A Sunday Morning in May

JOURNAL ENTRY

 31^st May, Friday

“Standing looking south-west
Across the vale.
Four ducks circle above the water.
Then swoop down and land in unison.

The fields and hills in the distance
Fade into soft light.”

[MUSIC]

WELCOME

The sky is almost clear and the moon has several more hours before it arises, and although the twilight deepens, there is still a steely light that picks out the skimming and fluster of bats and the flicker of insect wings. The wind is slowly abating and the reeds and rushes stand quiet and still. Only the shimmer of alder mirrored by the canal's surface is proof that this is not a painted scene.  

This is the narrowboat Erica narrowcasting into the calm night skies to you wherever you are. 

You made it! I’m so glad you could come. It's a lovely night tonight. Stars are beginning to slowly appear through a thin gauzy haze. It's a good night to kick back, rest awhile, breath in deeply the scent of sleeping vegetation and still waters. The kettle and biscuit barrel are waiting for you. Step inside and welcome aboard.   

[MUSIC]

NEWS FROM THE MOORINGS  

These are the kind of days I love. Days of profligate greens, and blues, and, yes sometimes, even the greys. The piling tumble of clouds heaped high like ice-cream cones were when we were kids and iced lollies came with little cards that you could collect (but probably never did).

Along the towpath the serious growth is underway. The soft green matting of the crawling ivy and goosegrass of those far off, damp and chill, early-spring days (remember them?) are now over-run by thick nettle, avens, campion and mallow. But even these are now being dwarfed by the late-spring big hitters cow parsley, water hemlock and the greatest beast of them all, giant hog weed - with its thick, ribbed, sow-bristled stem. The plant the tabloids love to hate, each year evoking apoplectic warnings to anyone foolish enough to emerge blinking from the castles of their houses that protect them from all the peril of a world beyond concrete and pavement, and enjoy a bit of fresh air. Although its more diminutive but truly lethal cousin, the water hemlock, has as yet and for the most part, escaped their frenzied attention. I love the unapologetic way of hogweeds. They are there, with no by or leave thank you very much. Creamy-white parasols held open by broad green ribs. We, as a people, may have taken against them, but their closer colonies and communities prize them well. In the heat of summer, their shade keeps the ground cover damp and green. There is one beside the nearest bridge. Herb Robert, dwarfed and outgrown, clings up the bristly stem. The old native American plant-lore unfolding, where there is the threat of harm, look to find the promise of healing. Vetch too is riding high, surfing the arching green waves of early summer growth along the banksides and hedgerows; rich, mauve and purple studs, pointillist-like stabs of colour among the thick swathes of green.  

The elder blossom is now falling in snowflakes that smell sweet of summer heat and wine. The towpath and canal surface are confettied with sweeps of tiny, star-shaped petals. Scrawny new embankments are lit with the lunar-glow of oxeye daisies; large moonish buttons of white and gold. Unlike the smaller daisy, oxeyes do not close at night and so each night, the banks glow with a spectral wash of entrancing floral moonshine.   

The grasses are growing tall upon the hill above us. The owl-chapelled oak the nestles in its bowl has its tonsured-ruff of green foliage. Small, tight, green leaves haloing the gnarled twist of branches. This is the only growth left. A snaggled hag-twist of arthritic claw-like limbs; ancient and crow-loved. Older than time – or, at least, older than MY time – which is perhaps, after all the same thing. It’s going through the same thing that Dad went through in his final days. The quiet, slow, shutting down. First the peripheries and then the core. The slowing of xylem and phloem into the welcome of the last deep sleep. But before then, the rooks stand on its top most branches, and starlings cluster and swarm. Around its roots, the new diggings of rabbit and badger. Death and dying in this world are not like that found in our worlds – or perhaps, I am learning that actually, if we have eyes to see, they are not so dissimilar. And on these days on this hill, the wind rakes her fingers through the silvery feathers of brome, and fescues and rye, making the grasses shiver and ripple in running waves across the fields just like waters of the canal in the valley below. And tight knots of hawksbeard are here, rivalling the dandelions and buttercups, and clover and yellow carpets of hop-like black medic.      

