spring / summer / autumn 2021 noticings
I started writing these almost daily observations two years ago, just before the whispers of COVID started. Many seasons have since passed and my energy and enthusiasm for keeping these notes have waxed and waned. Waxings and wanings that have undoutedly coincided with pandemic-fatigue and dealing with challenging life-things within the context of a pandemic. But the structure of keeping these notes, and of always knowing that I can get back to them when I’ve slipped away, have helped to keep me grounded. There is certainty in the cycles of the seasons, in the spinning of the earth, in the rotation of the moon, and lots of joy to be found in the small changes happening daily around us.
24.3.21 Good cloud day. Massive big white puffy things - some higher, some lower soaring overhead like they have a place to be.
30.3.21 Evening walk, trompse through the reeds and a hop over the wall. Long shadows, still. Water plants starting to grow in the cut ditches, one of them full of tadpoles!
1.4.21 Tadpoles wiggling in the pond, there are so many! Cherry blossoms are coming, the first few have opened and it’s so full of buds. Deep fuchsia in the sun, chaffinches finding the nuts and seeds that the nuthatch hid in its bark in the winter.
4.4.21 The sun is now setting far enough north that we get a bit of direct sun on the back of the house in the evening. Lying on the couch, watching it filter through the shadows of cherry blossoms on the wall.
5.4.21 Snow! Sleet! Cold!
6.4.21 Out for a walk after dark. Moon not yet risen, sky clear and full of stars. Horizon to horizon. Light ones, bright ones, ones you lose sight of as soon as you look.
8.4.21 Heavy grey sky with low dark clouds whipping past. Rain occasionally bashing against the windows. The cherry blossoms are thankfully staying closed, biding their time for warmer days. Coming soon, I hope. Wind, wind, wind howling. But not howling or whooshing. A steady stream through the tops of the spruce. More like waves crashing on top of each other.
10.4.21 And then the snow came. Rain / sleet / hail. Finally landing on snow. Covering cherry blossom buds, bare branches and boughs of spruce in deep white powder. A crunchy dusky walk. So still, calm. Every flake resting on a brach or blade.
11.4.21 Finally! A walk in the sunshine with friends, unexpectedly trompsing through inches of snow. Cruch, crunch, crunch.
14.421 The birds have lots to say at dusk these days. To stand and listen without the crunch of boots on gravel.
17.4.21 Birthday haze of joy! Sunshine! Birds! Peace!
20.4.21 Ah these springy days, the cherry blossoms are trying so hard! Half opening, half turning brown. Signs of spring feel so different here - the few diciduous trees are slow, it feels like we’re a month behind the valley.
26.4.21 Morning walk, cool and damp. After a day of rain, the first we’ve had in a long time. Buds on hazel and sycamore almost ready to open. Sphagnum glowing, smell of it mixed with spring in the air. Damp spring air after rain, a smell to clear the head!
1.5.21 On the road! For the first time in months / months / months. Into the mountains, a quiet dinner perched on a log on the edge of the Fairy Lochan, pitched tent on a bed of heather, bumpy, and lumpy cushions like an old favorite pillow.
2.5.21 To Bynack More today, clouds dropping in and out of Strath Nethy, the eastern slopes of the plateau shimmering like velveteen. Bright glow of Northern Prongwort on the lower slopes! A trompse through heather and sphagnum to a lochan for our camping spot, protected under boughs of ancient pine.
3.5.21 Long morning, coffee while enjoying our private lochan-side view. Unknown birds for company. Then an explore around the loch, little valleys nearby covered in a scattering of the seedlings of granny pines. The forest creeps and it is beautiful.
4.5.21 Uath Lochans. Bogs, swallows, moody clouds. Perched on the crags above, old and plantation pines covering fore / middle / and background. Weather sweeping along the valley. Bracing for the sun rays to hit as they tracked closer. Later, the golden hour, sunset, blue hour from the cabin - magic. Slopes of Strath Nethy and Bynack Mor changing from rose gold to periwinkle.
5.5.21 Out on the porch with family today, peat fire burning. Sunny and still. More rose gold and periwinkle again in the evening. This view.
6.5.21 Woke up to snow covering the skylight and snow covering the pines! A full covering and instantly it felt like Christmastime again. Into an old birch forest where the catkins glowed a bright green-gold and some dusky pink, draping chandliers off of bare branches.
7.5.21 Homeward bound - birch leaves and larch needles popping in the valleys. The brightest green. Still half-sleeping.
9.5.21 The swallows are back!
10.5.21 Damp spring air, morning walk too warm for a jacket. March of snails and black slugs, and a bumpy toad too. Nettles pushing up, one foot of prickles.
11.5.21 Nothing feels so good as a warm spring breeze!
12.5.21 Bird song before rain, air heavy and warm. Waiting for the pour.
14.5.21 A walk up to Fox Mound after evening rain, golden light filtering through. Full rainbow, spruce to spruce.
17.5.21 Out between showers, evening light, until heavy downpour. Hail, pockets of light banding through the trees. Double rainbow creating a wall; portal for ship-like clouds. Streaks of rainfall, light prisms.
