View from an unnamed road

The school I work at is in the process of relocating; at least, the primary classes are. On my first day working there, the bursar mentioned in passing that there was this move in the offing, inserting the words 'of course', as if somehow I should have known about it by osmosis. I asked where to, to be told 'no idea yet, could be anywhere in Bristol really'. And since I didn't have a car at that time, and hadn't driven for 20 years, and one of the main reasons I'd taken the job was because I could walk to it from my then home, I was a bit miffed I hadn't been told about it at interview stage. This was in 2007. The move has been a long time coming. 

A lot has happened since then. For some reason, bursars are now known as school business managers, and following the derailment of my marriage, I acquired a car, plus a dog, which meant I no longer walked to work but drove so that I could get home more quickly to walk him. And years later my dog died, God love him, and now I have another, around whom my partner and I continue to arrange our work and transport. 

Anyway, back to the school, which is on an unnamed road (something that caused issues when giving directions over the years). My last day there was supposed to be Monday, as I was having the day off on Tuesday to go to my graduation ceremony in Manchester. And it was very lovely that on this day, the magpies who throng the school's beautiful grounds left two feathers as a farewell gift. 

But then it didn't get to be my last day, as the person currently holding the position of school business manager asked me to go in on Wednesday and Thursday too, as the woman I job share with is recuperating from an operation.  So I said I could come in on the mornings of both of those days, but not all day because of the dog, and I might have to come in later than 8am on Thursday because of the rail strike and getting my partner to Cardiff, where he works, if there are no trains. And that was fine, or at least better than nothing. So in I went on Wednesday, and Laura and I watched the hatchling gulls who live on the roof. 

And in the afternoon I went briefly to the shopping mall and failed to get my phone battery replaced, and then home to the dog. It was then I took a hilarious tumble in the back garden. Well, it would have been hilarious if anyone had seen it, but no one did - at least, I don't think they did, as no one called 'Are you OK?' over the fence - for which I was quite thankful, as it would have been rather embarrassing, and also not thankful, as, if I'd been badly hurt with my phone battery on the blink, I could have been there for some time. It happened like this. The dog needed a pee, so I took her out on an extendable lead because the hedging plants we planted in May don't yet constitute a hedge and the foxes have dug a tunnel under the chain link fence, which she could quite plausibly get through herself and then fail to return. At this point, she saw a cat and belted after it, and I grabbed the hand rail to steady myself, but the hand rail turned out to have been stuck in earth rather than concrete and didn't withstand the force of border collie after cat, and I went flying off the side of the steps and half way across the garden with the lead in one hand and the hand rail in the other, landing on my ribs. I don't really blame the dog - most of what the previous owners installed in our house was bodged, and she was only doing her job - but at the same time, I didn't raise her to be an ailurophobe.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that I didn't go back to the primary school site on the Thursday (and the Northerner missed a day's work) because of the pain in my ribs and needing to rest before I winced my way into town on Friday to run my poetry group, so I didn't actually get to say goodbye to it, knowing it was the last time I'd be there. So to make up for it, here's a post with some photos I've unearthed whilst reclining on the Settee of Suffering, taken over the 16 years I worked there. Hopefully they give an inkling of what a privilege it was to work in such a special location. 

There have been snow days over the years, but rarely on the days I worked for some reason, so I was lucky to capture our beautiful trees covered in the stuff.  

Also in winter, at the time of the shortest days, sunrise coincided with our arrival and sunset our departure.

Sunrises ... 

... and sunsets

The sunsets look even better taken from the aforementioned unnamed road. 

And here's some yarrow blooming one day in early December some years ago at the edge of our playing field that fronts onto the same road.

And the wildlife: crows, jackdaws and ravens; squirrels; badgers that have built setts in the grounds; foxes, gulls and magpies (whom I don't appear to have photographed, sorry, beautiful birds); not to mention Milo the Cat, who often sauntered into the building for a bit of attention ... 

 

... and jays out through the office window ... 

... and every once in a while, green woodpeckers - descendants of the first to come, back in 2012 perhaps, or maybe even the same birds each time, as they are long-lived and always a joy to see.

It's also goodbye to the wider area of Southmead, where I've worked for the last 24 years. I'll miss the crows watching me from the shop roofs while I collect the bread from Greggs for Breakfast Club in the mornings.

