Sheltering

/ Andrea Stephenson / 40 Comments

As we turn into the forest, to be embraced by arching trees, a fox crosses our path. She walks slowly across the road, then turns back to look at us before melting into the trees. It seems an auspicious beginning.

The forest is abundant with summer life. Purple orchids peep out of meadows overgrown with cocksfoot, Yorkshire fog and Lady’s Bedstraw. Rough ground forms islands of hogweed, bramble and black horehound. Verges sport white clover, buttercups and self-heal. Our cabin is surrounded by beeches, a red elderberry and a cottoneaster that is thronged with insects. The air is astir with creatures: white, brown, comma and red admiral butterflies, hoverflies, lacewings and bees. Not to mention the many midges that leave red polka dots across my skin.

In the eaves of the cabin, there are three house martin nests. The birds dart in and out with great speed and utmost accuracy. Sometimes the sky is filled with a martin ballet as they seek insects far above us. The nests are rarely quiet. They cheep and hiss and twitter. It’s hard to tell how many birds are up there, but they squabble endlessly. Later, as they settle for the night, bats replace them on the wing.

The songbirds come and go in various states of apparel. A great tit with all of his feathers but for a bare head, looks like he has the ruff of Elizabeth I. Perhaps he feels aggrieved, because he bullies the other birds away from any food. There is a ragged robin, a faded nuthatch and a blue tit with stray tufts of feathers. But the chaffinches are glorious in their colours, the gentle golds and browns of the females and the deep blush of the males with their velvet grey Mohawks. I come across a small group of greenfinches on the trail, one of them rotating his wings and begging for food. A buzzard glides silently above the martins one day, and I hear the raucous complaints of crows.

The world is a precarious place. We feel safe tucked up in our houses because we have the sense that we are secure within our walls. But I often think about the bird or the bee and how vulnerable they are. I have watched a bee disappear into the bell of a foxglove, a butterfly settle for the night in the centre of a rose, and wondered what it feels like to be tucked inside those velvet petals. I have thought about insects in their tunnels and shells, birds in nests and tree hollows, small mammals in dens and burrows. My blogging friend Jeanne Balsam has thought about this too, in her beautiful picture book ‘Where do butterflies go at night?’ See here for more information.

On our last night in the forest, just before bed, I see a strange dark object on the floor. A bat. It’s illegal to handle bats in the UK unless they appear to need help. Since this one is prone, I try to pick it up. It moves easily onto my hand. I take it outside, unsure what to do next. The bat is alert: it crawls over my hand, lifts its head and rotates its ears, ‘listening’ to the night – perhaps to the other bat that is flying around outside. It is covered in brown fur, with waxy black ears, wings and arms, probably a Pipistrelle. It has tiny ‘hands’ with tiny fingers. I am about to head to the office to wake up the emergency staff for advice, but before I do, the bat is up and away, flying into the night. I’m awake for a long time, worrying that I have done the wrong thing but exhilarated by the encounter. I hope the bat was simply disoriented and that it is strong and well, fluttering around the forest.

The solstice highlighted the sun’s ferocity, but this week we have celebrated a gentler sun. Sunlight shaded by clouds, or dappled by trees. Illuminated beech leaves and gilded meadows. Leaf shadows dancing across walls. We have taken shelter under the canopy and been nurtured by the life beneath it.

Beacons

/ Andrea Stephenson / 23 Comments

The day before the solstice blisters. We go to the river at the height of the heat. Clear blue sky, sun beating down, water like diamonds. We wait at the top of the bank, high above the river, next to the High Light, a tall square lighthouse that is now a residence. Below, next to the fishing sheds, is the Low Light. Once, the two were used to navigate the river, by lining them up against one another as ships sailed in. They haven’t been used as beacons since the piers were built, calming the waters of the river mouth and bearing their own modern lighthouses.

