ShiverWriggle

The bluebells are finally out at the bottom of the Greenwood, just past the Douglas Fir. Quietly stretching upward from the forest floor with a graceful and easy elegance, they complement the vivid greens of May perfectly. Those greens have become even more vivid over the last few days – hours, even – as we’ve…

At the end of The Avenue, I turned left at the crossroads, trying to stick to a relatively level gradient (if not level ground) for my morning run. Usually, I would head straight down the hill to the large Douglas Fir at the further crossroads, or head sort of diagonally right into the trees towards…

Things always come back to us. When Auri was much smaller – a baby, rather than toddling around – she pulled her hat off in the woods and tossed it aside. Euan only noticed when he returned home and was gently extracting her from the baby rucksack and discovered it was nowhere to be found….

At the bottom of the Greenwood, if you carry straight on after The Avenue instead of turning towards the Obelisk, you reach a crossroads with a towering Douglas Fir. Just past this, if you turn towards the castle and the arboretum, the woodland floor becomes a mass of bluebells in mid spring. We were too…

When I was very small, we had “Folk at the Phil!” by The Spinners on cassette. I knew all the words to all the songs, even if I didn’t understand some of them. One of those was “Silver in the Stubble”, and I could never understand why my parents seemed amused when I sang it,…

Today was a day of rustling creatures. We startled a newt, resting on a long-blown tree trunk just before The Avenue; and a mouse in the holly on the way to the river made quite a racket given its comparatively tiny size. The wood anemones were on a mission, catching up with the periwinkle. It…

All week, the April showers had brought snow rather than rain. By the weekend, the overnight frosts had got thicker, and a light dusting of snow had even settled for a while. The gorse aside the main path had gathered barely melting ice, and in the Greenwood the paleness contrasted with the auburn of last…

On Easter Saturday, we took a walk in glorious sunshine down to The Obelisk. We were pup-sitting and so, as well as Scapa, we also had a nine-month spaniel puppy running around in a state of perpetual madness. The aim of the walk was primarily to wear out the two four-legged ones so the rest…

There is a point in early spring when it feels like the woods are making space. In only a week, even the crisp bracken – rampant and unrelenting only days ago – has shrunk back, reluctantly. Everything feels clearer. It helps that the early spring breeze still carries a slight chill. You can’t help but…

It is spring and the woods are rustling into life again. While it is undoubtedly true that there is much going on, they’re not quite yet displaying that pace of progress where one feels like they are going to imminently transform the moment my back is turned. Hence, rustling: they are quietly whispering their way…