solstice walk

This Saturday I took myself off on a solo solstice walk. The town was busy with Christmas shoppers and I was glad to leave the tinsel bustle and walk into the hills surrounding Matlock. There was much to wonder at on the trails, complex fungi, new shoots, crystal flowing water, furry moss, bright berry jewels as I followed rich deep paths. At this darkest point of the year I was amazed by the grounded stirring within these woods, a surety and faith contained within all life forms. The cycle never still, turning of the earth, rolling of the seasons... 

Our ancestors would have measured their lives by these cycles and being aware of this connects in a small way to the people who came before. It also brings close an un-knowing, my reading of the woods dulled in comparison to past inhabitants of this place. In 2020 I hope to learn about and deepen my connection with this landscape and it's flora. Can I belong here? Can I find surety and faith?

after the floods

Last months terrible flooding in Matlock is receding into memory. On Thursday 7th November I was traveling from London, arriving into Derby Station at 9.30pm and the weather came as a shock. East Midlands Trains provided taxis for stranded travellers, as the track beyond Ambergate was flooded. We took the high road to Matlock, driving through deepening puddles and it was a relief to see the lights of the town in the distance. We arrived and a fellow traveler and I walked to the bridge to see the river, it thundered below us, almost reaching the top of the arches that span the Derwent.

I struggled up the hill home, almost midnight, rivulets of water soaking my feet. Friday and Saturday were very bad in the town. We learned that a woman had died in the flood and this was devastating.

On Remembrance Sunday the sun shone for the first time in days. I went for a walk and photographed the swollen river and saturated fields overlooking Matlock. At 11am, stopping by a drystone wall for two minutes silence, I gazed over the town beneath an immense blue sky and felt terribly sad. The Last Post sounded from a nearby war memorial, marking the end of our silence and alone with my thoughts I felt connected to others nearby. 

my friend, the tree

I'm very fond of this tree. When I stopped to give her a friendly pat on a walk last Sunday, I was amazed to see she was speckled with tiny white mushrooms. They nestled in the moss, and reached far up into her strong branches. They reminded me of constellations of stars, catching the October sunlight as it streamed momentarily through the wood. How magical they are.   

Trees are life support systems.

charming graffiti

Late last month I visited Haddon Hall on a drizzly Sunday. After a week of heavy rain the Derwent River was mud toned and high, surging under the footbridge to the hall. Nearby, rain sodden fields reflected the sky in silver mirrored surfaces, blades of grass piercing clouds. 

Haddon Hall is a fascinating site with parts of the building dating to the 12th Century. For a period of two hundred years the hall was empty and left to ruin, so visitors scratched charming graffiti into glass panel and wooden interior. We have much in common with our ancestors. 

I get excited when rediscovering these marks, wondering about the people, their conversations, the day, the journey to the hall, what awaited them when they returned home. The halls windows are like no other I've seen, angled like cleverly folded origami paper to allow as much light as possible to enter the building. These illuminated diamonds hold whispers from the past in unfamiliar script and dates jump out - 1779, 1828. I try to imagine what the world was like then, pondering literacy rates and who had the agency to leave their mark, who didn't? 

the wonder book of nature

I bought this beautiful book in an Alfreton charity shop for £2. From internet searches it seems to date from the 1920's. It's in bad condition, so carefully holding the spine together I leafed through and observed an odd compression in some of the pages. Noticing a hole on the outer spine, I opened the book wider and a pellet fell out! This book was shot! What tales? What circumstance? Such an invitation for the imagination.

Notice the white mark to the right of the eagle, where a very sticky price tag was placed. That was the least damage I could do to prise it off. One of my bugbears in charity shops is how old books are priced - impossibly sticky tables, the price handwritten in pencil pressed so hard it indents several pages... I'm grateful to the volunteers and understand they will not have my sensibilities, but oh my! 

dry stone walling weekend

While on the bus, while walking, my eyes search the dry stone walls running across the landscape, longing to understand their structure, the thinking behind placing one stone next to another, wondering if wallers have recognisable signatures within their stonework, the way an artist has a particular style.

In mid July I attended a Dry Stone Walling weekend at the National Stone Centre in Wirksworth. The group that gathered consisted of five women and two men and was led by Amanda, an experienced stone waller. 