Gulls soar and cormorants skim the top of the water. Butterflies are out in force: whites and tortoiseshells and cinnabar moths. We take shelter under a twisted elder in blossom. This is the time of year to celebrate the original beacon. Tomorrow the sun will reach its peak, but though I celebrate light and warmth, this ferocity is too much. June will be another month in which the weather has been the warmest since records began.

Under the shady elder, we wait. Soon, there is the sound of bagpipes. Pipers are leading 200 school children from the Fiddler’s Green monument that commemorates lost fishermen, to the Herring Girl statue that celebrates the women who followed the herring down the north east coast every year to gut, salt and pack the fish. This is part of the town’s 800 anniversary celebrations. It began with the river and its bounty of salt and fish. The transport of coal and the building of ships made the towns that flank it what they are. Today, the gargantuan skeletons of wind turbines travel from here. The children stand next to the river that connects them and sing songs that are traditional and new.

Eventually, the songs are over and a tug boat positions itself in the centre of the river. Starting with the Pilot and the life boat, a parade of fishing boats, pleasure cruisers and yachts slowly circle the tug as the fleet is blessed. Horns honk and buzzers sound. When the blessing is done and all the boats have sailed past, the tug turns on its water cannons. It makes a slow circle, spraying a low wake into the water, but this is only the beginning. The jets ascend, forming two spectacular arcs. Soon, the river is filled with a white mist drifting past like smoke. I wish I was down there, standing under the spray for some relief from the heat.

The sun brings light, life and health, but it is also ferocious in its intensity. There will be many today bearing the red skin and exhaustion of too much sun. But today has also been a reminder that the sun prompts celebration, community and spectacle. We are barely into summer, but already its power is waning. So, for a brief moment while the sun stands still, we cherish all its gifts.

Through the dunes

/ Andrea Stephenson / 35 Comments

We take the road north, following the coastal route through Northumberland. The hedgerows are opulent in green and white. The last of the May blossom gives way to elder. Cow parsley and ox-eye daisies crowd the verges. We pass sheep-filled emerald fields, overlooked by giant turbines. Gorse thickets daubed with yellow. Past the old colliery museum and under the shadow of Warkworth Castle. Our destination is Alnmouth, a small village on a sliver of land at the edge of the sea. It is known for its terrace of pastel-coloured houses. An old stone bridge takes us across the river Aln, the road edging the village until there is nothing else but sand and sea. This was once a busy port, but on Christmas Day of 1806 an enormous storm changed the course of the river and led to the village’s decline. It became a resort, with grand villas and a golf course that is the oldest 9-hole links course in England.

Alnmouth is all huddled buildings and narrow streets, but the view from the dunes is space and sky. The village sits on the estuary of the river Aln, which winds out over the sands like a silver snakeskin. It is dangerous to swim here because of the rip tides. The beach stretches far into the horizon, fringed by a denim sea. A cloud mountain fills the sky, layer on blue-grey layer, the sun breaking through as though ripping the sky apart. Large concrete cubes litter the beach, anti-tank defences from World War Two. Beyond is Coquet Island and its squat, square lighthouse, forbidden to all but the birds. We walk a sandy footpath between beach and golf course for a drink outside the club house.

Later, I take a narrow, meandering trail through the dunes. The path is uneven and the grass prickly on my legs. There are thickets of alkanet and cow parsley, a few hawthorns and other shrubs. A charm of goldfinches rise from the alkanet as though from nowhere. Undergrowth obscures a weathered shed. A jackdaw swoops in, perching on the orange lifebelt hanging on a post. When I emerge at the top of the path, I see a wide vista. Farmland leads down to the estuary. The river winds away to the right. A handful of small boats are beached on the flats. Bright orange buoys float among a gathering of dark boulders in a tide pool.

