Purdown after Storm Darragh

Someone on Bluesky said that Storm Darragh sounded like someone wanted to say Storm Darren but then got hit by the storm. I remember the Great Storm of 1987 and the Burns' Day Storm of 1990 and it was nothing like as bad as them, but it was still pretty rough for a couple of days, Bristol being under a red storm warning.

In the three and a half weeks since, I've been up on Purdown - one of the highest points in Bristol - several times and have seen up to a dozen sizeable trees downed around the Stoke Park estate. It's been pretty sobering.

There are trees down in Long Wood ...

... Hermitage Wood ...

 

... Barn Wood ...

... and out in the grounds of Stoke Park. 

A fallen crow's nest

Unless they've fallen across a metalled path, downed trees in Stoke Park tend to be made safe - ie not likely to fall any further - and then left, so any sadness caused by the storm's iconoclasm is tempered by the knowledge that they will continue to provide habitat for local wildlife. Some trees that fell in earlier storms and remain partially rooted continue to leaf and flourish.

Preceding the storm, there was a lot of rain. The pools of standing water reminded me of the Wood between the Worlds in 'The Magician's Nephew' by C S Lewis; how, if you jumped into one of them, you'd find yourself plummeting through a portal into a different universe. 

The secret language of one of those other universes

gold leaf

There have been foggy days too ... 

... and even some bright days, with spectacular skies that are seen to their best advantage from Purdown. 

The Dower House

Looking east over Stapleton to Kelston Roundhill and south to the Mendips

Purdown Percy gun emplacements

Looking over west Bristol to Southmead Hospital ...

... and north to New Filton House, a view that will soon disappear when the houses have been built

Even the drab winter woods come alive when there's some light.

autumn and winter fungi

The work of the cherry gall wasp

Somehow, the deer are as invisible amongst the bare trees as they were in thick summer foliage, though they're clearly about.

Apart from the rose-ringed parakeets, the noisiest birds in the woods are the corvids. I missed the jay that was seen off by Cwtch but here are some crows and magpies.

What crow?

Magpies bonding through courtship feeding

A pie chart

There's still plenty of winter left, but the birds will soon be busying themselves and in another month, the days will be noticeably lighter. Roll on spring. 

Winter Solstice and Dressing Up as the Turbulence of Everywhere

I'm definitely not one for driving all the way across town in the rainy, rush-hour dark of December for a social gathering, but when the gathering in question is the warm and convivial Christmas edition of Under the Red Guitar at El Rincon in Bedminster, how can I resist?

Bob Walton and Dom Fisher giving great waistcoat

Guest poet Jonathan Edwards

Peter Gruffydd

The driver's single glass of Rioja

Attendees had been urged to wear something glitzy, an instruction all bar one of them ignored because you try instructing poets. Having resolved, a day or two earlier, not to air one of my poems from 'Love the Albatross' - estrangement isn't just for Christmas, after all - I dressed as the poem I'd decided to read instead, which was 'In the Meantime' by the late Yorkshire poet, John Foggin. It's an inversion of the tale told by the Venerable Bede about the sparrow flying through the mead hall, as a metaphor for the transience of life, and perfect for an hour or two in a room of light and warmth, with all the long dark just the other side of the window. 

Me, as the turbulence of everywhere, the thin smell of snow and the sparrow

But as mesmerising as this poem about the journey into darkness we're all making is, I still yearn for light this time of year, which is why, as I drove down into deepest Wiltshire at dawn the next morning, I was glad it was shaping up to be a fine day.

It was only the second time I'd driven my friend Jinny and her dog Millie from their narrowboat, which is currently moored near Trowbridge on the Kennet and Avon canal, to Pont Abraham services, west of Swansea, where her parents were due to pick them up and continue the onward journey to their home in West Wales, but already it's beginning to feel like a marker of the approaching solstice and the turning of the year. 

Disturbing a heron on the bank

sunrise

Jinny and I carried and wheelbarrowed all the things she and Millie would need during their stay in Wales along the grassy path from her boat to my car. Millie and I then waited in the car while Jinny shut up the boat and brought the last few things along. I loved watching Millie's delight as her beloved Jinny drew closer.

In the end our drive was patchy. From brilliant sun at Trowbridge, we hit rain around Bath, and it was a mixture of sun and stormy squalls with much spray all the along the M4 to Carmarthenshire and back. The stormlight and rainbows were lovely, but no photos, of course, on account of it being a road trip during which I was required to keep both hands on the steering wheel. 

Once back, I relieved Son the Elder of his dog-sitting duties and headed for Purdown with Cwtch, from where I could look back to Freezing Hill, about six miles north of Bath, past which I'd driven - twice - hours earlier. It still looked pretty stormy over there, but Cwtch and I were briefly bathed in midwinter light and We Saw that It was Good. 

Solstice tree