Yes, these are the kind of days I love. They are the sort of welcoming, inviting days. Days that call out to you to join them, to be part of this buzzing, singing, whirlpool of colour, type of day. On days like these, the canal is also so inviting. Not in a ‘come and dive into me for a swim’ type of inviting. The thick olive and taupe ribbon of water, glisten and shimmer – catching the shy light filtering through the heavy arms of ash, “Come, follow me” it seems to call. “There are places I have yet to show you. Follow me around the next bend, and then the next, and perhaps even the next and beyond.” And on these days, it’s difficult not to start the engine, untie the mooring ropes and follow this siren song. Is this impulse what the migrating birds feel? The itch, the sudden longing to meet a new horizon that is both familiar and yet new? “Yes, old friend. Soon. Soon we will follow your watery way among the reads and wood avens, beneath canopies of oak and ash, alder and poplar. We will follow you to the next bend, and then the next, and then, perhaps even the next and beyond…”    

[MUSIC]

CABIN CHAT

[MUSIC]

A SUNDAY MORNING IN MAY

Sometimes episodes can just take over and form their own shapes and follow their own paths and I am thinking that this one is doing exactly that. I had planned on a topic and then the arrival of a bunch of cygnets on the moorings meant that I dropped that idea and I had planned when I started this to chat about them and also use it to answer a question that Lee sent to me. However, I’m just running out of time (prep and recording time). And so, really this is turning out to be just a catch-up type of episode.

And so, I will just say that the swans were successful in their nesting and laying this year. I mentioned a couple of episodes back that they had built a nest and (I think) I noticed one or two eggs having been laid. Well, seven cygnets have arrived and interest and excitement in the locality. I will give you much more information about it and answer Lee’s question, in the next episode – I promise!

Actually, being so busy and away a lot – as well as working on the boat. And it’s been good. It’s been good to use my hands again and to practically become part of the boat and this life again. To watch the jobs being ticked off the list. To get on top of things rather than for them to get on top of us. There’s a long way to go yet, but we’re making progress. The Erica is beginning to feel part of us once more, rather than a long tube-like room to drop dirty clothes on, a place just to sleep and work, and then off again. I don’t think either of us actually felt she wasn’t part of us, but earlier today, as I was clearing a winter’s worth of dust from beneath the stove and sorting through piles of accumulated papers, the sun shone up from the water’s surface, dancing patterns on the oak ceiling of the cabin, and I thought – “I’m back”. I hadn’t realised that I had gone, but I am back.

And all of this busyness has meant that I have not been able to record as much or as often as I have wanted (and I miss it). It has also meant that I haven’t even had the headspace to work on episode topics or even just to write – this first stage of each podcast. But it has given me the gift of distance. And that has meant that I have a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head, for the podcast, but also other related things. I am hoping that by the middle to late part of June I can once again get into more into a regular pattern again. I have a lot of things to share and there are a lot of things I want to know and explore.

One of the things that struck me has been that I have not been able to do much recording of soundscapes. Last weekend, when we were staying with Wendy in Northamptonshire – John Clare’s country, I determined to put that right. I’d not planned this, but why not?

On the Sunday morning, Maggie and I went for our walk in a local wooded park. It’s beautiful – a landscape of skylark and kestrel. A soft rain was falling, in the silver light of a morning in late May. It was early and there were only a few of us dog walkers out – and they tended to be with dogs who preferred not to socialise, so we participated in that unspoken, unbidden, but necessary waltz of finding paths around each other to maintain distance. It suited me, if not Maggie.

A couple of rabbits scurried through the long growth of one of the rides. All else was still – apart from the rain and the rustle of leaf shimmer. That stillness you get on a Sunday morning. The stillness of a deep breath being taken.

And all around, bird song. Deep and more richly layered than I have heard for a long time.

For awhile we stood beside the shallow river that runs along one edge. The trees come down almost to the water’s edge, before slowly making our way up hill to the sound of the distant church bell striking 7 o’clock.

I mentioned that this was John Clare country – or at least on the doorstep of it. Although his poem ‘Day-Break’ captures a sunnier dawn – rather than this gentle rainy one, I cannot think of a better way to finish tonight by reading it as we listen to the song of the morning on Sunday in May in the company of:

Blackbird, robin, thrush, wood pigeon, wren, dunnock, green finch, gold crest, collared dove, blue tit.   

John Clare ‘May’ from Shepherd’s Calendar

[READING]

John Clare’s ‘Day-Break’

[READING]

SIGNING OFF

This is the narrowboat Erica signing off for the night and wishing you a very restful and peaceful night. Good night.

WEATHER LOG