Across the estuary is the promontory known as Church Hill, a tall mound clad in tangled dune grass. The church was destroyed in the big storm of 1806 but at the peak of the hill, as though blessing the landscape below it, is St. Cuthbert’s Cross. This coast is entwined with the story of St. Cuthbert, a 7th-Century monk and later Prior of Lindisfarne, the Holy Island. Cuthbert lived as a hermit for 10 years on one of the Farnes, a cluster of islands now populated by seals and sea birds. The cross is said to be the place where, at the request of the King, he reluctantly agreed to come out of his seclusion to spend two years as Bishop of Lindisfarne, before returning to his hermitage to die.

The wind is strong here, it ripples the dune grasses and roars in my ears. Bees and butterflies whisper past. There is a scatter of Bloody Cranesbill vivid pink in the dune grass. A trail of yellow Hawkbit. Standing here alone, I wonder what it must have been like for Cuthbert to leave the silence of the hermitage behind and face politics and people once again. It must have been hard to tear himself away from the song of the tide and the simple company of birds.

A meadow pipit perches on a bush and pipes a falsetto. We watch each other for a while, until I move on. A greenfinch sings from the depths of a shrub. Despite the buildings not far away, this feels like a landscape with secrets. There are many paths through the dunes, many ways to reach the shore, paths we are guided to follow and those made from our desire to find a way through. The land has been walked by saints and pilgrims, and that is easy to imagine wandering in the dunes, but it also a living landscape of tourists and golfers and dogs and children. We join them as we take the easy path back to the car and leave Alnmouth behind us.

Plodging

/ Andrea Stephenson / 50 Comments

May Day brings shimmering heat and small creatures. Beneath the shade of trees hoverflies hover and dart. Butterflies follow meandering flight paths. Aphids with tiny translucent wings are like whirring flying machines. Cherry blossom petals line the paths, containing the green like thick lines in a colouring book. The first hawthorn blossom has bloomed just in time for Beltane. Where cherry is light and luminous, May blossom is dense and creamy, clogging the branches. Last night’s wind has snapped a limb from a small maple. It is held on by a string of bark, forming a leafy arch, like something the fairies might use as a portal at this mischievous time of year. Later, I notice what looks like thistle down blowing past my office window, but is thousands of tiny flies passing in drifts.

I’ve been craving the sea. We visit first on a Bank Holiday, braving the crowds. There is a deceptive sun, its brightness belying the breezy cold beneath. The sea blends blue with aqua. A sweep of lavender cloud hugs the horizon. The dune grasses are edged with flowering gorse, dandelions and cow parsley. People walk on the beach but we stroll along the cliff top. There are the usual dogs with their people, but there is also a man with a pet macaw held to his chest.

The celebrations have started for the 80th anniversary of VE day. The news is full of military pomp but also poignant memory, since there are fewer and fewer people left who were there. I think of two uncles I never met. My dad’s brother, John Stephenson, died when a U-boat sank his merchant navy ship the S.S. Goolistan near Norway. My mother’s brother, John McDonald, was lost in action somewhere in what was Burma. During the war, this horizon would have been cluttered by ships, transporting supplies and soldiers from the river. There were constant raids on the industries along the Tyne. We commemorate all who were lost, but still the wars continue, and the worrying rhetoric that harks back to earlier conflicts.

A few days later we return to the sea. We spend some time enjoying carefree freedoms: playing the two-penny coin pusher machines, an ice cream beside the beach. It is bright and breezy, quite chilly on the promenade. The sky is hazy blue with a single brush of cloud. The sea is a patchwork of deep blues and greens, aqua and white. Scores of gulls are like white dashes floating far out on the water. It is high tide and though the waves are small, they are persistent. I listen to the roar as they roll in and the sizzle as they break on the sand.

