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Paying Ready Attention: February 2015

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Thoughts On The Natural World. Stone, Wood and Water. As a kid at school a Welsh music teacher told me that a good story was like a fish, with a distinct head, middle and tail. At the time I thought it was clear that he had never seen an eel, but in a rare moment of student restraint I said nothing. Like many other teachers of his generation, he mistook his ability to declaim without challenge for an access to the truth. But even then it’s not that simple. A fish tail if ever there was one). 07-11-1989: ...

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Paying Ready Attention: March 2015

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Thoughts On The Natural World. Two Kinds of Homecoming. 8216;Where are you from? 8217; is a question I am often asked. The thing that makes people ask this does not stand out like a sore thumb, it’s more like it stands out like a sore ear. I have often been asked ‘What planet are you from? 8217; but the reasons for that is entirely different.). I don’t sound like I come from here, and people, used only to the limited accents they hear on TV, have difficulty placing me. Would this verbal chimera be a bett...

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Paying Ready Attention: April 2015

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Thoughts On The Natural World. I was not born here*. I was not born here. But I choose to live here. I am, like all but a few, a transplant. An alien come lately to this land. Transported by choice and chance from one end of the world to another, arriving partially formed and full of brave ideas about shape and space and the turning of the world and the place of the seasons. But most of what I knew when I arrived turned out to be wrong. Most of the knowledge I had gathered had to be unlearned and reshaped.

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Paying Ready Attention: April 2014

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Thoughts On The Natural World. In an altered state (part 1). The flight left Australia at 11 am on Wednesday. 20 hours later I had checked in to my hotel at 1 pm on the same day. Still in the dark of the night before, the alarm on the bedside table sounded trill and annoying. I had not slept well. An unfamiliar bed, with too much empty space. My body was in America, but its clock was still in Australia – somewhere in the future. The room lacked for nothing that I needed and contained nothing that I wanted.

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Paying Ready Attention: August 2014

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Thoughts On The Natural World. A kind of homecoming. As a kid I would visit London once a year. Leaving in the dark of a Friday evening and returning in the similar gloom of Sunday afternoon. Always in the winter, always in a coach packed to the brim with bags and boy scouts. We would sleep in loose friendship groups on the floor of a large hall and eat at long shared tables. On Saturday afternoon, most of the other kids when to watch a game – Arsenal, Spurs, maybe even Chelsea. I never remember missing ...

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Paying Ready Attention: March 2014

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Thoughts On The Natural World. The holidays are over. It’s well past New Year. It’s a while until my birthday. It’s a long time until next Christmas. It’s summer now, but soon it will be autumn. Spring seems distant, winter a memory long gone. We seem so still. Still, while time and the seasons turn around us. So still that we do not notice the movement and flow. We embrace the myth of stillness and solidity, seeking refuge from the circles and cycles of change. The Heads are the narrow entrance to Port ...

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Paying Ready Attention: May 2015

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Thoughts On The Natural World. Sympathy for the Devils. Even when reduced to a mass consumption, school dinner, kind of experience, travelling by boat should still have a deal of romance attached to it; maybe even a taste of adventure. The search for the room and the fist thump checking of bunks and pillows should add rather than subtract. The view from the window, rounded at the edges but not really a porthole, should be far more interesting than the view from a car. It’s clear I need a holiday; s...

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Paying Ready Attention: November 2014

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Thoughts On The Natural World. The Hills of Doggerland - a photo essay. I've been working in a piece of writing for a competition - hence the lack of words here. I can't publish the competition work until after the end of the judging - so wish me luck and enjoy these pictures of my trip to the Farne Islands - The Hills of Doggerland. Gulls over a fishing boat. Transport to the Island. Lesser Black Backed Gull. On Inner Farne (or On Stewart M). The journey home II. Saturday, November 29, 2014. A most adve...

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Paying Ready Attention: June 2014

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Thoughts On The Natural World. The Sound of One Cow Mooing. It’s only when you go back into the country that you realise now noisy cites can be. Even if you wake in the night, it’s rare for the background hum of cars to be silent. You may jolt awake thinking, “what woke me? 8221; to hear the hoo-ha wail of a fire engine or ambulance. It may be the noisy clatter of possums on the roof, or the animated chatter of party goes, weaving their way home. But it is rare to wake to anything resembling silence.