Back to Nature

Far from the madding crowd....

Sunrise over the North Sea, streaming across the extraordinary poppy fields that this year have coated north Norfolk in waving fields of blood.  

A little while before sun rise I just caught the moon going down, a tiny bright pinprick in the sky:

And then here comes the sun, and I say, "It's alright...."

It all happens so fast.  Daylight like a rising flash, a lightning, I find it all hard to believe, so I ask a passing skylark to take my pic from above:

And then he takes a speckled stutter of spatters without me (can you trust anyone these days?):

And that was last week. 

Yes, life is racing by.  Only a few weeks ago the cowslips were like a delicately quilted coverlet spread across the countryside.  

 

Then they gradually faded, seeping into beige and pale lemony green.  And then we had the poppies, fields and fields of them, filling the air with a dozy haze in the evening air while we walked.

Today I walk from my home to the north coast, some eight and half miles along lanes and footpaths, and the poppies are pale and fringed with age, their petals bruised with the flapping winds we have had in the last few days.....

And now they are being succeeded, by hawkweeds, or hawkbits, or common cat's-ears (please excuse my inexactitude; life is too short....)

So anyway.  I've been in the city.  I've had some slightly startling speedy heartbeats, and I am glad to be back in the fresh air, walking comfortably above the ground, fluttered by butterflies:

Two ringlets exchanging greetings

I am just off the Peddars' Way, only sixteen miles north of Castle Acre,

The landscape tells human stories.  Here a dry cereal crop leads you down to a red stone farm which lies just by the old railway line from Hunstanton to Fakenham.....

Here a shady oak frames a bucolic fold of hills with, though you cannot see it, a red kite trawling for worms.....

Then we have the hedgerows and wildflowers, exchanging their bodily fluids with the insects of the air to enable life, of all sorts, to go on.  Without this, you should know, we are all doomed....  Insect sex is everything we need....

A white-tailed bumblebee on knapweed

A six-spot Burnet moth on Knapweed

A six-spot Burnet moth on field scabious

A small white butterfly on bramble flowers

John Clare wrote:

Though simple to some I delight in the sight

Of such objects that bring unto me

A picture of picturesque joy and delight

Where beauty and harmony be

Oh I love at my heart to be strolling along

Oer the heath a new impulse to find

While I hum to the wind in a ballad or song

Some fancy that starts in the mind

All seems so delightful and bring to the mind

Such quiet and beautiful joys

That the mind when its weary like hermits may find

A retreat from earths folly and noise

The Heath

John Clare

I walk on.  Every day is new.  The shift from yellow to red to brown and so on is all part of the rich weft of colour that our world, when undisturbed, offers to the wanderer.  Seasonal.  Transitional. Always changing; always developing.  I am just perplexed by the rapidity of these changes.  

Don't read anything into these musings.  I breast the hill leading down to the coast and see,  distantly but clearly, Lincolnshire to one side, and a wind farm to the other.  As far as I can see there is life.  And life only.  

The foreground is filled with asparagus ferns, from the young plants that need to mature before they are harvested.  This is where I live, now.  This is beautiful.  I am happy to share it with you.....

Time flies by

In the blink of an eye

When you get paid for having too much fun

Kicking out the foot lights

Living the night life

Like tomorrow ain't never going to come

Wouldn't change much of nothing

About this road we've been running

For of wild times, wild women, and a song

But we would've taken much better care of ourselves

If we would have known we would live this long

Live This Long

Willie Nelson 

Merle Haggard

For Marlene

Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind.....

Cowslips

Sometimes a song, or a poem, just creeps into the cranium, and can't find its way back out.  And this husky version of Pete Seeger's slightly sentimental Where have all the flowers gone? has done that to me on recent walks.  I think it was the smoky drift of The Blue Angel that caught me, and now I just can't get it out of my mind, especially when trampling the blooms around here.....

Red Campion

If I were a bard, or poet laureate or some such, I would pen some fancy verses about the colourful delights of hedgerows and fields, and how the scents of pretty petals might fume through my head creating dizzy heights of natural passion. But I must leave that to the professionals.

Poppy and Phacelia

Here, for example, is a modest burst from John Clare, worth at least a C+:

The sweet spring is come'ng

In beautifull sunshine

Thorns bud and wild flowers blooming

Daisey and Celadine

Somthing so sweet there is about the spring

Silence is music ere the birds will sing

And you cannot hold him back - he will go on:

The lane the narrow lane

With daisy beds beneath

You scarce can see the light again

Untill you reach the heath.....

