“I have seen tempests when the scolding winds have rived the knotty oaks.”
– William Shakespeare, ‘Julius Caesar’
In Old Norse, Knútr means knot. This has been translated to Knud in Danish, Knútur in Icelandic, and Knut in Norwegian, Swedish and German. The anglicised version is Canute … as in King Canute, the man who is famous for attempting to control the tide:
When he was at the height of his ascendancy, he ordered his chair to be placed on the sea-shore as the tide was coming in. Then he said to the rising tide, “You are subject to me, as the land on which I am sitting is mine, and no one has resisted my overlordship with impunity. I command you, therefore, not to rise on to my land, nor to presume to wet the clothing or limbs of your master.” But the sea came up as usual, and disrespectfully drenched the king’s feet and shins. So jumping back, the king cried, “Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no king worthyof the name save Him by whose will heaven, earth and the sea obey eternal laws.”
Henry of Huntingdon, ‘Historia Anglorum‘
But all that is an aside; what I’d really like to do is introduce you to Knútr. He’s a relatively new acquaintance of mine, but he’s fantastic. Knútr stands in the confines of Wayland Wood, right at the back in an old growth area. He’s a field maple, as per the tattered pennants of maple keys fluttering from his topmost branches, and his trunks stand guard around a central space where the ghost of an ancient trunk lingers. This is one of the most ancient patches of woodland in the UK with records of coppicing dating back to at least the 10th century (there are some ideas that it may have been here since the ice age, there have been artefacts found dating to the Neolithic period). Who knows what Knútr has seen; his current iteration may have only been around for decades, but his rootstock could have seen people from centuries ago.
In a couple of weeks, his feet will be covered by a sea of colour; the delicate pinkish-white of wood anemones, butter yellow primroses, the glossy, sunshine yellow of celandines and the soft, almost purplish blue of bluebells, but at the moment it’s all crunchy dry sepia leaves interspersed with the promise of bright green leaf shoots. A cold wind blows straight through the trees, colder somehow than it should be, perhaps because I usually spend much more time in this woodland later on in the year and I’m expecting something different.
Knútr’s trunks are gnarled and knotted with great circular bumps at intervals all the way up them. On closer inspection these bumps are formed from bundles of tiny twigs and buds springing from an underlying lump of wood. These are, I think, burrs (or burls if you’re either American or a woodworker); unusual growths on a tree which are caused by stress, fungus or viruses. It might seem like Knútr is deformed on the outside, but these growths create beautiful patterns in the grain and their wood is highly prized by woodworkers. Not that I’m going to chop him down or chisel out the wood, but it’s good to know that internal beauty lurks behind something that could be seen as ugly.
His burrs are adorned with wisps of bright green moss and the greyer green of lichen. There are mysterious holes amongst the twigs, like something escaped from inside. They make me think of galls, but everything I’ve read suggests that is not what these are. It’s easy to believe in magic when you stand here in this ancient space; to believe that fae creatures could have emerges from these holes and fluttered away, that these could be hatching chambers for winged beasts or a place for dryads to centre their being.
I leave Knútr to his contemplation of the world around him, and continue on my way. I’ll go back and visit again once the woodland has sprung a little further into spring.
“A book can be loved to death and not die. Look at how this one refuses to close. Place the weight of the world on it and it may stop demanding attention.”
– Z R Ghani, ‘The Art of Cloying’
So, in case you hadn’t already noticed, I’m a bit of a book nerd. I was not one of those kids that was taught to read at school, I’d already figured it out by then. Mostly because I couldn’t get other people to read enough stories to me and I was forced to take matters into my own hands. If people wouldn’t read to me often enough to suit my whims, then clearly the only thing to be done was to do it for myself!
Irritatingly, when I got to school, they insisted on “teaching” me to read all over again. And then they put me on a programme of scaled reading books. We moved a fair bit and I went to three different primary schools. And in each one I had to read the exact same books. Roger Red Hat, Billy Blue Hat and Johnny Yellow Hat were the worst form of torture for a child that was happily reading paperbacks at home. By the time I was doing this for the third time, I had whinged enough for mum to intervene. She stomped into school and told them they needed to let me free read because I was way beyond the limits of their (very limited) reading programme. Having reluctantly agreed, they were somewhat miffed when on the first day I rocked up with a battered copy of The Lord of the Rings that I was reading for the second time. My teacher at the time told me I couldn’t possibly be reading it and insisted that I read out loud to him to prove I could. It took two pages of fluent reading for him to finally back down and accept that I really didn’t need to know about children in coloured hats!
From that point forwards, there were no limits. Our house was full of books and I was both allowed and encouraged to read whatever I wanted. There were never limits of what I could choose; if it was on the shelves, I was welcome to give it a go. There were some mistakes along the way; in hindsight, Fahrenheit 451 at age 11 ish was probably a mistake. I never finished it, and haven’t ever gone back to it since.
Now I have my own house, there are just as many books in it. If I’m being completely honest, there might even be more! I have a towering TBR pile and about six books on the go at any given time. And that’s just the paper ones; my Kindle is also stuffed full of titles. Not that any of this stops me shopping for more … if anything, it just gives me an incentive to read more (such a hardship!).