The beach is almost empty. A handful of families with babies, buckets and spades; a man with a fishing rod; a couple of hardy swimmers. Crows peck along a strand-line strewn with kelp and pebbles. I sigh with pleasure at the warm, soft embrace of the sand on my feet. A short walk to the wet sand and the pebbly tide-line, then the shock of the icy water as it hits my skin. We call this ‘plodging’ in the north of England, this act of paddling in the sea. It is the first time since last summer. Waves rush in over my ankles as my gaze moves along the horizon, to the lighthouse, the container ships and wind turbines out at sea. I listen to the roar and sizzle, smell the sweet salty odour of the seaweed. I wander slowly along the tideline, looking for interesting things. A few small pebbles and a piece of sea glass will add to the many I already have.

As I climb the sand-blown steps back to the promenade, I feel the most awake I’ve felt in months. I’m energised, rejuvenated. I walk barefoot with sand-encrusted feet to the car park, not wanting to lose the connection. This might be the spring I’ve been waiting for. I am finally sloughing off the winter sleep and am ready for action.

Marching

/ Andrea Stephenson / 51 Comments

On the morning of the spring equinox, I’m greeted by the chirp of a parakeet. I watch it circle the tall trees alongside the railway line. This is only the second time I’ve seen a parakeet here and it is almost a year ago to the day, so I wonder if it is returning to a favoured nesting spot. The parakeet flies in a clear sunny sky, but March still has bleaker surprises to come. Mornings of mist are followed by a wind that bellows for two days. It seems March will leave like the proverbial lion, but on the last day, the wind drops and the month meekly fizzles out.

The woodpecker is drumming again, getting louder as the weeks progress. It perches in a poplar with a protrusion of dead wood that must be good for percussion. I notice the strident two-note of the great tit and hear my first chiff chaff. A wood pigeon bows and fans his tail to woo a potential mate. Sparrows flit noisily between the shrubs on our street and gather in the gutters where curved roof tiles provide nesting spots. Blackbirds hop around the hedges. Birds come and go now with nesting material in their beaks. A robin sings his heart out.

Blackthorns are often a surprise in early spring: sudden explosions of white among otherwise sparse hedgerows. The hawthorns are fully leafed and others are sending out virgin leaves, protruding from buds like wrinkled tissue. Daffodils and lesser celandine replace the crocuses. Young stinging nettle leaves tangle with cleavers. White dead nettle flowers amid scores of dandelions and daisies. On our slow walks I am drawn to the rogue plants – a single dandelion in a paved front yard, a lone stalk of cow parsley on a mown field, ivy leaved toadflax tumbling out of walls, herb Robert bursting from a drain. April brings grass jewelled with dew like carpets of pearls.

At Easter I remember the traditions of my childhood. There was always a new outfit, which I would wear as I walked into town with my Dad. We went to see what we called ‘the marching’. Up to 2,000 Sunday school children marched through the town in a Procession of Witness, led by the Salvation Army band. We weren’t religious and I only ever went to Sunday school when I was a Brownie, but this was a spectacle that scores of people watched. Afterwards, there would be a cup of tea in the YMCA hall with my aunt and uncle (no fancy cafes then). Later, with friends, I’d head to the Spanish City fairground on the sea front. It was small, but still managed to fit in a roller coaster, pirate ship, waltzer and dodgems among other things. I was a daredevil then and went on the scariest. The area would be thronged. On the Links, a large expanse of grass overlooking the beach, you could hardly see the grass for all the people sat on it. The marching still happens, though on a smaller scale. The Spanish City is gone, though they bring in a temporary fair for Easter. The only traditions we still keep are fish and chips on Good Friday and chocolate eggs on Easter Sunday.

There comes a point in the season when the natural world is so abundant that it is difficult to pay attention to it all. Writing this post has been as slow as early spring. When I began in March, the daffodils and the lesser celandine were slowly emerging and the blackthorn was the only tree in bloom. Now, spring follows a quick march. All of a sudden the trees are flowering: ash like florets of broccoli, field maple like green posies, the delight of wild cherry blossom. A wych elm is resplendent with pom poms of seed. The first wave of dandelions have turned to clocks and there is red clover, ribwort plantain and the first of the bluebells. A pair of parakeets appears and I wonder if the bird I saw in March has found a mate. Spring marches on but I let it pass me by. I have things going on that don’t leave me energy for creativity. So I am quietly noticing. Not acting. Not planting seeds. This year I am slow and maybe that’s how it will be.

