Dawn to Dusk... on repeat

because only mad dogs and Englishmen...

Hello dear readers,

From my desk I write, sweltering in August heat, a dilapidated fan rattling beside me but swooshing cool air intermittently across one shoulder. I would turn myself to face its clattery blades but then I wouldn’t have the view of this shimmering summers day in front of me and I’m not certain I could write a word that wasn’t a sadness if that were the case; wildfires rage while icecaps melt, a battle for ownership of the moon to pilfer precious resources is imminent, as if our planet and its climate isn’t suffering enough through human meddling — do they not know what will happen if they hinder the moon — and, as I read of four day old twin babies, Asser and Ayssel dying with their mother after Israeli airstrikes just as their father was registering their births, my heart constricts with utter grief at the futility of war. The inside of me, the parts that want to send love and care are not good.

Don’t misunderstand me, I do not wish to complain when I’ve waited so long for balmy summer days, for wandering this peaceful, safe space I am so very lucky to inhabit but I can’t cast to oblivion disquieting facts and, now, it is so beastly hot even the flies are panting!

So sensibly — not a common action on my part — because I have more than plentiful wrinkles already, I am confining myself to the artificial coolness of my desk where I watch the hill wilt while gathering its own summer contours through cool glass windows with one cool(ish) shoulder, while I write words of fresher and kinder and less worrying moments.

Except perhaps for thistledown…

---

Dawn.

Rising early has been a life long habitude, the quiet hours of the day both invigorating and calming at once. Luxuries I will never tire of nor ever take for granted; cool dew on bare toes, fresh air rippling over my too heated bones, sometimes by invisible waves, sometimes by a shower of rain but each holding curative energy soothing to both body and soul. Nor less the song birds, whose voices float into my kitchen the moment I throw open the windows, Chiffchaffs, Thrushes, Blackcaps and Robins, wood pigeon and if I’m lucky, turtle doves join the concerto with their gentle harmonic cooing. I am blessed by the offerings of the hill, its natural inhabitants, clean air, the least I can do is throw out my arms in intoxicated, euphoric appreciation. Thank you cool mornings, thank you sweet birds that I wish I could kiss.

I hear the farmer further across the hill beginning his day too, his dogs excitedly barking, his tractor engine turning although more recently he uses a quad bike — evidently a new purchase — on which he streaks across the landscape at breakneck speeds leaving only the dusty clouds of his own exhilaration in its wake. I feel it, that buzz, cool air hitting skin, the high of speeding across dry earth, the unnecessary urgency, he’s young, I was too, once. Now, my wrinkles and I, wish he would adopt a more silent, traditional mode of transporting himself. One that doesn’t erupt into my morning like a scene from a Fast and Furious¹ movie. One that leaves the mist hanging for a few glorious, ephemeral seconds longer so I may be heard when I whisper my plea for the Golden Orioles and nightingales and Hoopoes to sing for just a few days more before making their long journey south again because without them my beginnings feel momentarily empty without their sweet voices filling woodland air and, still the meadows are silent, the absence of crickets² and hoppers a noticeable wound to this heart encased by summer bones.

When feeding your chickens don’t forget your grown up camera - iPhone 11pro Aug 10 2024 after the F&F scene!

In the distance, an early morning train whistles as it enters the tunnel running under hills two villages away — no more than two kilometres as the crow flies — the sound like a wearisome mechanical sigh as its lumbering body — it is not the TGV — leaves light dashing blindly into dark. It isn’t the deliberate whistle of a driver signalling to passengers there’s a tunnel ahead but the sound of dawn dissolving into the darkness after the train. A haunting, almost ghostly intake of breath from the valley in silent consent to the inevitable, a seven thirty every morning, timetabled, obligatory event that disrupts rock and soil and roots alike, leaving the veins of the earth trembling in pain.

It is the moment when the dogs at the château remodel themselves from their usual frenzied maniacal behaviour into mute, seated statues, as if they too feel the haunting and the pain, perhaps an ancient canine ritual of kinship to the ghosts of their origins. If the train is late they continue their vociferous waking and ablutions behind locked gates to wait the few minutes until train and its unearthly sigh arrive.

---

One early morning under beech leaves we wandered and wandered and eventually, we were quite lost…

A path trodden by many centuries of footsteps is ploughed into hill and land, seeds are blown and germinate in the reclaimed land, in those thousands of steps are many of my own. They mingle with the ancient and decayed.

Many hours of my mornings are spent searching deep wooded valleys with the sole/soul hope of uncovering ancient paths. I have been lost often via the deception of animal tracks and bad woodland management — I resolve to carry a more effective knife than my old worn-out bone and silver³ pocket variety which is an ineffectual tool when one is contorted and twisted betwixt bramble and briar left unkempt for decades. Yet less so if wild boar are hidden within.

Regardless, this feels like life-work and I cannot falter.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep… Robert Frost

---

"The wind is not helpless for any man's need, Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed." ~ William Morris

Dusk — garden conversations; thistle(s)down

(

David E. Perry

I feel your words, I really do, but my heart is heavy and my muscles complain at the mere thought of digging all these from my garden next spring - I had to try )

I asked politely, that the wind change direction, I asked quietly and loudly too, the wind listened, for a while, but the thistles just laughed and fluffed up their heads, they do not understand my language and I am barely a novice in theirs. My whispers and pleadings are carried away in a breeze glinting with iridescent, silvery light as I sigh… because really thistledown winds are undeniably, so beautiful at dusk.

There is a farmer next door, he needs to come quickly and sweep my floor, his thistles have covered it with fertile fluff, and truly deeply, I curse the stuff!

Thistledown, Sunday evening after south wind ravings…

With thistledown in my hair I send you all love

---

Some things I have loved this week :

This by

Julie Gabrielli

I cannot praise highly enough. You can listen to Julie narrating the story while you continue about your day so don’t be put off by its length — from the very first verse to the last it is captivating.

The stories in this collection are set in the Marcellus shale fracking region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Originally the home of the Lenni-Lenape, the Munsee Lenape and the Susquehannock, whose descendants live there still. I’m interested in how we, trapped and complicit in destructive systems we hate, might find a way forward. Holding wonder, humility, and awe in the same trembling hands as our grief, fear, and anger—with love and compassion.

📖 Shapeshifting

From

Mike Sowden

, and his publication Everything is Amazing - Mike I completely agree!

From the start of this newsletter, I’ve tried to make the case that what most of us don’t know about the natural world - which, personally speaking, is almost everything - has the capacity to blow your mind a thousand times a day if only you could learn a little more about it.

It's Only A Cloud (But Hey, *What* A Cloud)

If you don’t want to or don’t have the means to pay for a full subscription—which I completely understand—but would like to leave a small tip, I’ve set up a tip jar below. Thank you so much, every small donation helps.

1. I watched five minutes of the first F&F movie with my son - it was enough! Sorry Vin Diesel NQMS.

2. Since beginning this letter there are small signs that the crickets and hoppers are returning, I will update you!

3. I found a penknife in an abandoned pile of stones—formerly a house—Fracross bogland to the back of our home in Eire over thirty years ago, it has been carried in my pocket on every walk since.