Hartshill Hayes 20 May 2018

4.45am
Sitting in the front seat, waiting for the sunrise, which is due in twenty minutes. It's already light. I set the alarm for 3.45am and even then there was light in the sky. I just walked up through the Hayes, through the dawn chorus, between trees where darkness was hanging on in shreds and pools.

Up here on the hill the darkness is gone, the fields below have that summer predawn just woken look, no mist but a feeling of mist. The sky is pink, breaking out into gold above the place the sun is going to burst through. I think this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. In the woods they've put something on the main path, maybe sand, which makes it where. A shining white road through the woods. I didn't like it much.

5.10am
Better than I could have imagined. In this world of muted greens and whites, the sun has risen bright orange and red, hugely colourful, completely stunning,

I am overawed. I want to tell everyone, show everyone, like when I first had sex - I wanted everyone to know what an amazing thing I'd discovered. Why don't people flock to watch the sunrise every
day?

5.45am
The sun is golden yellow now, shining, beginning to have some warmth, it making the whole landscape glow with morning clarity.

The birds have calmed down a bit and there is stillness - a new beginning. I loved that first red bit. As I walked the red sun disappeared behind the trees, and the sun that emerged was this yellow one. The red bit lasted less than half an hour.

This seems like a morning of newness. The field in front of me is filled with dandelion clocks, there's a patch of stitchwort, may blossom on the trees, scenting the air. So much growth.

The trees stand solid at the field edges, in the gravity of their new leaves, holding the world together. Soon I will go into the woods.




6.30am
Sitting outside the Stag and Pheasant. Some ducks just flew past at head level. A surprising number of people out and about - runners, dog walkers, van drivers. I just walked up Nuneaton Road and looked down into the quarry. They astonish me. It seems like an ordinary Midlands village, but peer through the railings, between the leaves and growth, and there is a huge lake, a whole different landscape, a place of danger and depths, possible death, actual death, and also the remains of an industry.

Not just one, but loads of massive quarries, deep lakes. I'm kind of loving Hartshill, especially on this beautiful May morning. Looking at the houses and wondering what the prices are like around here. Not really. I don't want to love near Nuneaton. But I'm loving it right now.

7.30am
Everything is better in May. At the country park car park and the visitor's centre looks lovely, red brick building glowing with morning. The car park surrounded by trees in full leaf. It is so my favourite time of year. It has been a joy to spend these first few hours with the world to myself. Now there are other people, but they are the early risers, it's still only half past seven. I've been up for three and half hours. The bluebells are over, which I'm a bit sad about. Up at this end of the woods - where I saw the first ones last time I was here - they are just dead stalks, barely any blue. Elsewhere in the woods they are not completely gone, and you can an idea of how it must have been two or three weeks ago.

In the last hour I have had some adventures. I left the path and caught my foot in something and fell headlong. The ground was soft and I was fine. Then I followed the new white sand road for a bit, like the yellow brick road really.

I found a rope swing and had a swing for a while. Fell over and had a swing - not very adventurous really. But I'm loving the flowers today, particularly the yellow archangel - a lovely thing with a lovely name. I wonder if I could arrange my novel botanically - or use flower names as chapter headings. Oh, and I saw a bird which I want to look up - a brown bird, bigger than a robin, smaller than a blackbird. It has a pale patch or line - cream? yellow? - beneath its throat. Not much to go by, but I'll look later.

Just wondering if 7.45 is lunch time when you've been up since four.






10am Witherley

How did that happen? Sitting on a path on a field edge, wheat in front of me, green alkanes behind. It's hot now. I walked along the canal to Mancetter. It was lovely - ducks, boats, reeds, even the brown water of the canal looks nice this morning.

Then I went across the fields to Witherley, to see if its as pretty as I remember, and it is. I might go and get coffee in Dobbies then go back to those woods I'm meant to be walking in.

10.42am
Saw swans and cygnets on river between Mancetter and Witherly.



11am
In the woods again. I didn't want to go to Dobbies in the end. I got to a footpath and had to choose between walking along the road to Dobbies or heading back across the field to the woods, and here I am.

I'm out of food now and nearly out of water, so I think its time to head homewards. I'm going to do a circuit of the woods, then back to the visitors centre, get a cup of tea, then go back across the fields. Today has been wonderful, amazing, I love it here. If it wasn't in the Midlands ...

11.30am
At the Visitors' Centre with a double chocolate Magnum. Got my water bottle filled at the cafe. I've been walking myself into the woods. That's what Sharon Blackie says - when you go somewhere new, you walk the paths, you tread the earth, you become part of it and it becomes part of you. The more you walk it, the more embedded you become. I've started navigating by plants like Johnny. No, that's not true, I don't find my way by them, but I know where they are. I know where the scrappy patch of wild garlic is, that looks like it was planted by someone who planted it to take off, but it hasn't, it won't, it's not its place. When it likes a place it goes mad. There's bistort here too. I recognise it as it's rampant in Hebden, but there are only bits here and there. And I remembered where to look for the wood sorrel from back in the day, back when me and Johnny lived here over twenty years ago. It's still there. Not in flower yet. Maybe it will be when I come back next month, but it's likely it will have come and gone.




11.45am Oldbury Hills
I love it here and I don't want to leave. A part of me is sewn into this landscape, and it tears to leave. The wide flatness, the trains passing through, cars on roads far enough away that they can only be seen not heard. The green. My dad loved it here too. He organised hymn singing up here, because that was what brought him close to God, so what better place to do it. So I feel close to Dad here as well. It would be good if someone gave me a ton of money so I could buy Bethany from my siblings and do something with it. I wouldn't have to live there, but I could visit. It would still be in my life. Once it's gone, what reason will I have to come to Hartshill.

Ha! I got home and found I'd lost my phone and had to run back! They had it at the Visitor's Centre. Someone had handed it in.