Sarah Hall's Helm is superb. I read The Wolf Border some years back and loved that. This is maybe even better. It makes me want to read the rest of her oeuvre. In Utrecht, there was a whole panel on people's readings of this novel. I didn't attend as I hadn't read it yet. I guess one thing I like is that nothing is romanticised. Now, you're wondering about the trinkets? Well, some of the chapters are short descriptions of items lost/found on the mountain. Helm, the wind, refe

I've had these photos for a while now - they are the last ones I have managed to get of the little birds. The garden is such a jungle that it's impossible to see anything or anyone! I am sure that a robin is still feeding a red-breasted youngster... which seems a little odd... unless it's a mated pair? It's hard to tell. One is definitely begging, though, and the other feeding. I think the great tits have young who they are feeding. I watched one of the parents soak himself i

In response to all the Morrigan stuff, it seemed only fitting to visit the Morrigan Oak. I can climb up but I have to stay standing as there's no seat up there. A robin was watching me, carrying flies. I saw him twice fly down into the tall vegetation on the side of the bank and stay there... I figured that they'd either nested in the tall grass (seems unlikely?) or a fledgling was hiding down there. I did not investigate. But I did find a big old badger sett that stretched a

I love this photo, for some reason. It's just off the central shopping streets in London. But this was my real stunner... little did I know at the time it's a Banksy! And just put up! You can read about it here. That wasn't the end of my day, though. I was a bit early to meet my friend and I found a bookshop to loiter in. Turns out this place, Watkins Books, is a long-established independent bookshop dealing in "Esoterica"! A perfect place to find out more about the Morrigan.

I'd just spent a couple of hours talking about foxes with people dressed as foxes and sporting pictures of foxes... and what happens when I get to St James' Park? Poor fox, I think he wanted to get away. At first I thought he was after eggs and young birds. Maybe a bit of both. The pelicans were all asleep on their rock. Too far away. Elsewhere, ducks and geese with this year's young. I fed bits of apple to greylag geese. Squirrels took seeds from people - as did the pigeons

A rare act of engaged activism: I went to the London Rally to End Hunting. People think hunting with hounds was banned twenty years ago, And it sort of was but something called "trail hunting" is legal. The claim is that someone lays down a trail which the hounds follow, but in fact, in the vast majority of cases that is just a smokescreen and fox-hunting has continued unabated. So, there's a "public consultation" and then the issue of banning trail hunting may be banned too.

...than making friends with insects. This chap was under the Copse Oak. Seemed to have one wing longer than the other. Damage or design? I don't know. A bee was buzzing around just to the left of me, repeatedly returning and carefully inspecting the ground. I realised that I had disturbed the ground and she couldn't find her hole. After two failed attempts, I moved little twigs and leaves into a state that enabled her to find her hole again. She went in, legs covered in polle

[That's truly awful. - Ed.] So, I was in the garden and along came Mr Driveway. I clucked and he stunned me by coming onto the fence. Cue: a peanut delivery. And it was time for his close ups!

Another Sentinel-Tree checking visit and lo! and behold, the carcass of a pheasant. Now, I know that there are always dead things around, but there seem so many and then there's the circling of the kites above me and the frequent discussions on death. I sat with the Minerva Oak who demonstrated how she is, more of a Medea than a Minerva in this, shading out three little oak saplings. They've flourish if I died, she said. For now, though, I flourish and they die. Right. Let me

They have not brought all their children yet. But maybe I should not encourage them. I would find it very hard not to feed the birds. Even now, I am sitting in the cold garden and I feel dreadfully guilty that the dear pied wagtail won't land for his mealworms. He hovers, goes back to the fence, hovers, back to the fence, to the roof of the conservatory, where he watches me sadly, and then away in disappointment. I moved the food to the roof of the conservatory, but then he j

The invertebrate creature on the front page was in one of the water dishes. I helped it out and watched while it dried itself off. Nice insect. Then I realised that I had an unexpected visitor. The magpies came in after the crow had gone.

...and the Morrigan theme continues... This is the neck and head of a corvid, but I am not sure which one. The tree's reminder is that death and life are enfolded within each other, like the yin and yang symbol. Inextricably linked. The other side of each other. And the tree also said, see how alive dying is when you let go of the fear of death! Or, perhaps, see how dying informs and en-forms life. And the tree said, this is why you love to sit up here - on an edge between pr

I had only been, I think, to Wytham in autumn and winter. It is wonderful in late spring. The bluebells, though past their best, were glorious hazes of skies in between the trees. On the other hand, the ashes all seem to be dying. Great tracts of dead and dying trees. I sat by a lightning-struck oak and asked about the Morrigan, about aging, about moving toward death. And the tree expressed, as I sensed at Epping, the way in which age sees us hollow out, let go of the centre

I had to repeat this image... dandelion clocks are so fabulous! A galaxy unto themselves. So, the Morrigan. In Foster's The Edges of the World book, he talked of self-hypnosis... going to a safe place (a mental one - mine is a room that is inside a huge hollow oak, with bookshelves and an armchair); leaving via a door to a garden (a grove in a wood, a dark wood that Dante would like... or not...); looking into a pool to see yourself. In the pool, I saw the Morrigan. She said

A visit to Kairos and on the way down the track, this. They are "managing deer" now, which means, of course, shooting them. I am very ambivalent. I appreciate that the area is struggling to regenerate due to the pressure of muntjac density. The financial and logistical limitations mean that deer-fencing the whole place is not going to happen. And if they did that, they'd still need to shoot the deer trapped in by the fences. But a mother and baby had been nearby on the last t

I had forgotten about these pictures, which I like a lot! I think this is Tane. Mr and Mrs B are very eager for mealworms. Is that Mohican Blue or just a popular hairdo?

...there is something very "female anatomy" about these... Maybe it's all in my head. Or maybe it's influenced by reading Hexes of the Deadwood Forest. I bought this (in Utrecht) because it's about trees. But it's more about sex. Far too much sex and in far too many ways. The style has the gusto of Chaucer's dirty stories... a style I recall finding hard to like in a novel calle Aberystwyth, Mon Amour, which I bought for the title. Also Lauren Goff's Fates and Furies. I just

The day started with the jay eyeing up the peanuts! I had missed the jays so I was really happy to see this one. He or she was less delighted to se me! But then I went out later because the crows were shouting at the end of the tattoo parlour's garden. I went out the front to see if I could get into the tattoo parlour or the house next door (where Chilli dog lives), but no joy. So I climbed over my fence to see if a baby bird had fallen out of a nest. I couldn't get far enoug

...in which I feature much of what I failed to photograph last time. So, that's the lilac lilac.... And the lovely scented lilies-of-the-valley... The droopy little oak... ...the lower leaves are starting to become strong. It's like how butterflies' wings develop! The poplar with little leaves... ...well, some of the leaves are little!

As it happens, I have no pictures of the lilac lilac (as it were) because all the other plants get in the way. As soon as I started typing, though, I had to write that because I thought of "The Crimson Petal and the White", a book I very much liked, though it was often painful to read. The white lilac is truly gorgeous and in the evening the scent of that and the lilies-of-the-valley is intoxicating. The little trees are all looking good. It is interesting that the oak takes