It's tough work, the twists and turns of looking at and selecting stone requiring underused muscle and sinew - I ached in exquisite and particular way days after the course. Though I didn't feel strong enough for the work I enjoyed searching through and moving stone, attempting the puzzle of a wall. I enjoyed the logic and layers of walling, the names of the stone - footing, hearting, pin, coping stones. 

Going forward, I'm not quite ready for a Level 1 course but would like to find a small portion of collapsed wall and take time over sorting stones and reassembling the wall - alone, no time limit. Stone walling is time travel, back to the previous waller who handled each stone and found it's belonging, to the future waller who will hold these stones in 100, 200 years. An ancient offering in praise of a hands span, an arms reach, of being of this place, of necessity and beauty. The walls echo and whisper respectful human interaction with this land. 

 We used a mattock to clear the ground for the wall

 We selected coping stones from the stone pile - these top the wall

Mid sized stones for the wall

 Larger footing stones for the base of the wall, gaps packed with hearting stones

Missing through stones on our beginners construction!

settled/busy

Within days of moving to Derbyshire people began to well meaningly ask if I'd settled yet. This question comes up repeatedly and I'm always struck by its oddness. My answer is no, not yet and I experience an urge to explain myself to the questioner, to make the 'no' better somehow... 

I'm living in temporary rental accommodation with most of my belongings in storage, so nine months after moving I've yet to unpack. I'll be moving again in June and again a year and a half after that - into my own home at that point all going to plan. I've yet to find regular work in the region and consequently am not feeling greatly connected to where I live. Finding my feet with no idea what the future holds.

In all of this unsettledness, I'm positive about my move and feel at home in Derbyshire. I know that everything will work out and am giving myself two years before I ask the settled question. That feels realistic.

So world, please resist asking if I'm settled. Feel free to ask 'how's it going?'

Something else I'm noticing is being congratulated on being busy. Busy is at epidemic proportions, is busy a good hiding place? An excuse? A trophy? 

The major drive of moving from London to Derbyshire is the opportunity to invent a world where I plant a garden with edible and medicinal plants and learn how to prepare them. A world where I home a rescue dog and take long rambling walks... I've knitted a blanket for my dog, and keep it as a talisman to give substance to this particular dream. This move is also about developing my art practice, with time to reflect and wonder, space for insight and uncertainty, to allow things to unfold in their own good time. Busy can take a hike! 

hedgerow medicine

Just in from a day course in herbal medicine at the Eco Centre, Wirksworth. We made an infused oil from comfrey, and a spring tonic vinegar (mine contains dandelion leaf & root, lovage, nettle, plantain, hawthorn and cleavers). In the morning we drank comfrey tea and in the afternoon, cleavers tea. The afternoon included an identification walk and the photos below show some of the plants we spotted... 

Nature is full on abundant in late spring, fresh, lush, intense. It's as if the plants have a master plan, each taking their space in carpeting the land. Today is another step towards grounding myself in Derbyshire, understanding and building a relationship with this land. 

 Nettle, Cleavers, Rosemary, Dandelion, Hawthorn

 Lovage, Ground Elder, Plantain

 St John's Wort

 Lemon Balm

 Tansy

 Ladys Mantle

 Rosemary

 Hawthorn

 Chickweed

 White dead-nettle

 Plantain

 Borage

 Burdock

Garlic Mustard (Jack-by-the-hedge)

embroidery

A week or so ago I found this embroidery in a Matlock charity shop, and bought it for the princely sum of £5. It measures 10.5 x 8.5 inches and is densely packed with skilful stitch depicting flower, tree, leaf, bird, path and sky. I find it remarkable. The directional and repeated stitches remind me of the cuts I've been making in lino to suggest form and surface of dry stone wall and hawthorn hedgerow.

I opened the back of the frame hoping to find information about the maker, and discovered dated 1980's patterned kitchen roll, carefully folded as padding behind the work. I tenderly replaced this treasure, a time capsule, hidden behind stitches.

kiss

Today, I stumbled on this saying from the Pashto language: 

Kiss and put on the ground, the stone which you cannot carry

How beautiful. I'm touched by how the saying asks us to thank our burden/expectation/regret before we let it go.

winter sun

Winter sun and a clear blue sky illuminating the subtle colour of stone, plant and tree today. A real pleasure to be out in the countryside.