A while ago, I heard about a place I was sure I wanted to visit. Just outside London, there’s a magical* book warehouse that opens to the public on two weekends a month. Called 66 Books, it sells everything at 70% off retail value. I visited for the very first time on my way back from Angers in November and it was the stuff that dreams are made on. A giant, two storey warehouse, packed with towering shelves, stuffed with books of every size, shape, colour, and genre you can imagine. Fiction. Non-fiction. Classics. Modern fiction. Cookbooks**. Sci-Fi. Crime. Fantasy. Nature Writing. You name it, they have it. The downside was the two hour queue in the freezing temperatures to get through the door, but the result was absolutely worth the pain.
*I mean, it must be magic, right?
**A definite weakness of mine – is there anything better than travel writing mixed with recipes?
I went again this past weekend with my friends … they might have been slightly miffed that I went without them the first time 🤷♀️. To avoid the queues, we stayed in Chigwell on Friday night and set off at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning. It worked … a ten minute queue (because we arrived before the doors opened) and we were in! The stock was different this time and filling my basket was not a difficult process. Last time, I had concentrated primarily on an aisle of non-fiction titles that could have been put together just for me. This time, I was determined to give myself some fiction to read … I need some slightly easier to read content at the moment. My brain is so fried from work, that anything complicated goes in one ear and out the other in seconds.
One large basket of books and a grand total of £48 later, my TBR pile has doubled and my anticipation levels are through the roof.
Hilariously, when we went into Hemel Hempstead for brunch, we walked past a Waterstones and just had to stop for a look. Ah well, if this is the worst I’m ever addicted to, I’ll take it as a win!
It was my first day back from my placement today and I wasn’t entirely looking forward to it. Don’t get me wrong; i love my school and my job, but I don’t love change, and even change back to how I want things to be is hard to deal with. So it was with a considerable amount of effort, and no small amount of muttering that I hauled my butt out of bed and dragged it in to school.
I arrived clutching a very large bag full of stuff (I’m not even sure where I’d accumulated most of it from), a pile of exam papers, some marked and some not, and a cup of tea.
I opened the door and …..
My classroom was a mess, my stuff had been dumped in the cupboard (in the middle of the floor, rendering my cupboard entirely unusable), everything had been shifted off my desk into a whacking great pile on the floor, and I hadn’t got a clue what I was supposed to be teaching for the day, given that the supply teacher hadn’t bothered leaving me any information about where she’d got up to (nice thanks for the pages of copious notes I’d left for her!!). I spent the first hour in a proper grump, stomping around swearing and putting things back the way they should be. I was focused on the negative; the things that were wrong.
And then Rosy appeared at the door. Her eyes lit up, she grinned and said, “Yes miss! You’re back. I can rant again!!”
And oh, did she rant! About rehearsals for the pantomime. About not having someone to rant to. About her medical issues. About the fact yhat the Assistant Principal wanted her to run assemblies for “Every. Single. Year. Group. Miss. Even Years 10 and 11!” I agreed that that would be scary. I listened, I offered support, I smiled. And as I did so, I could feel the strings of my bad mood loosening.
Tabitha appeared to collect the scone cutters I’d brought in for her (she’s the daughter of a friend and I’d had an emergency message on Saturday night). She picked the boring one … no flower shaped scones here! The dark cloud loosened its grip even further.
The SENDCo stuck her head round the door as she rushed past; “It’s so good to see you back. How are you doing?” We had a quick chat about an email I’d sent the previous week; she had read it the way I’d intended and not as if I was being a raging witch (phew). I was beginning to feel a little lighter.
Lee wandered in. “You’re back miss, it’s really good to see you.” He asked if I’d been teaching someone he knew at the other school. We established that no, I really hadn’t. He grinned and wandered back out again.
Kel bounced over in briefing, “It’s great to see you. Have you filled in the form for the Christmas do?” I hadn’t. I have now. She’d even remembered to ask about gluten free options and written down the information for me.
As I walked over to line-up my form looked faintly pleased to see me. They’re not that demonstrative, so I’m taking that as a major win. Grace quietly asked with a smile if it was OK with me if she moved seats, away from the very recent ex. I already knew what had happened and was prepared, “Of course.” Another smile. This is the girl that hated me a couple of years ago; we’ve made great strides forward. I told her she’d written some good stuff in her Lit mock and we chatted about her next steps on our way down to assembly. Even Dylan asked whether his mock was better than last time (it was, although I can’t tell them marks/grades yet) and then, even better participated in the lesson. I’ve been struggling to get him involved recently, so that was a joy!
My Year 9s regaled me with stories about the supply teacher. Even taking their stories with a large spoonful of salt, things hadn’t gone particularly well. Alice told me that she felt like the teacher had made fun of her when she asked a question, “Not like you miss. You make me feel like I can actually do English.” Freya agreed, “She just told us things. You explain them so we understand.” We talked Jane Eyre and found some of the gaps in their knowledge. I told them we’d be doing some extended writing in the next few lessons, to explore some ideas they’ve missed and they good-naturedly groaned. I feel like we have a plan of attack now … and it seems they’re all on board.