Of course, schools aren't places or locations, they're the children who learn in them and the adults who shape and support that learning, and our school is going to go from strength to strength in a state-of-the-art building that will be a much more suitable environment, especially for our pupils, who are deaf. It might not have its own woodland, but at least there won't be any need to put signs up telling people to avoid the rainwater pouring through holes in the roof. (Hopefully.) 

A little weirdly for me, it's co-located with the same school my father attended 97 years ago, which is something I would have liked to have told him.  It's also within walking distance of my home, so on fine mornings I'll wander through the churchyard, over playing fields and across the park to get there, accompanied by the Northerner and our dog, and in winter we'll watch the sun rise over the Cotswolds and it will be a lovely way to start my working day. 

A MAd dash to Manchester

I wore my bee earrings to my graduation ceremony in Manchester, as Chris Palmer and Jinny Peberday of Skyravenwolf had given them to me and I probably wouldn't have even enrolled for my MA at Manchester Writing School without Jinny's insistence I'd regret it if I didn't. So it was important they - Chris and Jinny - were there with me in some form yesterday (along with The Satchel of Poetry, which they also made and which was carrying a pair of comfier shoes for when the Northerner and I got lost walking back to the car park, which we did, hopelessly, despite the Northerner being Northern and having lived in Manchester for several years in the late 90s and early 00s). (It's changed a lot, apparently.)

Deborah means 'bee', of course, and when I'd put them on, I wasn't thinking of the fact that bees are important for Manchester too. In fact, they're everywhere as a symbols of defiance post the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, and it's good to see them.

Rochdale Canal

Canal Street

Manchester looking simultaneously like its 21st-century self and 1920s Berlin

First stop, the Midland Hotel to enrol and get togged up. It was great seeing my fellow-students, Tina, Liz and Cherry, in the queue as I'd never met them in person, having followed a distance learning course via Teams. (Although it was all distance learning anyway during the worst of Covid.)

Then we proceeded across the concourse to the Bridgewater Hall, where the ceremony was taking place.

There was a lot of clapping to be done, of course; important to keep clapping as you yourself have been clapped across the stage for that brief don't-fall-over moment in the bright lights. (The Northerner did some whooping too, which proves you can't take him anywhere, not even up North.) As a bonus, the speeches were pretty good, as these things go, especially the one by Letitia Jones, President of the Student Union, whose mum got a clap as she was simultaneously getting her PhD 'somewhere down the road'.)  

Oh and at the end of the row behind, a glimpse of Mohammed, who was also on our course, and the swish of our superlative tutor Kim Moore in passing as she exited the stage, all very pleasing.

(I'm really quite proud of both of us for getting all this studying done in our old age.)

Unfortunately we couldn't hang about and socialise afterwards, as we'd been up since 3am in order to get to Manchester comfortably by 8am, and despite a marathon dog-sitting session in the middle of the day by Son the Elder, Cwtch the Collie was waiting patiently for us in her crate back home. (Although since there was someone getting her doctorate with her dog in her shoulder bag, I could have tried stuffing her in The Satchel of Poetry, I suppose.)

A lovely, if exhausting, day ... and meanwhile the poems I wrote during the course continue to make their way in the world, with one of them being shortlisted for this year's Plough Prize and another being Ink Sweat & Tears' pick of the month in April. Thank you, Manchester and the Manchester Writing School. 

Roe deer, a fledgling crow and two foxes: Elsewhere in midsummer

Since I stumbled across it in 2020, we've walked our little patch of edgelands most days. This summer we've been away from it for a week, and at the turn of the season, so it's tempting to see the weeks before midsummer as still trailing clouds of spring glory, while these later days are already careering towards autumn. Which isn't really how it is, of course, except for the purposes of this post. 

The extremes of weather, both last year and this, have made for some confusion. The whitehorn blossom was still fabulous for a few days after I last blogged in late May ... 

... although it wasn't long before the petals started falling.

By the end of the month, the elder blossom was starting, with a bit of an overlap at first ... 

... but soon coming spectacularly into its own. Not sure exactly what happened last summer and this spring to make the blossom so wild, but it was.

Also around the same time, crab apple blossom still going strong ... 

... and dogwood. I tend to notice this tree later in the year - the colour of its berries and leaves in autumn, its stems in winter - and the fact this was the first time I'd properly taken stock of its blossom must mean that it too was trying very very hard in a rather less showy way. 

