Hugo was sad. I know he doesn’t look it as he hides it well, but he was sad. Sad from his head down to the space where his toes should be. Cindy was her name and Cindy was what Hugo called over and over: on the hour, like clockwork. In fact, forest creatures of a particular bent used his cries to mark time. ‘Let’s build this section of the nest within three Cindys’, they’d say. Or, ‘In five moons and fourteen Cindys, let’s meet on the old Silver Birch for a jamboree!’ In this way, Hugo became a part of the forest, even though he was a migrant brought in the mouth of a savage canine invader. It didn’t really console Hugo to be incorporated into the life of the forest. He didn’t want the forest, nor its inhabitants; he wanted Cindy and her warm bed near the fire. He wanted
This reportage goes out to all the lovers in the world, united and aspiring, one and all. Behold the beauty of the Rose Tree. The Rose Tree can be found in Coles Copse, near Effingham Forest, in the Surrey Hills. It has been a site of pilgrimage for the denizens of north Surrey since at least 1967. History buffs will be familiar with that year as the ‘Summer of Love’, wherein north Surrey residents undertook their own restrained and demur version of free love in solidarity with the citizens of San Francisco. Rupert and Tarquin first discovered the power of the Rose Tree. Rupert was a soppy sort with short back and sides, and despite his boarding school background and emotionless parental environment, he had managed to cultivate a soft heart and romantic dream-life. Thus, when he met Tarquin, all wild haired and unique in his stripy blazer and monkey boots,
This is Fred, he’s a monument to the time when all of Dungeness was an ancient and powerful Fishdom. The locals leave him here as a reminder of their fishcesters, and so that the youngers may never doubt their elders. It is said that if you place your finger in Fred’s mouth, jiggle it about a bit like a key in an old lock, then turn your finger 45 degrees clockwise, you will be transported back to the time of the Fishdom. I didn’t do that because as much as I like taking photos of dead things, I don’t like touching them, at least not without gloves on. Anyway, luckily for me, fisherwives still talk, especially to nature reporters with credentials as good as mine. So I sat down with Ruby and Maeve one sunny Sunday to learn about the true history of Dungeness. Once upon a time, Dungeness was home
When I was a kid, I had a board game called ‘I vant to bite your finger’. I thought it was ace because it had a pop up plastic figure of Count Dracula and when you lost, you had to put your finger in his mouth, depress a lever at the back of his head, and he bit you. You were left with two red felt tip marks of pain and blood on your finger. Sometimes I would just go in the playroom by myself and make Count Dracula give me bite marks on all of my fingers without bothering to play the game at all. I think the Count also made a blood curdling ‘mwahahaha’ laugh as he bit you, but that might have been me. I don’t fully recall. Why am I telling you this? Because it proves to you that I am in league with the Dark Lord,
The first time I saw Isobel it was raining and I had been walking for a good few miles through the North Downs. I saw a small, appealing clearing in amongst some beech trees in Bagden Wood, so I left the path and sat on a stump in the middle of the clearing. The canopy of the beech trees sheltered me from the rain, so I was able to settle down and stare off into the half-focused distance. I felt comfortable there, despite the rain; I was quiet and content. At first I thought it was the clearing itself which called to me, and it was in a way. There was a veil which hovered behind the colours of the green and yellowing leaves above me, the carpet of auburn beech nuts and old leaves below me, and the glistening blackness of the trees’ bark encircling me. I could feel parts