Sal popped in to give me my cupboard key back. “God, it’s good to have you back. I think this is the right key. I’ve still got your poppy wreath in my room.” She talked me through how they used my wreath as part of the Remembrance Day celebrations. Not bad for a paper wreath I made with my form about eight years ago, although I may need to update it soon.
In afternoon line-up, Jasmin handed me a small blue duck, “It’s 3D printed, miss.” He’s joined the duck army in pride of place, next to the one Tori made for me out of modelling foam.
By the end of the day, I had been greeted by so many people, I’d lost count. Maybe I’m not quite as invisible as I sometimes feel. I certainly felt that my absence had been noted and that maybe, just maybe, I’d left a bit of a hole when I wasn’t there. It’s nice to feel seen and appreciated after a few weeks during which I felt very isolated.
For all my frustrations with the place … for all my whinges … for all the little niggles I have … it’s really good to be home.
Last week, part way through a week that was shaping up to be at least a decade long, I got a message from my sister:
In case it wasn’t clear, my sister does not work in education and can book her holidays whenever she wants to … she is continuously frustrated that I can’t do the same. I was however, intrigued by her brainwave. Sometimes, I’m much better at bringing ideas into reality than she is. What did she have in mind, and did I want to make it happen?
It turned out her brainwave was that we could head over to Angers and catch the second round of the Continental Cup, thereby ticking off a new rink on our list, supporting a coach that used to be part of the Nottingham Panthers organisation, and getting away from our responsibilities for the weekend. So many wins! I set to work and very soon had a set of flights, tickets for the Saturday games, an Airbnb booking, a hire car, and a parking place at Gatwick. It’s amazing what can be achieved in a short space of time when you’re properly motivated. It had been a very long Tuesday and some escapism was much needed. Our plans did involve a couple of stupidly early mornings, but it felt like it was worth it.
We arrived in Nantes a good half an hour earlier than expected, thanks to a lead-footed pilot and an enthusiastic tailwind. As we flew in over the city, I was looking at the traffic with a slightly nervous feeling; I knew that very shortly I had to wrestle, not only with a left hand drive car, but also with an automatic. I hadn’t driven an automatic in twenty odd years and I hate them. Give me a manual car every time! But car hire firms seem to be increasingly moving towards automatic only, especially in Europe, so it seems that I shall also have to move with the times. *sigh*
It turned out that driving an automatic was nowhere near as bad as I feared it would be. More terrifying was the fact that, if I was driving, Ali was in charge of navigation. Anyone who knows her, knows that her sense of direction is fundamentally flawed. She’s the only person I know who regularly goes round roundabouts twice, “just to see what her options are,” trusts her SatNav implicitly, and once turned up at my house via “a road with a ford”. I’m still looking for that ford, even though she found it about six years ago.
We managed to find our way into Angers, which on a Saturday morning was absolutely hotching. We even managed to find the Airbnb with no issues … apart from my sanity being a little tested by French driving! Unfortunately, while the Airbnb host had not lied about the copious amount of parking next to the apartments, it had slightly slipped his mind to mention the copious numbers of cars parked in the copious number of spaces. We drove round in circles (literally) for quite some time before somebody finally left and I could manoeuvre into a space with a sigh of relief.
Apparently, even when planning and booking in a hurry, I am reasonably good at sourcing convenient* accommodation for our adventures. The rink was a mere five minutes walk in a straight line from the flat. Excellent news when you’re with the world’s most geographically challenged person. We went straight down to the IceParc to do a quick recce before heading out to explore the city centre.
*Let’s never mention the stay in Rouen where our Airbnb was about three hundred yards from the rink … as the crow flies. It nevertheless took us twenty five minutes solid walking to reach it, due to an inconveniently placed river and a lack of pedestrian access on the nearest bridge!
Angers is a very strange mix of modern and ancient and is very, very sporty. There was a cycle race taking place while we were there, so many rowers on the river that we briefly wondered whether that was an event as well, an international ice hockey tournament and, I believe, a football match as well. All the way through the city, there was signage for something called ‘Le Trail de L’Apocalypse’, along with countless road closures. This was slightly perturbing; it’s never good to discover that you’ve arrived somewhere just in time for the apocalypse, and even less good when they seem to have planned for it. Some quick investigation revealed that this was actually a nighttime running event that takes place in the city every year. On top of all this, there was also a huge fairground set up along both sides of the river … Angers was clearly the place to be that weekend!
When we finally worked out the time difference and figured out the timings of the games, we headed back in that direction. The rink had an amazing atmosphere. I know the French like a good son et lumière exhibition, and this was a really good one. A full blown light show was projected onto the ice at the start of the home team’s match, the music was loud and the fans were outstanding.