And then there's Poppies in their thousands, enough to induce some stupor:

Everywhere there is a changing tapestry of light and colour:

  

The  feisty sprays of May flowers - Blackthorn, whether white:

Or flushed with pink:

Sainfoin mingles with the Ox-eye Daisies across the fields:

Not every day is bright; not everywhere is acrylic. Across the marsh the reeds mute the palette in watercolour mode: 

And then the grasses by the beach wave to the waters of the Wash in gentle tones: 

While up at Thornham Staithe the drifts of Common Sea Lavender are just beginning to tinge the tidal flats by the ancient posts:

There is such a wealth of life here, sponsored by fresh air and wild openness. Sweet Briar unfurls its petals along the way:

Honeysuckle seduces with its alluring perfume:

And, in the woods, despite its unhealthy reputation, I delight in finding a Yellow Azalea standing out from the much more common Pink Rhododendron:

Then at home, I have Clematis:

And Roses adorning the front of my house:

And so, in answer to the song, the flowers haven't all gone, even though there may not be the plethora of yore.  Some find their way into the church, inviting strangers to approach the font, basking in the light through the new glass doors:

While others are plundered by bees devoted to making honey to nourish their young in a hole in my wall:

The bees build in the crevices

Of loosening masonry, and there

The mother birds bring grubs and flies,

My wall is loosening; honey-bees,

Come build in the empty house of the stare.

W B Yeats

Meditations in Time of Civil War

Yes, poetry and song inform our lives, while nature provides for life.  Without flowers, and without bees, we would be nothing at all.  So we need to be grateful that, so far at least, not every flower has gone.....

wann wird man je verstehen?

So, to give that femme fatale, Marlene, the final word from Der Blaue Engel, with her deliciously husky tones:

Sich neu verlieben,

das wollte ich nie,

Was soll ich nun tun?

Kann nicht helfen mir.

Apparently (thank you Rosey) this is a (poor) retranslation of the Doris Day version of the song (which Marlene also sang in English)....

The 'proper' German version is:

Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß

Auf Liebe eingestellt.

Ich kann halt lieben nur

Und sonst gar nichts.

Which isn't the same....  So, take it as you wish.  What I have in my head is Marlene singing (as if she has just smoked a pack of Balkan Sobranie):

Falling in love again

Never wanted to

What am I to do?

I can't help it....

And there you go.

Let's just continue to play the game......

Walkin' Back to Happiness

For Amanda

It's showery and cold today, but yesterday morning I set off from Hunstanton along the Norfolk Coast Path towards Thornham.  

Funny but it's true

What loneliness can do

Since I've been away

I have loved you more each day

Red Valerian

Past the old lighthouse (now holiday lets) and into Old Hunstanton where the dunes are peppered with multi-coloured Beach Huts, some for hire (c£1,000 a week peak season) and some for sale (c£35K to £50K leasehold).

This one is protected from the devil by a self-sown Elder (Sambucus nigra)....

And here the Dog Rose (Rosa Canina) may ward off evil spirits and protect from the plague.

It is quiet, and the light is fair.  I breathe clean air, and feel good to be out.  I love the colours around me; I love my new-found freedom, despite the sadness it is clothed in.

Today is a day for flowers.  It has been a strange summer so far - everything has a spring-like freshness, even though we are only weeks off the longest day.  In the grass by the path I note Common Spotted Orchids (I think - forgive me if my identifications are mistaken?) which raise their heads against a backdrop of Yellow Archangels....

Everything seems to be in flower, from the brambles....

To the nettles.....

Even those without chlorophyll, like this Broomrape:

And then there are the grasses - this being Hare's-Tail Grass waving in the breeze.....

The bright colours are a delight.  From the pale pink of Thrift:

To the shiny gold of Common Hawkweed:

And of Bird's-Foot-Trefoil (sometimes called Granny's toenails, though better known as Eggs and Bacon):

 

  

To the Lapis Lazuli blue of Germander Speedwell:

Over there there's a string of Pyramidal Orchids:

And then a bunch of Weld (Reseda Luteola also known as Dyer's Weed as it provides a rich yellow dye):

Then I am jolted back to the day, as the path has crumbled away, eaten into by coastal erosion, a reminder that the world  needs looking after:

And on the detour a hole in the ground brings to mind the Second World War and the anniversary of D Day, and all the sacrifices and suffering that we should not forget.....

But the honeysuckle waves me on:

And the Wild Carrot seems so healthy there has to be hope....?

Though of course everything is subject to multiple interpretations, as are these blood-red Poppies:

It has been another pleasant walk, one that Amanda would have enjoyed, so I will carry on for her.....

My love she speaks like silence,

Without ideals or violence,

She doesn't have to say she's faithful,

Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.

People carry roses,

Make promises by the hours,

My love she laughs like the flowers,

Valentines can't buy her.

Love Minus Zero/No Limit

Bob Dylan (1965)

Walking back to happiness

Said goodbye to loneliness

I never knew I'd miss you

Now I know what I must do

Walking back to happiness I shared with you

Helen Shapiro (1961)

Written by John Schroeder and Mike Hawker