more potent and tangible than usual, today was one of those days.

Winter beach

Considering the coast is at the end of the road, 10 minutes walk away, we don't walk there as much as you'd imagine. We should really, it's lovely walking, with great views. It's funny how you can overlook what's right under your nose.

Soarley Beeches

Soarley Beeches

Coneygeer Bottom

We found smoke filled stands when we arrived in the forest this morning. Forestry work never stops, you'd be surprised how much effort it takes to keep the forest looking postcard proper. The reality of the forest is that much of it is far from natural. I'm not sure what's going on here, although I think they're returning the land here to heathland...they don't usually go to such great lengths clearing and grading the land surface when preparing to replant. I could be wrong, time'll tell. Those fires will smoulder and smoke for days, today their wood-smoke smell would stay in my nostrils throughout our walk.

DDT 'Enter the Bend'

Cor blimey! This is really good, man. The fruit of a mind meld between members of psychedelic big hitters Carlton Melton and White Manna, 'Enter The Bend' by DDT (Dieter, Duvall and Taibi) is bloody marvellous! Enter the Bend is all rich organic flavours, heavy with psychedelic drones, deeply hypnotic shamanic trancey rhythms, with myriad streams of trippiness intricately woven  throughout, earthy as f*ck too. Enter the Bend picks you up and carries you off, time dissipates as you immerse yourself in the aural world DDT have crafted for our listening pleasure, the musicianship of all involved is, of course, top shelf. And, when the needle finally runs out of groove, you're left wanting more. I played it through four times in a row on receipt, and with each play I was drawn in further. It's a meditation, man. It's a quality pressing too, the vinyl comes in either a groovy splatter of ‘Multiple Greens’ (named after one of the tracks on the album) or classic black, all packaged in a sturdy sleeve and with a colour insert. Enter the Bend is surely one of the best releases of the year, check it out, it doesn't disappoint. This is the good shit, and no mistake!

Tree throw mysteries

Unexpected things you see in tree throws...a watering can. I wonder how that got there? Forestry works, or travelling folk maybe, wartime military even, there's a cluster of American World War 2 graffiti in Burley Old. Thinking about it, everything beyond soil and roots in a tree throw is unexpected really. 

Inundation

The forest's lower lying stands and open heath are inundated at the moment, the ground is sodden, saturated, every hollow, depression and channel is water filled, in fact there are areas of standing water throughout.  And as for the leafy woodland floor, well, that can not be trusted to have any substance. It took less than 10 minutes walking for my boots to become thoroughly waterlogged, after which point I found myself strangely liberated, being able to wander about this wet wonderland without a care, at one point, I even ended up thigh deep (shorts rolled up) navigating a submerged area of woodland. When the forest environment's like this it makes for interesting walking, and you'd be a fool not to take full advantage.

Christmas walk

The forest was really quiet this morning, near empty as everybody was busy cooking their Christmas dinner, not me, years ago we opted to go European and do the Christmas meal thing on Christmas eve, man, it makes Christmas day so much cooler. So I had Burley Old enclosure to myself, and as always, it was magnificent and majestic, the epitome of an English forest. A perfect place to sit a while and melt into nature.

Winter Solstice sunrise

Geoff and I set out in the dark this morning in order to reach a good vantage point to see the Winter Solstice sun rise. Our chosen spot was Holm Hill on the edge of Wilverley Plain with good clear views eastwards. Holm Hill's a nice vantage point on the edge of a promontory of higher heathland plain surrounded by on three sides by low bogland (Duck Hole, Crab Tree and Holm Hill), which I feel gives it an added something, our ancestors favoured wetland, and it's adjacent dry land. Sound carries in the early morning forest, I could hear walkers chatting on a track-way across Holm Hill Bog, and for a moment I was cowed from running through some Awen's, then I thought...what the hey.  As the sun rose I chanted, I beathed in the fresh clean morning air and it felt good. What a glorious sunrise, clear enough to see the sun itself rise above the horizon, though with enough cloud to make the sky interesting. And the light, man, the gorgeous orange hued morning light, it bathed the sparse stands and open heathland in gold. A cycle ends, a cycle begins, lets hope this one is better than the last, which, for me at least, was utterly shite. Solstice Blessings y'all.

Solstice Blessings

At Yule the Holly kings' reign is done; whilst the Oak kings' reign is just begun.
Longest night yields us longer days; the Sun reborn travels back our way.
Gather round with family and friends; now to celebrate that darkness ends.
In our hearts and beneath our feet; the seeds of futures dreams await.
Our march to spring is just begun; wassail to y'all 'till journey's done. 

Solstice blessing...flags, flax, fodder and frigg to y'all beautiful people /|\

Creek Bottom

What a difference a day makes. Normal service has been resumed.

Duck Hole

Heading towards Duck Hole Bog this morning, and to paraphrase Eric Olthwaite, ''Forest's wet today Mother, aye, very wet, even the dry bits are wet'', the forest is that wet. Still, it was glorious walking though, and a treat to walk under (nearly) blue skies.

