Blog Archives
May 26th 2025 Introduction After a summery spring it’s now cool, grey, and rainy. The sun might return. It might not. You never know in Britain, especially in recent years. For this Footnotes I begin, and conclude, with weather and the British psyche. You will see a video moment from a Pyrenees hike. There are […]
May 18th 2025 Introduction After returning from Corsica a few years ago, I went to Snowdonia and climbed a small hill called Moelfre. Pronounced Mel-vree, which you see in the photograph. The peace was memorable. Finally in a quiet, beautiful, easy place, relaxing in sunshine. Silence. There are different kinds of hill, mountain, and countryside […]
We know the names for months but not the full Moon names. Wolf, Snow, Worm, Pink, Strawberry, Buck, Sturgeon, Corn, Hunter, Beaver, and Cold. It used to be a calendar method for phases of the year. May, which I missed, is the Flower Moon. The time when flowers, particularly wildflowers, are bursting into bloom. I […]
May 4th 2025 I like the unpath best – Nan Shepherd quoting a child in The Living Mountain Introduction It may as well be summer although for me May is late spring. Bluebells are still in the woods, swifts only just arriving in the south of the country. Not yet the north, because I’ve checked […]
April 27th 2025 We pluck out of duration those moments that interest us, and that we have gathered along its course. These alone we retain Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution Introduction There’s no such thing as a favourite month when April can be like August, September like July, May like December. The varying light is […]
April 17th 2025 Introduction I remember this time in 2024. Suddenly we were fourth, then fifth month into the year after winter. What happened? There seemed a shift in the experience of time. We want it to stop, so it passes slowly. Then it does, which feels faster. Anyway here it is again, approaching halfway, […]
April 12th 2025 Introduction Spring is uppermost for this Footnotes but as a conclusion, in relation to seasonal change and the impact it has. The landscape is very different. More colourful, alive, vibrant, vivid, and green. In photographic terms you sometimes see green described as boring which it might be if there are no other […]
April 1st 2025 Introduction If you’re one of the UK “outdoor community” on social media, you may remember a gear retailer who made “podcasts.” They stopped trading recently, replaced with Valley and Peak. Bob and Rose were pleasant, known for customer service, which included sweeties with your order and a phone call from Rose: “Hello. […]
March 23rd 2025 Introduction Spring is undeniably here although still with cold says. I walked in one of my habitual places checking on the wild flower progress. Most striking however were several large areas of meadowsweet, my summer favourite. It looked like a messily farmed field with cut grass which had fallen and died. I […]
March 18th 2025 Introduction I’m watching the weather for warmth. Today it’s ten degrees not five which it was last week. I sometimes think of this as an elemental battle or as the Greeks understood it, with the gods. Beira is the Scottish goddess of winter. A few thousand miles away, this is the story […]