Winning

/ Andrea Stephenson / 115 Comments

I’m thrilled to announce that I am the winner of the 2024/25 Hammond House International Short Story Competition. The competition had entries from 42 countries and was on the theme of ‘time’. This is the first time I have won a writing competition. Hammond House began as an indie publisher and grew into a group of creative organisations championing a whole host of creative activities, including writing, music and video. The literary prize ends with an annual literature festival and awards day at the University Centre in Grimsby.

I travel to Grimsby, a fishing port started by Vikings in the 9th Century and named after a Danish seafarer called ‘Grim’. I love travelling by train. I love the way the landscape opens out so that you can see for miles but also notice small things you wouldn’t otherwise witness. You are suspended in time yet hurtling through the country. On this journey, the landscape often seems more like a waterscape. We skirt rivers and canals; pass reed-frilled lakes and pools, puddles and water-logged fields. The sun pours out of grey clouds in wide rays. The land is still winter bare: fields ploughed or just showing signs of new growth, skeletons of trees along their edges. I watch crows and magpies. Threesomes of deer grazing. Two hares running. And a lone black bear rearing on hind legs. Not a real bear of course, but a statue, standing on the edge of a small woodland. I wonder who put it there and why.

My prize-winning short story The Lost Hour was inspired by the hour we lose when we turn the clocks forward in spring to begin British Summer Time. I’ve always felt a little cheated at losing that hour. I wondered where the lost hour went and what would happen if you could capture it. Time fascinates me, perhaps because I never felt there was enough of it to do all the things I wanted to do. And yet we so often waste it. How we use the time we have is a theme that often comes up in my stories. So, although I considered not going to the awards ceremony, because I knew it would be far outside my comfort zone, I also knew that time taken to celebrate my work would be time not wasted.

After a night in a hotel, I head to the festival. I browse stalls from local authors, writing groups and creatives. I buy a few books, of course. Improvise dialogue in a screenplay workshop. Talk to poets, song-writers and novelists. In the afternoon is the awards ceremony, with awards for screenplays, songs and poems. It is a warm, joyful ceremony. One highly commended writer has travelled from Australia and there are video messages from others who can’t be there. Mine is the last award to be awarded. I collect my certificate and copy of the anthology and read part of my story. Afterwards, I am interviewed for Billboard TV, my first ever interview. The day is a bubble of creative time – when I can immerse myself in being a writer.

Rain batters the metal roof as I wait at the station for the train home. The sky is dark and bulges over the land, as though it is too heavy and about to burst. At the same time, the sun is setting and tinges the clouds pink. Male pheasants are spot lit by the sunset, like creatures made of bronze. There are herds of deer. Flocks of brown birds that may be golden plover have settled in some of the fields. I watch the sunset gild the land, still buoyant from the day I’ve had. I think of the different kinds of time in my life – calendar time, work time, seasonal time, creative time – and how it shifts, expanding, contracting, flowing depending on what I am doing. In just the short period of time I’ve been away, spring has already advanced further. There are now carpets of crocuses, the blackthorns are blossoming and the hawthorns unfurling their leaves. Whatever type of time we inhabit, it is always a gift.

If you would like to buy a copy of the prize anthology – or you would like to enter the 2025 prize on the theme of ‘secrets’, visit the Hammond House website here.

Re-visiting

/ Andrea Stephenson / 70 Comments

A clutch of crocuses are the first spring flowers to appear. Fragile as the promise of spring, they are dainty lilac starbursts, with a radiant centre. But following that first spurt of colour, they retreat in the face of February’s drizzle, closing up their petals to hide their sunny secret.