The Ducs d’Angers were playing Gyergyoi HK in the evening match. We were there to support Angers. It might seem weird … I mean, after all, they were playing for a place in a tournament that Nottingham are both a part of and hosting in January. We knew that we would conceivably be playing them in that tournament. But Angers almost feels like an extension of our club; its Head Coach, Jonathan Parades, was our Head Coach during one of the worst times in our club’s history and we all still feel a great connection to him. After all, ‘Once a Panther, always a Panther’. It really didn’t take long for us to get swept up in the emotions of the game. There’s nothing better than a hockey match when you have skin in the game and really care about the outcome. We jumped up and down, shouted a lot, held our breath when the Romanians got a bit too close, and exhaled when our netminder stood firm.
The Ducs won that game, along with all their others and will be joining us in Nottingham in January, along with the victors of the afternoon game HK Mogo. Because they won, they’ll be in a different group to us, but it’s entirely possible that we’ll face each other in one of the final games. I haven’t entirely worked out how I’m going to cheer for that one, but it will no doubt be a memorable event!!
Despite what the name sounds like (I mean, both my sister and I refer to them every day as the Ducks 🦆), it actually means ‘Dukes’, referencing the historical lineage of the Dukes of Anjou who are associated with the region and city of Angers, ruling both in the middle ages. They were also the forerunners of the Plantagenet line who went on to become kings of England between 1154 and 1485. However, the logo and mascot of les Ducs are based on the French name for an eagle owl which is ‘grand-duc’.
All in all, a very good weekend.
This was one of the buildings in a sprawling hospital campus.I’ve never seen such a fancy health care building.I rather liked the silhouette of these seeds against this old building.This medieval shrine was beautifully juxtaposed against its modern surroundings.The Cathédrale Saint-Maurice d’Angers isbeing renovatedat the moment, but even that added to the effect of the city.Église Notre-Dame des Victoires de Angers, next to an absolutely fabulous organic cooperative.The Palais Episcopal adjoining the cathedral.The Pont de Verdun crossing the river with some gloriously yellow foliage as accent colours.
“Go to the streets that you have never been to! Wander in the places that you have never known! There is light in the hidden corners of life too! Expand your frontiers and the frontiers will expand you!”
– Mehmet Murat İldan
It’s a weird thing that I live so close to London (it only takes about an hour and a half to drive down to the closest tube station) and don’t take advantage of the fact more often. I think I’ve still got a bit of a northern attitude to ‘the big smoke’, namely that it’s something that should be avoided at all costs! It’s something I really need to work on; every single time I make my way down, I have a great time exploring. There’s just so much to see, do, and experience.
This time, I wanted to visit the Horniman Museum. I’ve seen so many posts about it and wanted to see for myself. Irritatingly, the nature gallery was closed for refurbishment during half term, but never mind. I enlisted company in the form of Sal and off we went. The drive down to Redbridge was easy … even the traffic on the M11 was manageable! We’d even figured out in advance what route we needed to take through the maze of tube stations between us and our goal. I know it makes me sound like an utter tourist, but the magic of entering a tube station and being able to emerge anywhere in the capital with just a swipe of my card never gets old. Don’t get me wrong, I’d hate to actually have to deal with it on a daily basis, but as a visitor, it’s fascinating. All those people to watch.
The Museum gardens were fantastic, even in autumn where the huge flowerbeds were much more about texture than the flowers that have clearly been present all summer.
Autumn colour was beginning to shine. I loved this Hornbeam Maple tree where just one branch seemed to have jumped on the autumn train. Like an Andy Goldsworthy installation, there was such distinct separation between green and orange and the perfect pleating of each leaf showed off their colour. Looking at trees like this, I always wonder what made that particular branch declare it to be autumn and dive, leaves first, into the new season. And what’s the response of the other branches; censure or envy? Personally, I feel this branch should be the envy of all its friends; it looks glorious!
Further through the gardens, we could see two housing blocks riding the woodland seas like cruise liners. Beyond them was the skyline of Central London with the Shard, Walkie Talkie, and Gherkin all visible (sadly, not in this photo, but I promise I could see them).
Inside the museum, we were not disappointed. The collections are eclectic to say the least, with a variety of ‘things’ from countries around the world. This is a carved tusk displayed in the Canadian section of the ‘World Gallery’. I loved the story of exploration told by the tiny figures and the naïvety of their design. They make me want to draw my own adventures in a similar style.
The natural history gallery may have been closed but they still had some on display, including this collection of shieldbugs … and I do love a good shieldbug! Although I would much prefer to see them in the wild, there’s something very evocative of world exploration in these carefully labeled collections. A whiff of Victorian pomposity, pipe smoke, and carefully regulated excitement about new discoveries from the natural world clings to the beautiful wooden cases. If only people still had that same excitement about species discovery … albeit preferably without the urge to pin every new species down inside a display case!
On the way back across London, I found a new friend; a toddler in a very large pram was inexplicably much more interested in me than she was in the video her mum was playing on her phone. She spent the journey in on the Windrush line staring at me incredulously. It was like being back at work! 😂 All in all, it was a day of adventure, of exploring new places and expanding my frontiers in the company of a good friend to talk rubbish with.
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”
– William Blake
This is a new acquaintance of mine; I’d like you to meet Cyrus.
