Tag: birdsong

Lost for words

I have been

lost

for words.

I have started so many blog posts recently but they just haven’t flowed. There is so much to say, yet the words get stuck.

In March I did my observed coaching assessment, I watched the pandemic spread as clients and coaches from around the world all entered lockdown at slightly different times, with slightly different rules. Coaching topics changed from things like ‘I’d like to get fitter’ or ‘how can I deal with x situation at work’, by week 2 of the assessment it was all about ‘how can I complete my work and homeschool my kids’, ‘ how can I make sure the underprivileged kids at the school I work in still get free school meals once the school closes, ‘what should I do now I can no longer run my business’. Staying centred enough to coach while being observed and assessed in the middle of all that was a challenge, somehow all 6 of us going through the assessment month all passed. What an achievement! At the end of it all I wanted to do was sleep.

And while all that was going on my work changed so I was full time working from home, only allowed out for one daily walk, and for essential shopping and healthcare.

Each day on my walk, it was as if spring had flicked a paintbrush overnight at the gardens, the verges and the woods. A splattering of colour at the beginning of March has turned into the full kaleidoscope of May.

And it is so peaceful here in the village. Hardly any cars on the roads, not as much noise as usual, fewer strimmers, lawnmowers, power tools, building work. The birds have taken over. This is what it must have been like pre-car, pre-industrial revolution, the soundtrack of most of human history. I love it. We have been lucky, the weather for most of the lockdown has been lovely and I’ve spent hours in the garden.

After the observed coaching month I then had to do a written exam, record a half hour coaching session for assessment, finish coursework. It’s all done now and hopefully I’ll graduate from the course at the end of May.

And now I have more time! Without really planning to, I’ve been painting. Experimenting with mixed media. Not really the kind of things I usually do, but I’m pleased with the results. So much fun to paint!

I had set today aside to start looking for more coaching clients. Instead I went for a longer daily walk than usual, pottered around the garden, finished my painting, wrote this. The goal of building my coaching business is important to me, but so is rest, relaxation, creativity. Attempting to find balance in the midst of a pandemic.

I hope you are keeping well and finding ways to cope with the situation we are all in. I know some of you have been writing through the last few months and I have enjoyed reading your posts.

Message from a fieldfare

The clocks have changed.
Office hours equal daylight hours,
pretty much.
Work finishes and it is dark.
–
Why did we create
work rhythms
that lock us away
from the light?
–
To make sure I observe
this day,

I leave my desk in the afternoon,
head out through autumn colours,
the smell of wet leaves,
face misted by rain,
lungs full of fresh air.
–
My thoughts settle
to the rhythm
of my walking.
–
Words of a future blog post
roll through my mind.
–
A pleasant state,
half here,
half elsewhere,
until the scolding of
a fieldfare brings me back,
as if to say
‘I have travelled over seas to get here,
And you will notice me.’
–
I look up, into a tree full of birds.
–
Chastened, I remain present,
as a treecreeper darts
silently
up the trunk
probing for insects.
–
The blog post I was composing
will have to wait for another day.
The fieldfare sent this, instead.

Listen to a fieldfare here.

Seasons of silence

Recently the owls have been

silent,

busy,

hungry beaks to feed.

Soon the evening air

will resonate

with their cries.

We all have seasons

of silence,

seasons of song.

Morning routines

 I sip my first cup of tea
 surrounded by birdsong
 as bees breakfast on the columbines.

Now that warmer weather has arrived, I have started having breakfast outside in the garden instead of mindlessly slumping on the sofa in front of breakfast TV news.

We’ve had a run of lovely mornings; blue sky, sunshine, fresh cool morning air.

I find this so calming. The immersion in nature relaxing my body and mind. The felt sense of my belonging, my need for this outdoor world.

I resolve, even when the weather is bad and I have breakfast indoors, to stay away from the morning TV news with all its negativity and trivia, telling me things I don’t need to know, ignoring the things I consider to be important. It gives me the impression that the world is a dangerous place, when just outside my window the world itself is telling me a different story. It sends me into my day with a sense of unease.

There is news in the garden too, much of it in a language I barely understand, passed on in song or bee-dance. Some of it is every bit as sensational as the TV news, tales of life and death. Did the baby blackbirds in the nest in the hedge make it through the night? (its awfully quiet in there). Did the deer eat my broad bean plants? There are stories of growth, news of the flowers most ripe with nectar and pollen, of turf wars between the robins.

Out here there is no clock in the corner of the screen hurrying along the minutes, so I linger, then sit down to work a little later than I planned. I take indoors with me a sense of calm that permeates my day.

What are your morning routines? Do they make you happy?