Just after Candlemas we head to the Dene. It has been almost exactly a year since we last walked here. The distance is too far now for Winston, my dog. He is twelve and has noticeably slowed down this year. But I have used that as an excuse to stay closer to home. For various reasons, life has become narrower and I’ve found it difficult to motivate myself to do the walks I used to do. That, more than anything else, I think, has dimmed my creative spark. The muse has danced off into the wilderness and I have let her go.

Spring still slumbers. There is more dreaming to do before the time for action. But today I am resolved. I bundle Winston into his buggy and wheel him to the Dene. The landscape is surprisingly green, with firs, hollies and ivies. Fallen leaves have disappeared to reveal vibrant grass. The first delicate leaves of cow parsley, bramble and cleavers poke through the undergrowth. Hazel catkins droop like scraps of fabric on a clootie tree. The trees are brimming with buds and a few have already unfurled.

At the head of the dene, there is a large tree that fills the air with blossom in early spring. It was toppled in a storm a few years ago, but remains attached at the trunk. It seems it is still alive and preparing to blossom. We walk along the burn, peaty-brown and still. A small flock of long-tailed tits swoop from one side to the other chittering as though in welcome. The mournful song of a robin underscores their chatter.

There are daffodil shoots just emerging through the earth, but nothing else is in bloom yet. The pond is busy with mallards and moorhens. Black headed gulls, still in their winter plumage, perch on the jetty and float on the water. We wander round the pond and there, at the edge of the golden reeds is a grey heron. He is still, watchful, but unconcerned as we pass close to him on the bridge.

The heron was a good enough reason to make the effort to come. I put Winston back in his buggy, wrap him in a coat and push him home. Looking back on our visit a year ago, we saw much the same things: the long tailed tits, the ducks, even the heron. In an uncertain world, there is comfort in the recurring seasons. Though the climate is changing, for now we can rely on the returning spring. The signs are still subtle – more light in the evenings, increasing birdsong and early flowers – but they are signs nevertheless that the new season is on its way.

Light and bones

/ Andrea Stephenson / 86 Comments

It is mid-afternoon and already the sun sits low on the horizon. I walk a path of skeletons: naked trees reaching for a blushing sky. Tall spears studded with spikes. Sweeping fans and graceful arcs. Wizened knots, twisted like intricate puzzles. Arthritic twigs with tiny buds. Slender, bulbous fingers. Winter reveals skin that is taut and shiny or rough and knobbled, trunks wrapped in ivy comforters. It is a bone-scape of soft sepia and deep mahogany, with accents of crimson and lime. But the sinking sun polishes and shines. Dull browns become vibrant coppers and golds. Clusters of ash keys are like burnished bats dangling from the branches. Wood pigeons are rosy-breasted puddings. Gulls soar majestically, bronze-winged emissaries from another world.

This is the season of light and bones. The bones are obvious, but it might seem strange to call this a time of light. Sometimes the length and depth of darkness can feel relentless, especially during the slow weeks of January. Yet there is an intensity of light, particularly at the beginning and end of the day. Long shadows accent shafts of light. The sun’s glare is cold, but as it hugs the horizon we can almost reach out and touch it. On freezing days when the land shivers with frost, there is a luster that suggests the sky is frozen too. The sky seems bigger, unobstructed by the canopy of trees.

It has been a month of glorious sunrises. I get up in the dark to find the hallway blazing orange with the rising sun. I look south, to the other side of the river, where the water tower pierces the horizon. Stripes of colour, from flame to peach adorn the sky. Each night as dusk falls, the sun casts an amber glow on the stones of the church opposite my office. The colour kindles to orange, lighting up the gulls perched on the chimney. The sky beyond is a patchwork of pastel blues and pinks, often beneath glowering cloud. All too soon, indigo blooms to darkness, but Venus gleams beneath a sliver of moon.