(Of course he’s called Cyrus. After all, his name in Latin is Pyrus pyrasta and we all know about the joys of alliteration. What other name could he claim half so well?)
It’s an illustrious name, associated with Persian kings, most notably Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire in 550BC. It’s thought the name comes from the Old Persian Kūruš, meaning, depending on who you ask, ‘the Sun’, ‘like Sun’, ‘young’, ‘hero’, and ‘humiliator of the enemy in verbal contest’. I rather like that last one; it feels like the kind of name a person (or tree) could be proud of.
Cyrus is a wild pear … and his very being sparked a vivid memory of my own idiocy. Earlier this year, when mum and I were walking in Fife, we found a huge community woodland full of apple and pear trees. Because of a complete and utter lack of any signage, it took us a while to realise that they were planted trees; we initially thought they were naturalised, until the sheer number of them made that theory distinctly unlikely. It suddenly occurred to me that, to the best of my knowledge, I’d never seen a wild pear. Wild apples, yes; crab-apple trees are ten a penny in the UK and Norfolk has more than its fair share. But wild pear, not so much. When I wondered out loud whether pear trees grew wild in Britain, mum scoffed, “Where do you think the cultivated ones came from??” Okay, so in hindsight, it was a daft question, but seriously, I’d never seen one!
Last weekend, when I was walking down Procession Lane, a Roman road just outside North Pickenham that forms part of the Peddar’s Way, I happened to spot this tree. Cyrus jumped out at me (not literally, it isn’t Halloween yet!) primarily because of that gloriously twisted trunk, looking like he’d just turned around to glance over a shoulder at something behind him, arms flung dramatically wide to protest some perceived insult. There’s something very dynamic about him, a sense of movement that’s been frozen only momentarily.
At first I thought he was an apple tree. There were, after all, small spherical-ish green fruits scattered amongst the leaf litter all around it. It was only when I poked around a little bit closer that I realised the fruits I was seeing were rather more pear-shaped* than spherical. They weren’t large, only about five or six centimetres in length and were forming the basis of a solid meal for many small squidgy things and a very dapper stripy millipede. (Mental note: I really must get back a little earlier next year to see if they’re edible to humans as well.) So, maybe that’s why I’ve ‘never seen’ a wild pear; maybe I’ve just been writing them off as apple trees and never looking close enough to realise I’m wrong.
*As an aside, following a quick google sparked by that last sentence, the word for pear-shaped is pyriform. So when something ‘goes pear-shaped’, one could in fact say it’s gone pyriform!
Most of the lower leaves had fallen, beautifully coloured in autumnal shades of yellow, orange, red, and bronze. A thick layer of them carpeted the area around Cyrus’ feet; the most glorious Persian rug.
“The sunlight claps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me?”
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
This introduction is a little delayed; it’s been a few weeks since I took these photos. Back when the days were warm and the leaves were solidly green. Before the slight chill, damp skies, and browning leaves that are gracing our forests now.
To one side of the path, two oak trees lean into one another in a warm embrace, limbs intertwined, leaves fluttering together in the light breeze.
But these aren’t social media personalities; they’re not doing this for a selfie or just to be publically seen together. They’re doing it for themselves. These two are George and Mabel, inhabitants of a different age. They’re not too closely entwined; their feet are kept slightly apart as if to maintain a certain standard of decorum. They’ve been together for an age. So long in fact that they’ve started to become one entity. Branches that have leaned on each other for so long have fused together, their relationship cemented as their very matter combines.
They are so committed to one another that they are literally sharing their life blood, their nutrients, and water.
Like any couple, George and Mabel had their problems at first; they butted heads and chipped chunks out of each other when they fought. Gradually, over the years, they wore each other’s corners down. The wounds were there, but their relationship was strong enough to bring them together and hold them there.
This tree (these trees?) gives me a sense of warmth, comfort, and solidity.
It’s called inosculation, this phenomenon. Caused when the branches of two trees repeatedly rub together; over time, the bark of both wears away leaving wounds, and then when the inner cambrium touches, it fuses together, exactly like a deliberate graft.
“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
On our way back from Kelso, we decided to stop and take a quick walk up to the top of Sweethope Hill. The map (as it often does) claims that there is a fort and settlement at the top, but we know from past experience that evidence of these is often limited to a couple of bumps in the turf and some scattered rocks that may or may not have been worked. That’s the joy of speculative exploration; the knowledge that there probably isn’t anything to find, but the irrepressible hope that this is the time that we’ll round a corner, or climb a hill, or descend a slope, and there will be something spectacular in front of us. That hope is what keeps life interesting.
This time there really wasn’t very much to show for the map’s notation (it really was just a couple of grassy bumps and a dry stone wall forming a square enclosure) but, on the way up to the top of the hill, I met Uisdean.