These are the heights then, and in order to have heights, there must also be lows. One of these was coming back from holiday while the ground was still very dry to find a barbeque or camp fire had burnt part of the field.

There was also a pile of burnt charcoal close to the oak tree, along with a used disposable BBQ, four plastic drinks bottles, a burnt miniature glass bottle of spirits, a burnt tennis ball, and a pair of men's droopy grey underpants. Fortunately, the revellers had also left behind a carrier bag, which was empty apart from some unused firewood and a golf ball, so I had something to carry it all away in. 

Another low - a far more worrying one - is climate change. I'm an unreliable narrator, always spotting new-to-me creatures and flowers and laboriously identifying them, only to glance at my Facebook memories or past blogs and realise I identified exactly the same last year ... and sometimes the year before too. As my memory's that spotty, I clearly can't conclude with any certainty whether there are fewer insects about this year, as everyone seems to be saying, though it feels like there are. 

If this is the case, is it the same combination of unusual weather conditions that could have caused the extraordinary displays of blossom, that might be responsible for this dearth of invertebrates - if there is one?

To further complicate matters, the fields beyond Charlton Common, which are undergoing development, were once again mowed at a critical time for wildlife, including insects. Here's what they looked like in late May ... 

... and here's what greeted me on the first day of June. 

At least this year the hay was baled and taken away, presumably to be used for fodder.

I consoled myself with the thought that at least the skylarks field, which has already been scalped twice this year, was beginning to recover and has looked especially beautiful in the setting sun, with its silver grasses and pools of tufted vetch. I'd even heard skylarks singing above it again ...

... but by the beginning of this month, the same fate had befallen it. 

At the end of the field nearest the road, some of the growth lining the footpath has been left ... 

... but down the far end, there's only the path to be seen. I'm now hoping the vetch that's left will be ignored long enough to set seed so I can gather some. 

'Reckon they mean it this time,' a passing dog-walker said to me. 'Reckon they do,' I replied.

And to underline her point, the building of houses just around the corner, on a piece of cleared edgelands alongside the air field continues, even on Sunday mornings, the sound of a pneumatic drill a frequent accompaniment to our walks.

Meanwhile, the shifting about of earth on the golf course continues. One evening I squeezed through the fence surrounding the smaller pond to see what they've done to it. Lots of whitethorns gone, the path around it gone, the reed beds gone, the banks covered in wild flowers gone, and I don't know why.

As for the big, shallow pond that was little more than a slightly damp bog in the summer and filled with an amazing diversity of flowers, it's impossible to guess even what they're doing with it as it's still completely fenced off.

There's one area where flowers are permitted to thrive unthreatened by development, and that's in the Field of Hollowing Oak and the Small Dark Wood of the Mind. Amongst my favourites are the vetches, and each year I seem to see more and more varieties. 

TOP:  1. Common vetch  2. Common vetch, pignut and buttercup  3a. Meadow vetchling  3b. Grass vetchling  4. Tufted vetch and horseshoe vetch  BOTTOM:  5. Tufted vetch and bindweed  6. Tufted vetch and agrimony like fizzling rockets  7. Tufted vetch and sorrel  8. More Tufted vetch. Because I like it. 

Above is a contingent of non-pea-based, it's-not-yet-midsummer-and-the-warmth-and-light-will-last-forever flowers: cut-leaved cranesbill, wild salsify (flower and seedhead), dog roses, buttercup, white clover, woody nightshade, creeping ivy and cinquefoil, moon daisies, camomile, bird's foot trefoil (below), Cwtch in red clover, hedge woundwort, honeysuckle, cat's ear  

Below, the oh-god-winter-is-coming variety: lady's bedstraw, St John's wort, great willowherb, ragwort, cinquefoil and selfheal, creeping thistle (with small skipper), rosebay willowherb, meadowsweet mown down in the skylark's field before it could even set seed, betony (below), burnet saxifrage, knapweed (below), Cwth in white yarrow, pink  yarrow, meadow bindweed

Now, about those insects. I seem to have spotted a fair range but mostly things that won’t keep still for me to photograph them. Earlier in the year the orange-tipped butterflies were being particularly pesky. During this last week a comma butterfly buzzed me and disappeared, a Southern Hawker dragonfly zoomed over my shoulder, and a couple of days ago, I saw a Red Admiral and another dragonfly, but both did a bunk upon seeing me first.