18.5.21 First walk along the burn in a long time. Out of the wind, warm spring air. Quickly cooled by a breeze. Hot cold hot cold. Water avens, cowslip, tiny rowan leaves fanning. Distant larch neon going on green. Dips and dives of swallows in the street making my heart acrobat!
22.5.21 Out for a walk to the little burn valley we’ve been to before. Such a treat in the spring! So many wildflowers I had forgotten about and forgotten the names of. Stitchwort again! Such a joy. Red campion, bird cherry, dog violet too. A broken eggshell, two. Papery-thin, soft beech leaves filtering light.
29.5.21 I was beginning to think summer wasn’t actually actually going to come. To the Lakes for the first time since autumn, T-shirts, cotton grass blowing lazily in the warm breeze. So good to be up high, so nice to see people out.
30-31.5.21 Heat! Shorts! Sun! Sunset! S’mores! Margaritas! Please let summer last.
1.6.21 Silver leaf shimmers, wispy sunset. Clouds drifting eastwards.
5.6.21 Well and truly summer. Frogs, newts, fish in the pond. All the flowers blooming, known and unknown, gifts from the garden. Bright blobs in noon-day sun.
13.6.21 The hawthorne! Have never seen it illuminate the roadsides like this. Shades from bright white to dusky lavender. So, so bright. Sweet scent, heady. Two cactus blooms opened today! Last year it was one on the solstice. Little succulent in the window blooming too - first time in 9 years. Needs a new pot.
14.6.21 Another cactus bloom today! Must need a new pot too.
15.6.21 The clover at the end of the day, glowing in 21:00 sunlight. This year’s spruce needles becoming less like soft rabbits’ feet and more like the prickly needles they’ll become. Birch trees full, tiny leaves.
17.6.21 Start of the foxgloves!
19.6.21 Into the Lakes, morraines of bracken, little black sheep. the cleanest of pools forming in stream beds, little rain the past few weeks preventing flows of water from rushing through. So inviting, a soak in the sun would have been nice.
SUMMER
. . . [missed notes, missed noticings]
10.8.21 And like that summer is waning. Last honeysuckle blooms wafting, ling cushions glowing on slopes down to the burn, covering old stumps, old rocks. Always under birch. Rowan berries were green weeks ago. Now an ever more vibrant orange. Red soon. The past few days have had a tell-tale crispness of autumn. Days of rain, sun out this afternoon. Perfect weather to test the kite in the field!
18.8.21 A walk at sunset, up to Fox Mound. Grasses turned/turning brown, last of the meadowsweet fading. Ooo the rowan berries! Wisps of cloud catching the last light, waxing moon rising over the fields of pines.
21.8.21 A day in the Lakes, dipping into and out of clouds all day. Hot and sticky or chilly and damp. Old copper mines and smiling sheep. Sitting in the sun while watching low clouds swell into a hilltop tarn.
23.8.21 The swallows and house martins still diving, swooping down, and up and down again. Singing outside the bathroom window. I’m going to miss them, it won’t be long before they take off. The fresh calls of blackbirds and robins growing, to make up for the upcoming departure of the impermanent kite wings.
28.8.21 Sun is out and it’s warm enough for shorts, swallows lined up where overhead cables join. Oh they must be getting ready to leave so soon. Rowan berries are now mostly deep red, grasses are tired and our cherry tree is starting to turn.
30.8.21 Stood at the window to watch the swallows, house martins.
31.8.21 I woke up this morning and felt that the swallows and martins might be gone. But then one swooshed down low over the grass in the back garden! But the cables are quiet, the acrobatics have slowed in the street.
22.9.21 Week by week, swallows on the cables became fewer and fewer, dancing in the sky together, they didn’t all leave at once. Over 15 on the overhead cables one day, chattering in the sun. Five the next week and then none. The fireweed is fluffy, the rowan berries are a deep red, but still with the faintest touch of orange. Is robin song seasonal? One’s started perching on the clothes line pole, sereneding us throughout the day. The days and nights are balanced. They feel good. The frantic, drawn-out energy of summer is gone, the slow, drawn-out nights of winter are on their way.
AUTUMN
22.9.21 First day of autumn, a misty drive down into the valley. A planned power outage means I’m working somewhere else today. A friend’s house with different windows and views to look out on. Beautiful sun, getting ever lower, through the garden. Raspberries sweet, the last strawberries hanging on!
24.9.21 Fast moving low clouds, seeming flying past the ones higher up. In between a dep blue sky. Made even richer by the ghostly white wisps?
26.9.21 A trip up north. Summer heat back for a day or two, sun shining down at the beach. Wet sea stones drying quickly, their colors becoming more homogeneous as they lose their sheen. Smell of sea air, sand in shoes. Collecting a bag of ‘special stones’ between me and my niece.