Perched steadily atop the remains of a dry stone wall, Uisdean stood sentry at the furthest reaches of the approach to the fort. The name Uisdean means ‘forever stone’ in Scottish Gaelic, and it certainly seems to fit. The stones beneath his roots anchor him to this place and seem to anchor him in time as well. It’s easy to imagine that he has been there, standing guard, for centuries. But then, when immersed in the Scottish landscape, it often has a curiously timeless quality, like the ghost of the past is superimposed over the modern day. All those stories about people getting lost in other realms, in other times, seem much more credible when you’re perched on a windswept hillside that hasn’t changed in hundreds of years.
His roots clung tenaciously to their rocky perch, snaking between the stones and melding wood with stone in stalwart alliance. In one place, it was difficult to see where wood finished and stone began, only the twisting ripples of the roots giving the game away.
As I approached this gnarled and twisted tree, his inner strength became even more obvious. The trunk that looked so sturdy from a distance revealed itself to be a mere shell, a trick of the light. At least half of it had been sheared off in some long ago catastrophic event, taking its branches with it. The remnants were cracked, split, scored, and coated with a silvery skin of lichen. Insects had bored so many holes into his body that it seemed impossible that he was still standing.
And yet, Uisdean was crowned with a thick, green, healthy shock of leaves. Even at the height of an unusually hot and dry summer, he had the strength to produce and maintain deep green foliage. It seemed youthful, carefully coiffed as if he had spent time grooming himself, presenting the best face he could, ready for duty.
Who is he waiting for? Who is he guarding against? Is that a Pictish war cry I hear, floating on the wind across the tops?
“Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that’s always changing!”
– Kenneth Grahame, ‘The Wind in the Willows‘
I’ve just got back from five days ‘messing about on the river’ … or at least, the canal … in Northamptonshire.
My lovely friends booked a narrowboating holiday to celebrate my disturbingly large birthday this year, and we have all been waiting impatiently since December for the date to arrive. Well, it finally did, so we loaded up the car with everything we thought we’d need and headed over to Napton Junction to pick up our home from home.
Now I have to say here that the premise of this holiday was based on the slightly erroneous information that I used to work for a theatre company who tour by narrowboat and would therefore know exactly what I was doing on a narrowboat. Sadly for all of us, while the fact that I worked for said theatre company was absolutely correct, I was based in a (very) landlocked office in Marsden and have never driven a narrowboat in my life! It did feel like a very good omen that, on arrival at the boatyard, the first thing I saw was a poster for the theatre company that are still going strong. If you are in the area and get the chance to see them either here or anywhere else, I can highly recommend this amazing company!
We also discovered at this point that the recent hot weather had devastating consequences for Britain’s waterways, huge chunks of the canal system were closed completely, and there were lock restrictions on most of the rest. Some locks were closed during the day and only allowed traffic through for short periods in the morning and evening, and some were closed until late morning and only open during the middle of the day. This didn’t seem to have deterred anyone, though; they just seemed to have shifted onto the bits that were open and carried on. Our new route was mostly open (it had a couple of restrictions), so we were good to go.
On the drive over, we had many conversations about possible routes that we could take and had come up with a grand plan to follow the Grand Union Canal from Napton Junction, through Leamington Spa and into Warwick where we could visit the castle before returning the same way. We very proudly told the men at the boatyard this plan … and then watched their faces freeze slightly as they tried to find a tactful way to tell us that we were having a laugh and there was no way a bunch of novices could manage to navigate that far in the time we had available. They managed to be more diplomatic than that, and a new plan was implemented. We would head along to Braunston before turning up the Oxford Narrow* Canal towards Hillmorton and Rugby, where we would turn around for the return trip.
*A key piece of information here … and not one that we entirely took on board straight away.
After a VERY short introduction to boating, we were turned loose on our narrowboat and off we puttered. Something that I certainly hadn’t thought about previously (and I’m pretty sure none of the others had either) was exactly how one goes about steering a rigid steel box that is fifty four** feet long through a waterway that has definite bends in it. The boat has no brakes, is steered from the back, and it’s impossible to see the front from the tiller. It’s not as easy as it sounds. And it doesn’t sound that easy.
**Keep that number in mind; it becomes very important later on in this story … that’s fifty-four feet.
We did a little bit of richocheting from bank to bank. And a tiny bit of richocheting off another stationary boat, but the less said about that, the better! In our defence, it wasn’t much of a hit, the owners were there, and we apologised profusely and repeatedly. Mostly, we did OK. We (I say ‘we’, but at this point, I was mostly just sitting and watching the banks go past while trying to stay out of the way!) wombled our way along to the junction of the Grand Union and the Oxford Narrow at Braunston feeling very much like we were getting the hang of this. And then Braunston came into view. Two white bridges, each at a 45° angle to our current waterways, with the path through each cluttered with boats, both moving and moored. It was frankly terrifying. But it had to be done, and we had to get through, so we womaned up, took a deep breath, gritted our teeth, and steered for our lives.