Resistance through resilience

Resistance through resilience. As I said the other day, we're going to be under Conservative rule for at least a decade now, I reckon, or even longer.  For now, all we can do is resist, the Monbiot has the right idea, or at least is looking in the right direction...support each other, a ground up, community based resistance, building resilience. We can take inspiration in some part from nature. Take the old enclosure here, weather beaten, battered, the trees subject to endless elemental assault, and yeah, some fall, though even when slighted they still resist, remaining local features, offering support to other woodland inhabitants, floral and faunal, for decades, and as a whole the woodland endures. Visually too the woodland landscape of Burley Old reflects our own; over all our system endures, although our socio-political landscape is changed irrevocably. 

Get off my land!

Get off my land! Geoff and I came across a gang of quite fierce hogs out in Burley New enclosure this afternoon. I think they were Tamworths, to me they looked more boar-like than the other pigs we'd seen out to pannage, with long snouts and pricked up ears. Tamworths are supposed to be a docile but active breed, so maybe I misunderstood their inquisitiveness for fierceness, they were big buggers though, and so we took flight through the stands when they began running towards us. I wasn't scared or anything, you understand.

A weight lifted

I went to bed last night seething, angry at a country I saw as populated by a majority who'd shown themselves to be xenophobic and bigoted, myopic and wilfully ignorant *****, happy to celebrate their own craptitude. The exit polls had come in and it suggested a landslide for the conservatives, even after 10 years of ideological austerity, swathing cuts to public services, the associated suffering and 10's of thousands dead as a consequence.  Angry that so many had voted for a leader who shown himself to be a racist, a misogynist, a homophobic, a serial adulterer, a man sacked three time for lying...twice in political office, and arguably the worst Foreign Secretary this country has ever known. Angry that with the light of truth so thoroughly illuminating all the filthy lying corners of the Brexit argument, when every pro had withered and dissipated in that light, even then my country voted for the thing they now must have known was a lie, in an act of national suicide.  As I say, I was seething, although most of all I was frightened by the prospect of another 5 or 10 years of Conservative attacks, hardships, and what I knew would be coming for many of us. 

Although this morning I awoke to feelings of complete tranquillity and inner calm, as if a huge weight had been lifted from me...I felt freed. To be honest, I was taken aback, so striking and incongruous were these feelings in light of my outlook last night. It dawned on me that the one thing that was different from last night was that I'd relinquished hope, or more to the point...relinquished false hope. I've long seen hope as a dangerous and debilitating thing if not based in reality, and I'd allowed myself to be drawn into hoping for something, that in my heart of hearts, I knew was never going to happen, no matter how much I wanted it too.  I like Jeremy Corbyn, he's man of principle whose political record and long history of support for those who needed support spoke for itself. I agreed with him that we needed a new type of political discourse, I liked many of his policy propositions, and believe he'd have made a great peace time Prime Minister, and therein lies the rub, we're at ideological war and the enemy has the (politico) media industrial complex behind it, the most powerful of weapons. In my opinion Jeremy and the party's policy of non-engagement, of not coming out fighting, was a mistake, allowing the government and predominantly right wing media to salt the ground ensuring the seeds of Labour's messages would never took root, let a lone flourished. I knew there was never a chance of Labour winning, and yet I let myself hope, subconsciously (and consciously if I'm honest) knowing that was hope without a solid foundation. Well, I'm only human.

This quote resonated...''Whoever has nothing to hope, let him despair of nothing'', (Seneca, stoic philosopher 4BC to AD65).

Decembers Full Moon

An interesting Moon for our interesting times.

Solid Oak

This young Oak surveys his wintry kingdom. The Oak couldn't have picked a more exposed site. Up on the cusp of Spy Holms plain, above the open wet heath of Clayhill Bottom and the Brockenhurst Burley road, facing the strong prevailing westerly winds square on...that's a tough gig, right there.  Respect.

Burley Old hermitage

Burley Old is filled with man made curios, probably the longest serving and most enigmatic is one I know as the 'Hermitage'. It's been a feature of Burley Old for as long as I can remember, over 30 years, I think. I named it the Hermitage for it's proportions, it's a fair size, very well constructed and maintained (whether by the same person I don't know), although it only has a very small space inside it, only enough for one person to sit. It reminded me of a wooden interpretation of those beehive huts you find in Ireland, which I believe were types of hermitage. It's an ambition of mine to spend the night sat in the 'Hermitage' ... I've just not had the bottle yet. It's a weird old wood.  

Shooting plaforms

Wooden shooting platforms are a common sight throughout the forest, they've traditionally been used to 'manage' the deer populations, although I'm not sure whether they get much use these days. The deer populations have grown dramatically over the last decade or so. These are well solid structures, sturdy, remaining functional for many years, when they do require replacing they're rebuilt in the same areas, although they tend not to rebuild them on the same spot. I wonder if that's as the deer get wise, and pass that knowledge on to the youngers, taking alternative tracks. What I do know is that they're great spots to chill. Their elevated nature makes them first class observation positions (obviously), good places to set up with a flask, a snack, and to blend into the woods...watch and listen.

Bind Runes?

These look like Runes or maybe Bind Runes? I'll have to do some investigating.