Here's some I did manage to capture:

Butterflies   TOP:  1a. Large skipper  1b. Small skipper  2. Marbled white  3.Speckled wood  4a & 4b.  Gatekeeper   BOTTOM:  5. Ringlet with a damaged wing  6a & b. Meadow brown  7a. Over-exposed white butterfly  7b.  Small heath   8. Small tortoiseshell (which happens to be my favourite).

 Moths   TOP:  1. Mother Shipton, a long way from Yorkshire  2. Caterpillar of the Oak Eggar moth   BOTTOM:  3. Caterpillar of the Cinnabar moth on ragwort  4. I spotted this cinnabar moth upside down under a bramble, so I picked it up and put it the right way up on a leaf, whereupon it immediately tipped over again onto its back. (But what a lovely red flannel shift!) So I turned it over again and retreated quickly, worrying I might have disturbed a peaceful scene of dying in the shade and made things worse for the moth, but its legs had been kicking so maybe not, who knows.

Bees   CLOCKWISE from left:  1. Common Carder bumble bee on tufted vetch  2. Red-tailed bumblebee on creeping thistle  3. Buff-tailed bumblebee trapeze artist  4. Honey bee  5. Dark honey bee  6. Poor dark honey bee being devoured by a crab spider  

There's always a drama going on at knee-level.

Beetles and flies  TOP:  1. Beetle Cantharis nigricans  2. Flying ant   3a. Male thick-thighed beetle on wild salsify  3b. Female thick-thighed beetle (distinguished from male by lack of thick thighs)  4.  Azure damselfly   BOTTOM:  5. This hogweed is host to eleven parasitoid wasps  6. A ladybird little bigger than a hogweed seed  7. Narcissus bulb fly  8. Red soldier beetles

As far as the red soldier beetles are concerned, I was thrilled to see them turn up bang on time on 1st July, but after a week there were hardly any more of them, and they weren't doing that much copulating either, which is strange ... 

... except that when you look around the field, there is hardly any hogweed in flower, which is also strange because normally it carries on till October. 

They also particularly like wild carrot (as do I). Sadly, after a false start in late May, when I spotted the familiar scaffolding of a flower, I haven't seen a single carrot up the field or on the footpath through the skylark's field. 

I suppose it could be that the unusually hot and dry May and June we've just had has delayed them, and that the flowers will  flourish now the rain has returned, but the red soldier beetles are visible for just a month and a later blooming might be too late for them. 

The shorn fields have made it easier to see some creatures. What were no more than ears sticking out of grass a few weeks ago were very visible against the sere stubble of the fields by the beginning of June.

From being busy and noisy throughout spring, the rookery is now silent and more or less deserted, the rooks and jackdaws having fledged their young and moved out onto the fields, which is where we encountered this fledgling crow at the end of May, hunkered down in the grass and under observation by two crows in a nearby tree. 

When we saw him again the following evening, he looked a lot more feisty.

Starlings were one species I hadn't seen in the edgelands before, although I'd found one of their feathers back in April. This little lot fizzling about the fields soon confirmed their presence ...   

... just as the shiny nature of this little turd suggests there's an insect-eating hedgehog about, not that I've seen one.

One of the best encounters, and also the saddest, involve foxes. First there was this beauty in the middle of the lane called Charlton Common, who nipped off onto the bit of wasteland by the bus stop and its goat willow, and who I glimpsed through  gap in bushes. I don't think I've ever seen a finer, redder fox ...

... or a sorrier one than this, running, perhaps, when he died. It was on the fields away from the road, no more than four days dead. Maybe a dog got him - you see some scary-looking ones there occasionally - or maybe it had an illness like mange, but it's hard to tell because of the decomposition. Or maybe it just died. 

Three days later, the fox had definitely taken its place in the circle of life, which is something of a comfort.

One of the best five minutes of 2022 was spent sitting in the field watching the sun set on Midsummer Day. This year we were in West Wales for the longest day, but all the same, we've seen some beautiful sunsets up the field this year too.

The sun lodged in a tree at the foot of the field ...

... and lighting the factory windows

The rookery at sundown

The sun like a penny dropped in a well

The stanchions of the new Severn Bridge clearly visible in the last hour of daylight