By the time we got to the other side, we needed a stiff drink, but we made it. And … it was about this time that the first key piece of information mentioned previously came into play. We had just turned on to the Oxford Narrow Canal. That’s ‘narrow’, as in ‘less wide’. As in less room to manoeuvre, and less room between us and oncoming boats. Sometimes, there was very little room between us and the moored boats, and we still needed to fit an oncoming boat in as well. For some reason, the width of the Oxford Narrow is variable, with some bits being incredibly wide and others having maybe a couple of inches to spare on either side of our boat. And it’s criss-crossed with bridges. None of which are at a sensible angle across the canal and all of which require a whole load of wiggling the tiller backwards and forwards to get us under. What was a challenge on the Grand Union became somewhat fraught on this bit. We did, however, manage to find a mooring (that was large enough for us to park in) relatively close to Braunston and get moored for the night … before heading speedily for the nearest pub, a large G&T, and some food.
The following morning got off to a lovely, peaceful start as we sat in the galley with bacon butties and coffee. We watched a number of boats putter on by before I suddenly noticed that the stern line had detached itself from the bank, and we were slowly pivoting to block the canal. Thank heavens this hadn’t happened in the middle of the night as I cannot imagine the horror of waking up to find that we’d inadvertently blocked navigation along auch a busy waterway. We would not have been popular! As it was, we all swiftly leapt into action and brought the boat back round towards the bank, albeit with the central line, before casting off and heading northwards. We’re pretty sure no one saw us, so no embarrassing explanations were required.
Our second day went marginally more smoothly than the first; we made our way between boats and bank and under bridges without too many issues. Apart from the fact that we were doing it in the pouring rain. We were fully equipped with waterproofs, it was just a shame that those waterproofs weren’t entirely up to the job. I, for one, may as well have wrapped myself in tissue paper for all the good my raincoat was. Luckily, the sun came out fairly quickly, and we could shed a few layers and hang them up to dry. We made our way down to Hillmorton Locks, finally feeling like we were succeeding at the boating life.
There are three double locks here, and they were a doddle. We functioned as a well-oiled machine, even managing to cope with the fact that the boat load of day-trippers in front of us were an absolute set of clowns who had been drinking for a while and very nearly lost several of their party into the locks. The boat coming through in the other direction, however, was crewed by a lovely couple who lived on their boat all summer and swanned off to New Zealand in winter. They chatted happily after I offered to help open gates for them to get through instead of them running around madly. We also worked together to close up the lock that the clowns in front had left wide open. We wished them a fantastic day and headed down to the next set of locks. Apart from the fact that the windlasses on this lock required superhuman strength, we managed it perfectly again. The third set of locks were staffed by someone from the Canals and Rivers Trust who sadly managed to be incredibly, and unnecessarily, patronising, talking to us as if we were incapable of rational thought and hadn’t just managed to come through the previous two sets of locks with zero assistance from anyone else. I don’t know about anyone else, but I find men who talk to me as if I’m stupid by virtue of my gender almost unbearable, so I had to remove myself from the temptation of replying! We were so proud of ourselves that afternoon as we found a perfect mooring spot and secured ourselves to the bank much more securely than the previous day. Never again were we going to float away.
On the third day, the plan was to head up past Rugby, find a winding circle in which to turn around, and then make our way back to somewhere before Braunston. This would leave us a sensible amount of distance to complete on the final day so that we could moor up, ready to return the boat first thing on Monday.
This was a fantastic plan, and it started so well. Until we got to the turning round portion of the day’s activities. We followed the maps on two different apps; one on an iPhone and one Android equivalent. Weirdly, each of these located winding holes in slightly different places. That was the first problem. The second problem was that the first winding hole we came across was absolutely chock-a-block with moored boats and therefore unusable. We really didn’t want to go too far because it would give us even further to go and a very long day, so we were beginning to look a little worried. We were also a little nervous about how we would actually go about turning our giant boat. So when we finally located a winding hole, it was with slightly mixed emotions.
We pulled up our big girl pants and asked ourselves how hard it could be … which, as it turns out, was a VERY stupid question. As a very stoned hippy, smelling strongly of weed plonked himself down on a bench to watch, Helen confidently steered right towards the V shaped notch and then, when the centre of the boat was in the centre of the canal, started to reverse to make the boat pivot gently around the centre point. And this is where the second, previously mentioned, piece of key information comes into play. As we started pivoting, we realised that this was a very snug fit. In fact, we weren’t entirely sure we were going to fit. Tory gestured frantically from the front of the boat, telling us urgently that we needed to stop. Well, that wasn’t happening … narrowboats don’t have brakes. And there was no backwards space to put her into reverse. So we carried on floating forwards. Swearwords were said. Loudly.
“Bring the bargepole!”
I sprinted through the boat with the bargepole (which is much more difficult than it sounds as the path through the boat wasn’t straight and the bargepole was solid wood and didn’t bend!), emerged at the bow and gaped. The bow of the boat was wedged in between the two bright orange floats that blocked an old canal channel. We were going nowhere. We were, in a word, stuck! On investigation, the fender was the problem. We just needed a little bit of space to pull the fender up, and I was pretty sure we could get round.
“Helen, can you give us two inches space?”
