Easter Day wanderings in the woods under broad blue skies...

 It has been a thoughtful and sad two weeks, a bittersweet beginning to a cold bright spring and an ending too as we wait to say goodbye later this week to a good friend who lost his long battle with cancer on the spring equinox. I will say more words about our friend, an artist and a truly radiant man, in another post after we have said our goodbyes on friday, and show you some of the wonderful things he painted.

For now I will share with you some pictures of a bright Easter Day walk in the woods, bitter cold but with the earthy scent of green and growing things waking in the sun.

 With Grandma and Grampy under the broad blue sky...

A very mischievous Easter Bunny here...!

 Leading Grampy along winding fox trails...

Happy children in the sunshine...

 I'll leave you with the hares seeking skyward over my hearth... Hope you all had a bright Easter and blue skies to bring in the spring. I'm looking forward to the greening of the woods...

A Spring Sunshine walk...

It was warm in the spring sun today, and having only been able to look at it through windows all week I was so pleased it stayed bright for my day off! We wandered off for a walk down along the old Railway line that is now an excellent cycle track. There's miles and miles of it slowly being reclaimed by nature - so well in fact the council are talking about making it into a nature reserve or conservation area for wildlife.


There's a certain fascination looking at these tracks that were last used in the 1970's as far as I know, now thick with saplings winding into undergrowth... much like the Old Ironworks I posted about recently, how quickly industry can be undone by nature when we think of it as quite the other way around usually.


The old tracks are great fun for the kids... (yes, I include my husband in that statement!)


There's a few Trolls hiding in these woods though, watch out!
I had fun snapping away randomly with my camera, but these below are a couple I was quite chuffed with... pure luck rather than skill!


We stayed out in the garden for the rest of the day trying to tame our own little wilderness while the girls made mud soup in their little red wheel barrow, mmm lovely!
Even our silly small grey lion was enjoying the sun, and found a plantpot that fitted his shape perfectly!
Hope you enjoyed some nice Spring sunshine today where ever you all may be...

An early Halloween, Acorns, Oaks and the writings of a great wordsmith....

Being the last day of school before half term, the children had their Halloween school 'disco' tonight, a week early... I've only just recovered enough to restore brain functions! Very manic and very noisy! I can handle heavy metal concerts far better than a barn full of two to ten year olds running riot!
My eldest Elora has gone every year as a cat, so this year she broke tradition and went as a skeleton... then at the last minute buckled and added the cat ears!
Here they are very excited and proud of their pumpkins...

Then, looking on my camera I discoverd pictures from an autumn walk a couple of weeks back that I'd totally forgotten about, so I thought, it's still autumn so not too late to show some of them...

(This spidery ones suitably Halloween-ish!)

Here's some of the treasure me and Elswyth found on our way...


There's a very grand old Oak tree where we like to stop and rest, very Squirral Nutkin-like with lots of little hollow doorways in the roots. I love the expressiveness of the limbs, all gesturing crazed and contorted, and the fragile little girl gathering acorns, dwarfed by its presence...


And these limbs bring to mind one or two of Ted Hughes' poems...
I love the raw, sometimes brutal power of his wordcraft, he was so good at drawing out the elemental roots of the world, savage and wild as it has always been... both of nature and human nature...
Here is a short excerpt of a very long poem from 'Gaudete'...

Your tree - your oak
A glare

Of black upward lightning, a wriggling grab
Momentary
Under the crumbling of stars.

A guard, a dancer
At the pure well of leaf.

Agony in the garden. Annunciation
Of clay, water and the sunlight.
They thunder under its roof.
Its agony is its temple.

Waist-deep, the black oak is dancing
And my eyes pause
On the centuries of its instant
As gnats
Try to winter in its wrinkles.

The seas are thirsting
Towards the oak.

The oak is flying
Astride the earth.

How I love Ted Hughes. He has had a huge influence on my own writing and its time I started reading again I think... I have a shelf-ful of his books waiting, brooding bound within their pages, wanting to get out!
( I think there is a bit of Pratchett creeping in there, with images of restless muttering books flexing their covers ready to take flight from the shelves!)

And Elswyth's acorns have just reminded me of a bronze romano-british acorn in a little antiquities shop I saw years ago. Probebly the best part of two thousand years old found by some metal detectorist no doubt...
It was verdigreed and fashioned as a pendant and from the moment I walked empty handed out of that shop I have always regretted not buying it...
I always wondered who would once have worn it and what it meant to them... I really should have bought it!
Anyway, time to stop rambling on me thinks...!

Watch out for elephants in the woods!

Yesterday, to round off the children's easter holidays we discovered Brokers Wood near Westbury and the White Horse, a fantastic place I hadn't realised was just on our doorstep all these years!
There are lots of great rustic adventure playgrounds hidden all through the woods with little rope walks and bridges over streams...

Also there were lots of painted elephants hidden around the woods to find, each one decorated by a different local school. They're a bit like the 'Bladud's Pigs' that were all around Bath...

The woods were wakening with violets, wood anenomes, celendines and the first early bluebells, and there were lots of strange little mossy houses nestled away in the slanting sunlight.

The children had fun and so did I...


Back to school tomorrow...

Life drawing, spring sunshine and sleeping Trolls...

Well, this weeks life drawing didn't get off to a great start when I arrived late and missed all the 2 minute warm ups! So I didn't quite settle into it and still feel like I haven't quite got my hand in again with it yet...

She was a great model and did some lovely poses, but I couldn't quite do her justice this week...

Still, its nice to be doing life drawing again regardless of the results!

I seem to be posting a lot of walks so far, but the warm spring weather seems such a treat after the long winter, it's hard to resist!
When I walked this way in March I heard an owl call unexpectantly in the wood at noon, flute-like, soft through trees still bare limbed. Today we heard woodpeckers rat-tatatating, and constant birdsong - caws and croaks, flutes and chittiks, many layered melodies of lilting laughter...
The woods are wakening, buds greening, even butterflies today. I should know the name of this plant but it has slipped my mind for now!

We followed deer slots all through the woods, me, Red Riding Hood and a black witch's cat...

Then back home again over the Troll's bridge, quickly before our wellies woke him to scold at the sun!