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Easter heatwave

This easter we are gifted with a heatwave.

It’s 21°C, and people and plants are starting to wilt.  I imagine my overseas readers laughing at this, but really, 21°C in April is a heatwave in this part of the world!

I was busy weeding the herbaceous border, then it got too hot.  The sun was beating down on my back as I dug, boring into my winter-cold body, warming my core.

I stopped, sat in the shade for a while, then decided to go for a walk in the cool woods.

My regular route is rendered unfamiliar by the warmth, the hint of summer in the air.  It’s so early in the year that the leaves aren’t all the way out yet, so the shade is dappled, sun filtering through to warm the carpet of spring flowers below.  Birds sing in the canopy.  I reacquaint myself with the sound of various warblers, swallows and house martins, welcome migrant voices joining the familiar chorus from great tits, robins and blackbirds.

Above my head, in the canopy, insects buzz.

There is traffic noise in the far distance, and the sudden harsh discord of an ice cream van doing the rounds of the village.

I sit on a piece of limestone in the deeper shade of a yew tree, to write down some of the ideas whirling around my head.

I look around and everywhere is the power of spring.  Ferns uncurl, buds burst, leaves expand, flowers turn their heads to the sun.

A dog, out for a stroll with its owner, growls at my unexpected presence beneath the yew tree.  It’s owner is too polite, or disinterested, to ask what I am writing.  We talk about the weather, and she moves on.

The limestone is lumpy.  Uneven rock sticks into my flesh, finding the tender spots from yesterday’s cycling, first bike ride of the year leaving the imprint of the saddle.

So I carry on, feet crunching on the leaves of autumn which still lie on the woodland floor, patiently waiting for fungus and earthworm to turn them to soil, to recycle them into plant food.

Several times I hear a noise in the undergrowth, loud, like a deer or some other large animal scuffling through the leaves.  Each time, it is only a blackbird raking through the leaf litter for insects, a sound so much louder than its creator.

Sycamores dangle lime green flowers below their darker green newly emerged leaves.

The insistent repetitive tweet of a nuthatch catches my attention, it’s high in an oak tree, but I can’t spot it.  The oak branches are still bare, just a yellow-green haze where the buds are swelling, usually the last to burst into life, the herald of summer.

Blue splashes are just starting to appear among the green leaves; a foretaste of the carpet of bluebells to come.  They join the wood anemones, violets and all the other flowers of spring; racing to make their mark before the canopy closes over and they are plunged into shade.

The trail narrows and I brush against the softness of newly emerged beech leaves.  Wild strawberries flower along the edge of the path.

I emerge at the estuary edge, saltmarsh almost covered, tide high this close to the full moon.  Back into the sunshine.  The sky is hazy, hills of the Lake District hidden from view.

The tide pushes dog walkers up to the railings; familiar paths submerged beneath the gently lapping wavelets.

I stroll along the coast.  The sun burns into my winter-pale skin, but I am shielded by sun cream and cooled by a sea breeze.  Even though I am high up the estuary, the breeze and tide bring the smell of the open sea, the dreams of the ocean.

The tide has pushed flounders in to the flock of fisherman, waiting at the estuary edge with baited hooks and bated breath. That tide has now turned.

I sit again, this time on a flatter, more comfortable piece of limestone.  The tide rushes out like a river toward the railway bridge, draining away, returning to the real sea.  The distant cries of gulls mingle with the voices of walkers along the embankment behind me, the sound of cars, a distant plane.

I move on, following the tide.  It moves faster than I do.

A tendril arm of the sea snakes up the saltmarsh to my feet, disgorging its water back into the bay, wet mud at the creek edges glistening slippery in the sun.

I turn inland.  A steep narrow lane curls up past ancient farm buildings, fringed with wild garlic, first flowers starting to show, white bundles of stars above glossy green.

I feel sweat on my back, wishing I’d done the walk the other way round, down the sunny steep lane, back up through the shady woods.  That is summer thinking and I’m still in winter mode, where what matters is the wind direction and strength.  Walking into a cold wind on the estuary edge is not fun.

I stand in the scent of garlic, in the shade of an old drystone wall and realise that I have taken off the armour of winter, literally, my muscles have relaxed over the warm weekend.

Then I head for home, past gardens on the edge of the village.  A lilac tree is starting to bloom.  The last few daffodils stand proudly among the pinks and forget-me-nots.   The blackthorn and damson blossom have faded.  Spring has moved on a chapter.

I walk into my garden and I swear, in the hour or so I’ve been away the plants have grown.  Back home to a seat in the shade and a cold drink.

I hope you are enjoying the weekend, wherever you are!