Hartshill Hayes 30 June 2018



My favourite lime tree in Hartshill Hayes, June 2019 (photo: Johnny Turner)




4.13am
Been in the woods for nearly two hours. The birds started singing ten minutes ago. Here with Johnny and we've been walking the paths in the dark. Getting light now. Sunrise in half an hour. Not sure how it will be as it's cloudy. I just missed a fox - Johnny saw it across the carpark. There was something barking in the woods, which Johnny thought wasn't a dog. But the only other thing could be a fox, and I'm not sure they sound like that. Quite cool this morning. It's been so hot recently I couldn't imagine needing a coat even in the night, but actually I could have done with one. Could do with one now. Though this is the coldest hour, before the dawn, not the darkest. Have loved walking the paths in the dark, finding how easy it is to lose the path. The disorientation. Impossible to lose your way in these woods. Safe to explore. Still wouldn't have done it on my own though. Finding my vision disorientated, a bat was flying and shattering the air in its wake. Things flashing in the sky, behind tree top. It's the weird time, lack of sleep, strong coffee with sugar. Johnny's finding noises on his phone and thinks the sound we heard was a deer, possible roe, but they don't live here. Could have been a muntjac.









5.52am
Outside the Stag and Pheasant. We went up on the hills to watch the sunrise, but it was too cloudy, so nothing to be seen. It was also freezing cold. We sat on a picnic bench with our arms around each other for warmth. After a while we gave up and went back into the woods. Johnny talked to me about quadrats and we saw loads of muntjac. Some of them barked at us. It was the noise we heard earlier and I recorded it this time.



We've been up for nearly four hours, still most of the world is asleep. We're going to wander for a bit, quarries and so on. I want to revisit a path we walked earlier in the nearly dark where a tree has fallen.







7.07am
So different doing this with Johnny. We walked along Nuneaton Road, Grange Road, Apple Pie Lane, the canal, Cherry Tree Lane to the corner of the Hollows and back into the woods. Johnny pointed out all the cherry trees on Cherry Tree Lane, also the wych elms and English elms. In the bottom corner of the wood we found a grove of wild service trees. (Johnny got me to id them and I got it right!)



Johnny is so excited about them. I am thinking about using trees to tell my story. Lime, wild service, larch, red oak from here. Caledonian pine from the Cairngorms. Don't know yet what the others will be. I might link it to Ogham. Johnny is taking my photo.

(photo: Johnny Turner)


7.41am
I told Johnny he could go where he liked in the woods and that I have no agenda, only to wander. Which is all very well, but he's taken that as carte blanche to look for mosses and I am bored. It's nice enough here, but not so as I'd want to stay lurking about while Johnny spends hours searching. I guess it's ok for a bit, but soon I'm going to have to remind him I'm not Tom B, and can we stop mossing please.







9.28am
I complained too much about moss and then felt bad as Johnny said he was trying to keep it in check, Said I was a moss widow. But we walked along some tiny paths and followed streams and mossy places, we found fallen trees and clambered through spaces. I thought more about this structure of trees. I looked at them. The lime has lizard skin bark and its trunks are sinewed, strong like a long distance runner. Its leaves have a light airiness.






The coppice is lovely too. It's been really nice to share this with Johnny. We're in the cemetery now. Soon we'll walk back up through the woods.



11.38
Been looking for butterflies and found ringlet, speckled wood, large white, small tortoiseshell, comma, meadow brown, gatekeeper. Also found Mike Sale at the top of the hill, and some horseflies, one of which bit Johnny, so he had to go and wee on his own hand in the loos. Ha ha! We walked around St Lawrence's Wood and talked about trees and which tree we'd choose to have planted when we died. I didn't really want to answer, but in the end maybe a small leaved lime as we saw some I loved today. Johnny might be a wild service tree, so we're both here in the woods. After our tea, it's back to Bethany, pack up the tent, go to Mary's party.





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