It is an undeniable fact that some woods are more alive than others. I should know, I have walked enough of them. Some woods, like this beech woods near Upper Enham, have a thickness to the air. Once you walk in, you feel yourself pass through some kind of invisible wall, safe in the liquid embrace of the life of the forest. There is an overwhelming sense of abundance and you hear something beyond the edge of sound. You cannot but be aware of the unseen energy of the forest. Feel it pushing up against your body, providing you with some essential thing you didn’t even know was missing. There is something undisturbed about some woods and in that peace, the trees swell out from themselves, filling the spaces between them with their spirit bodies. So when you walk—a quiet, slow walk of wonder—you come to know the life of the
This is the lair of the rare Ducksect. The Ducksect first emerged as a distinct being in 347BCE and currently lives in Alice Holt Forest. It told me that it also has a cousin on its mother’s side in the New Forest, so I will have to venture there one of these days and try to solicit an interview. Ducksect said it’d happily put in a good word for a highly reputable publication such as mine. The Ducksect is a pirate and that’s why it flies its flagweb outside its lair. Its voyages on the sea started from a young age, and are, sadly, rooted in tragedy… You see, the Ducksect is the product of an unholy but loving union between a duck and a form of insect sadly extinct but which might be considered a form of beetle. Both beings were egg layers and madly in love and so felt
As I am sure you can tell, these wee guys are astronauts. They have come here from AlphaZedZedNine. It’s a long way to here from there, so they have stopped on this moss for a rest. Actually, Alfred on the left told me it’s a re-fuel and a rest, as they find the lush moss particularly nourishing and moistening. The AlphaZedZedNiners (let’s just call them Niners for short, although, to be clear, they are not related to the One-Niners), found the Golden Record sent up to the stars by the Voyager in 1977. It was 1983 by the time they found it, although of course to them it was ;Le3j^Wpp8*>, as they obviously don’t use Christian forms of dating. Anyway, the Niners saw the Golden Record and noted that its shape very much resembled part of their own. As such, they were drawn into an immediate global discussion about its possible meaning
Uncle Cecil is a Mossopher, and not just any old Mossopher: he is one of the most revered members of the Ancient Academy of Mossophers. Uncle Cecil has the esteemed pleasure of introducing himself to you, and if you look closely, you may be able to see one or two of the awards he has amassed over the years for logic, reason, and cognition. Just in case you don’t know, moss are divided into three main sub-types: the Mossophers, the Blanketers, and the Consumers. Although you’d be hard pressed to get him to admit it, the reason Uncle Cecil has achieved such lofty heights in the annals of mossophy, is because he had the great luck of being born in a pine grove in Alice Holt Forest. Of what relevance this, I hear you enquire. Well, dear reader, it is because this particular section of Alice Holt Forest is actually the