Some blogs are hard to write. Sometimes the tone or the wording can be difficult to achieve, or the subject matter requires some research and careful handling. Sometimes I’m just not sure what it is I’m trying to say. This is one of those. So I’m just going to type what I’m thinking, and hope …
Allotment Diaries
Last week the annual invoice for our allotment fees arrived, and with the deadline unable to wait until next payday, I somewhat reluctantly transferred the required sums. I thought of the weeds and overgrown patches, the gap in the beds where my plans for successional sowing were beaten by summer heat, laziness and other distractions, …
Spawned!
(A Gardens Month blog on Frogs and Toads) From jelly-like spawn, to wriggling tadpoles, and finally hopping croaking adult amphibians, the life story of frogs and toads is familiar to many of us from early childhood. Increasingly however, contact with nature is diminishing in children’s lives, and frogs and toads are struggling too. Ponds are …
Nature Notes: March 26th
I woke early this morning, but the day broke earlier. Now we are past Vernal Equinox the day-length is rapidly extending. Spring often feels as though we were poised on a hill-crest for weeks, just waiting for the ballance to tip, and now are racing down through the season, gathering momentum, cheered on my the …
Coast
When I visit the coast it is almost always in the winter. I love the empty loneliness of the beach then, the way it feels as though you have miles of linear space that is just your own. It is the wildness that is most inspiring though; the white and silver flashes of gull or …
On your marks, get set… Bird Race!
Drawings by Shirley Frances (Facebook @Shirley's Studio Stuff) Despite my intentions to make 2019 a year devoted to the study of trees, the first few weeks of the year have been dominated by something far more flighty... birds. Although fascinated by all nature from the very beginning of my childhood, birds were my main interest …
4 Reasons why UK Nature Watching does it for me.
Underrated, overlooked, and fabulous. If your yearly activities revolve around planning your next foreign escape to sun and sand, you might view growing up in a family without the fancy or finance for holidays abroad, as a disadvantage. Rather than a sun tan from Portugal or Spain, I would return from the school holidays clutching …
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‘Tis the Season for Reviews…
The batteries are running low on the fairy lights, and it’ll soon be time to take our Christmas tree outside, re-pot it for the new growing seasons, and let him feel the frost and the sun on his needles. A flat, weak sunlight filters in through the small pains of the window in a half-hearted …
Fright-Night for the Creatures of the Dark
October to January is a fun season full of festivities and revelry as we rally against the dying of the light and the gathering dark. After the year turns past Autumn equinox and the days begin to grow shorter we gather together and hold celebrations to mark events such as halloween and bonfire night (and …
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The Autumn Garden
Welcome to autumn, the season of fruitfulness! How was your summer? I hope it was filled with wild adventures and wonderful experiences. Now the countryside is filled with signs of seasonal change as trees take on golden hues and flowers begin to fade. Our gardens are following this trend too, and it is easy to …
Sussex Field Notes 