The reply was inaudible, but very, very definitely negative. So, we pushed, we shoved, we wiggled, and we finally managed to shift the floats just far enough back that we could pull the fender up. Tory and I then used the bargepole to physically shove the bow of the boat round, inch by painful inch (through an overhanging willow tree) until we were facing more or less in the right direction. It was at about this point that we realised that the gods were smiling down; thanks to the intermittant drizzle, the enormous pub beer garden that was right in front of us was blessedly empty. We could hear Helen and Sal at the stern talking to various passers-by who had stopped to “assist,” but couldn’t hear details. We just kept going until Helen finally managed to find enough water to start running the engine very gently and correct our course.
We’d made it. It was only when we had a chance to regroup that we discovered that, according to one of our audience, we had just turned a fifty-four foot boat round in a fifty foot winding hole. Which feels like an achievement. Or a bad dream.
Poor Helen then had to try and work her way past another boat, which had pulled up on the wrong side of the canal and wanted to get past. As she was passing us, the crew member told us that she was crewing on her own, her boat wasn’t able to reverse, and she couldn’t see. Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up. After that, we pulled in, moored up temporarily, and put the kettle on. We needed it.
Sal took over on the tiller (while Helen took some much needed deep breaths), and on we went. As Tor and I were cleaning up inside, we became aware that there was a boat about four inches off the left-hand side of the boat … and another about four inches off the right-hand side. I don’t know how Sal got through the stretch through Clifton without hitting anything, but I am seriously impressed. After that, everything else was easy.
Hillmorton locks were slightly more challenging on the way up (the water shoves you around a lot more than when you’re going down), but we managed. The hose to fill up our water tanks was the slowest I’ve ever seen, but we got there. The turn coming back under the bridge at Braunston was more harrowing than in the other direction, especially when we were accompanied by a family of swans who seemed to be a little suicidal, but Helen was incredible and we didn’t hit anything. Mooring up on both remaining nights felt familiar and easy, and we smashed it.
We’re never going to talk about having to manoeuvre the boat back into its moorings in the boat yard at Napton Junction … backwards. Suffice it to say that the instructions we were given were brief and insufficient! To be fair, the boatyard staff were working to not only get all the returning boats back into the boatyard, but also trying to get all the new hires out of the yard before the lock closed at 10.00am. They were ridiculously busy and looking a little frayed around the edges, so they perhaps didn’t have time to instruct us further.
All in all, we had a great time, but I can honestly say that it wasn’t the calm, relaxing type of holiday. Never let anyone tell you that ‘messing around on the river’ is peaceful. It is hard work. On the other hand, I may be able to imagine a world where I moved all my stuff onto a boat and pottered around. I just have to figure out where to put all my books.
“The hugeness of the cedar rose in front of the mountain, its shade was beautiful, full of comfort; mountain and glade were green with brushwood.”
– ‘Epic of Gilgamesh‘
As you drive up through Saham Toney, the road flowing sharply left past St George’s Church and then sharply right again, you drive under one of my favourite trees. It’s a road I follow often, providing a quick route up to King’s Lynn and one of the few sensibly sized exits from Norfolk*.
*For the uninitiated, it’s an absolute bugger to get out of Norfolk going directly west if you have any form of time constraint. There are little roads, sure, but they’re not particularly direct, take time to navigate, and are subject to the whims of any and all kinds of weather; fog, snow, flooding, etc. The quick (and I use this word advisedly in both cases!) exits lead out north-west along the A17 and south-west along the A11.
The road curves to follow along the side of the church, and as it does so, it seems to duck under the low spreading canopy of an old Cedar of Lebanon (Cedruslibani). Branches arch up and across the road, gently cradling and protecting anything passing underneath. The deceptively thick foliage means that these wide branches provide a brief respite from either sun or rain once you’re underneath them.
Despite my fondness for this tree, it seems overly frivolous to assign her a name; her status as a protector is in itself more central to her being than a mere name. There’s a solidity to her, a sense of reliability, of stability that transcends time.
She’s a native of the hot, dry climes of Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. I wonder how she came here and how she feels about it. It must be strange to come from hot dry heat and sienna hues and find yourself in the damp green of rural Norfolk. Even in a heatwave, the humidity is so higher than she must be used to. Her home is in the Taurus mountains of the south-eastern Mediterranean, and the land here is just so flat. Although the church is at the top of a slight rise, she must wish for the lofty peaks and cooling breezes of her native land. How isolated must she feel in this strange land?
And yet, her branches reach out, striving for a closer connection with the people around her, striving for a concrete link with her environment. But, how many people have walked or driven underneath her without ever noticing her presence as something more than a green backdrop? How many passers by even realise she’s there? How many fewer realise that she’s not a native tree? That she’s a visitor to our land?
Well, I see her. I feel the connection she’s so desperate for. I greet her as I drive by, admire the jaunty upwards curve at the tips of her boughs, her deep, dark green, and the sturdy brown cones starting to appear, scattered through her topmost reaches.
Maybe she does need a name … I think perhaps Maryam might suit. An Arabic version of Mary, bridging the gap between the Arabic language of her homeland and the faith of the church in whose land she stands. I’ll ask her what she thinks next time I’m up that way.
absolutelynotnormal 