January brings a secret snow fall. I see it stealing down in the dark hours of the night, but in the morning it has left no trace. Other areas nearby are snowbound for days, but here you would hardly know snow exists. Frost rimes the grass each morning. Puddles appear iced over as if by magic. The cold is cold enough to numb my face and turn the pavements to sheet ice, but there is no snow to conceal the bones. I see a robin, perched on the edge of a plant pot. We stare at each other before I move on. Crows follow me from roof to roof calling for peanuts. A pied wagtail whiffles around the park. Autumn is still present in mounds of dead leaves on the pavements, now tangled with rubbish, but elsewhere the landscape has been scoured. Each afternoon starlings gather in the same tree, chirruping, hissing and whistling. I watch a mini murmuration as they suddenly rise and swoop, before settling once more, this time on a row of chimneys.

I have been sleeping with amethyst under my pillow to prompt dreaming. Ideas have been slower to come in recent years, so I hope for something to kindle the creative spark. In other winter seasons, I kept a box of dreams, in which I would place snippets of dreams, thoughts and ideas. There is a new box now on my altar. Craving simplicity, I have cleared the space to a minimum. There is a candle for the fire of creativity, a quartz crystal for clear thought and inspiration and some feathers for the flight of imagination. I have dreamed of running in empty hills, sharing a house with prowling lions and tigers, swimming to Norway and sleeping in a cave on the edge of the sea. Mermaids, bears, orcas and giant squid have passed through my sleep. I have begun to write a short story and ideas are coming for others.

My short story The Hymn of the Bees has been published in the Bridge House Publishing Good News anthology. Inspired by a legend that at midnight on Christmas Eve the bees sing a carol to herald the birth of Jesus, it is about a down and out woman returning to her childhood home and hoping for a small miracle. You can buy a copy of the anthology on Amazon here.

I was introduced to Bridge House Publishing when I attended the online launch of blogger Georgina Wright’s book Navaselva, The Call of the Wild Valley a lyrical and enchanting fable about animals which is also available on Amazon – you can find her blog here.

Traces

/ Andrea Stephenson / 66 Comments
Photo by Andrew Masters on Unsplash

The day we heard that the tree was gone, we could talk of nothing else. I felt sick when I read the news and there was a sense of disbelief among everyone I talked to. Someone had felled the tree at Sycamore Gap. It was an iconic tree, nestled in a hollow between hills on Hadrian’s Wall. I had never seen it in person and now never will. Many of us were angry at the wickedness of such an act and unable to fathom what could be gained from it.  But there was also grief. The raw finality of the stump that was left and the knowledge that the tree can’t be replaced. Tree time is different to human time. This tree was 300 years old and had seen so much compared to any of us.

A year on and the news is filled with the tree once more. 49 saplings grown from its seeds and known as ‘trees of hope’ will be offered to communities around the country. A local gallery displays parts of the trunk, and each visitor will be asked to pledge actions they will take for the environment.  Over the past year, prints and paintings have been created and poetry written, a blooming of creativity in response to loss. But these are all mitigating measures, small things we do to try to heal the grief of something that is no longer there. 

At this time of year, many of us think of our ancestors.  Some will set an empty place at the feast table to remember those who have gone.  I think of my aunt, who died this year, and the forget me not that is growing in the yard, a small reminder that she was here. 

I think about the gaps in the landscape and the traces left of what is lost.  In the park, I can still see the outline where an old tree was felled and dug out.  It has been gone for years, so to others, it might just be a piece of uneven ground, a gathering place for fallen leaves, but I remember the grandeur of the tree that once stood there.  There is a stump in the play area that belonged to a huge weeping ash.  The tree sheltered the area with trailing branches and the shape of and notches in its trunk tempted generations to climb it.  The poplar on the edge of the park that, to me, always looks like it is waving, has been brutally trimmed, leaving sky where there was foliage. New greenery sprouted briefly, before the leaves fell, so I hope that spring will bring a filling of the gaps. 

