Dames Slough drain

It's not only the forest streams that have been restored to something like their pre-Victorian courses, the project has also included some of the larger drains, themselves originally small brooks and tributaries. Through Dames Slough enclosure, below Dames Slough Hill, what was another near straight drain now meanders gently between the stands as it would've 200 years ago...or maybe it was open wet heath back then? As a consequence, and like other restored forest watercourses, the trees in the direct environs are having to adjust to a much wetter environment; as with the other sites, some oak and beech handle it better than others, although eventually most, if not all, will drown, to be replaced by carr woodland species.

Vinney Ridge

Where Dames Slough Hill abuts Vinney Ridge.

Left behind

 

Spend any time walking in nature, especially the same roams regularly, and you quickly become acclimatized to her characteristic textures and forms, becoming more aware of anything out of place, especially anything man made. Geoff and I were storming through the open mature oak stands of Dames Slough Hill, when off at quite a distance something incongruous caught my eye. I stopped and backed up, and there tucked in the root flares of a mossy trunk was what looked like a yellow cane... you regularly come across coloured canes in the forest, part of, or remains of, some survey or other. Closer inspection identified this as a orienteering station post, minus station....no doubt left in err.  It reminds me that although for 99% of our walks we have the forest, or at least the tract we're walking to ourselves, it all goes on in the forest.

Brandy and Tilly

I found this graffiti etched into a Beech on Dames Slough Hill interesting, Brandy and Tilly. Both are old carvings, although Brandy appears to be the elder by some years, her letters have stretched as the tree's grown. I wondered what they represented? Adjacent as they are I'm assuming they're connected, as there's ample smooth canvas to be had elsewhere around the trunk. I thought at first it could be mother and daughter, but then Brandy the more recent name being popular from the 60's though falling in popularity by 2000, and Tilly (or Matilda) being popular at least from the 1800's and falling from grace by 1960, with a reassurance around the millennia. So that didn't fit. The best I could come up with was that they represent animal names, horses maybe? That could work. Still, Brandy must be 60 years old maybe more, and Tilly got to be 30/40 years old maybe more; horses usually live around 25/30 years, so as I say,  it could work. It's all presumption mind. They could have no connection at all, Brandy being a random piece, and Tilly just a coincidence, the proximity the product of an ordered mind. I don't think so though.