28.9.21 - 31.9.21 The magic of the Affric Kintail Way. So much to say about these days that I wrote it all down separately during the trip in a personal notebook. Thinking back, I will remember all of that golden sun rain, the waterfalls and trickles running down hillsides. The knobbliness and smooth upward slopes into the valley for years to come. The Milky Way suspended above our tent between mountain ridges, leaning out of the tent to see it as the night’s chill caught us. On the last day, the dreariest of rainy days I’ve ever seen, wind whipping rain into our bus stop.
4.10.21 Back home just before/after sunset. Everything has had a lot of rain. Starlings chattering, but so quiet. So, so quiet. Good to be home.
6.10.21 A sad attempt at a walk up the hill at hunch. Ankle still sore from our hike, so didn’t make it far. Warm autumn sun felt good on my face, eyes closed. The reddest rowan berries glowing behind my eyelids.
17.10.21 Fog? Mist? Into the clouds? Still morning, clouds breaking after a late sunrise, casting a low rainbow spanning the horizon. Deep blue sky, chill on my face.
20.10.21 Oh these autumn days, morning feel dark like Christmas. Golden sun getting into low corners of the living room. Up to Fox Mound, two deer so close, as they jumped out from the ditch, bristly hair felt like it was within arm’s reach.
21.10.21 Larch starting to tinge, some hints of gold within branches, some braches changing in entirety. Fuzzy wuzzies wriggling across the path.
23.10.21 A walk along one of our favorite rivers that feeds into the Tyne. Steep banks of golds and browns. I had forgotten how much I love autumn’s beech leaves. So good to see them again.
15.11.21 Weeks again without writing, the weeks of transition too! Melancholy for the notes and noticings I’ve missed. Memories of larch at their peak - standing out so brightly on the hill, their needles falling into the road, car tires separating them into neat bands, golden stripes leading the way. Rowan leaves fell, berries deepening until they were gone too. There’s been a lot of rain, but some beautiful days of blue skies and beech leaves fluttering too. The cherry tree in the back garden was incredible, its leaves hung on for a while and then came down quickly. We haven’t raked so the color is now strewn across the yard.
Things change so quickly and I’m scared to miss it and then upset when I feel like I have. The small notes and noticings help me to see and without them I feel like I’m grasping at the yellow birch leaves and the curled bracken fronds. Trying to slow down their pace. I feel like I’ve missed it.
16.11.21 All but the final larch needes are down. Grey blanket over everything, the beech on the hill has gone a deep reddish purple, outline of amber. A white rump darted out of the woods ahead of me, a silent dash.
20.11.21 A day to the beach, the first time in a very very long time. The clouds and sky were perfect for it. Tide out, a band of limpits and winkles, every color there. Watched the tide wash in, rushing up up up further inland, filling in the rock pools, little streams forming, running uphill. A magic spring.
27.11.21 A storm, a big storm, blew in yesterday afternooon. Sky turned a greenish soup as the sun went down. Wind howling, snow and ice and a mixture of the two, peppering at first and then slapping against the north-facing windows. No street lights, a half-baked pie in the oven when they went out. Candles lit, headtorches at the ready. Small flickers of light across the street through neighbors’ windows. Woke up in the middle of the night, wind still slamming, blasting against the side, front, all edges of the house.
Morning light, a quiet day, slow lingering golden light. Crisp sky. Birds look especially tiny. To the woods at sunset, trees trees trees down. Hopped the drystone wall as the wind picked up and the trees creaked and swayed too much to be in the woods. Ears, lungs sore from the cold wind. Back inside in the candlelight. The most beautiful steady flames, no flicker. A solid glow, staring at it like a bug in the night until my eyes hurt.
6.12.21 Waking up this morning, the first since the storm, when we could make coffee without a headtorch and without needing to go outside. After nine days without power, our village’s lights went on again last night. The rumble/roar of the generators is still going in the street, houses isolated from the mains waiting to be connected again. Smell of diesel hanging.
Lots of lessons learnt for our next power outage. Turning the light on in the bathroom now feels excessive. I’m writing this at 8am by candlelight because the sun hasn’t risen yet and the overhead light is too much. I liked not seeing the time on the oven’s clock. Basing my day instead on the light filtering through the windows. Small things to reflect on and take forward now that we’re cozy and comfortable again.
13.12.21 I haven’t been out in what feels like a very long time, I’ve forgotten this phase of (approaching) winter, or not so much a phase as a recurring theme. The grey, damp, flat light. Ugh! It feels cold, clammy, sluggish. The bare bones of trees breaking through, mine ache for sun. Light on my face, a crisp day.
14.12.21 Waxing moon rising above rooftops in a swirl of pink, clouds changing from rose gold to periwinkle. Twilight dust, an illustration of sunset that didn’t seem real.
17.12.21 Cold damp air, heavy mist settling in the valley at sunset. Rushing down the slope, filtered by reeds and rushes. Neighbor’s chimney smoke cascading down the roof.
21.12.21 Solstice this afternoon. Up north, last rays of autumn’s sun catching mist off of the waves as the tide went out. Sea buckthorn berries matching golden light.