On the end of a house a climber that once covered the wall has left a trace behind it.  The shape of its stems are still clearly outlined.  Rain has left leaf prints on the pavement, soft brown silhouettes that remind me of the handprints in ancient cave art.

A year after Storm Babet, I walk along the fish quay sands.  It is a blowsy day, grey waves lined with spray sweeping onto the beach.  Babet has left gaps here. The dome of the lighthouse on the south pier was toppled and washed away.  Barriers were wrenched from concrete and hunks of stone torn asunder.  The piers are accustomed to a battering.  It took 50 years to build them originally as the sea relentlessly destroyed work that had been done.  Now, the groyne has vanished behind scaffolding and repairs are being carried out to the lighthouses and the piers.

Meanwhile, the Fiddlers’ Green fisherman gazes out to sea, remembering those lost to the waves.  A service was held recently to commemorate the Gaul trawler, which vanished 50 years ago off the coast of Norway.  36 crew died, most from Hull, and a handful from here.  Floral tributes adorn the fisherman, in memory of the lost.

I watch a skein of Canada geese gliding low and silent overhead, heading south, and wonder if they leave an emptiness where they come from.  Autumn is the season for letting go, when the charms and baubles of spring and summer disappear, leaving a landscape aching with space.  But landscape is a memory as well as a physical thing.  Behind the bare bones of winter, we can still imagine the abundance of spring.  In the traces left behind, we can remember what used to be.  The Sycamore Gap tree isn’t dead; it is already sprouting saplings from its ruined trunk.  None of us will see it return to what it once was, but we can trust that the memory of it will remain in the landscape, even as it grows into what it will become.

After

/ Andrea Stephenson / 71 Comments

We travel to the woods along rain-washed roads, driving into tunnels of spray created by the vehicles in front of us. The wipers work hard to clear torrents of water. The landscape is blurred with it, though there is a strange luminosity in the distant sky.

After the rain, respite. Sun gilds the landscape, but it is chilly enough to light the log burner. Leaves crackle from the trees. Along the footpaths, maples and beeches are already aflame. Tits chitter in the canopy. A robin flutes a sad melody. Far above, two buzzards glide, mewing. A speckled wood butterfly dances into the cabin. She flutters around me, as though in greeting, then darts back out again. She stays around the deck until I take Winston for a walk, when she follows me down the lane.

A day later and the rain returns. The sky weeps without restraint for twenty-four hours. Rain is a constant percussion on the roof, a spatter on the windows. It brings down drifts of leaves and pine needles. The robin offers bursts of subdued music, but the other birds are few and far between.

After the rain, wind. Grey clouds scud across vivid blue skies. Trees prance and wave. Leaves and pine needles drop like a second rain, this time of foliage. The deck is a patchwork of fallen leaves.

The birds are back. There are crows, somewhere, barking in the trees. The nuthatch is bold, shimmying down to take his fill of food, taking his time. The tits and the chaffinches are more skittish, darting to and from the trees with small morsels. A blackbird sits with me for at least an hour one afternoon, perched on the edge of the deck, watching, before finally eating his fill. And though his song is bold, the robin is shyest of all – his visits are few and quick.

After the forest, recovery. We leave a day early. Winston has injured his leg so we return to the familiarities of home to help him recuperate. It is the end of September and the season is turning, but autumn is not yet in full sway. We shore the exterior of the house for winter: varnishing wood, touching up paint, weeding and planting a few flowers to brighten the yard.

The sparrows that inhabit the privet at the end of the road have returned to full voice after their moult. In the park, crows collect the peanuts I scatter and bury them at a random spot a few metres away. The railings are a-scurry with aphids and ants, stalked by ladybirds. A black beetle strolls across the path and a cranefly bumbles past. A blackbird sings a quiet serenade. There is persistence before the winter pause, labour before the letting go. After the leaves fall, some will slumber. Others will continue their toil, hidden in mulch and soil, preparing the land for its re-awakening.