It is still up here. The view is yours. If you raise your arms, you might imagine you could fly. Is your heart filling up? Does it feel as if it might burst?
Despite immediate appearances, the hill is not in fact empty. You are not quite alone. Look around. There are butterflies here, marbled white, meadow brown and green hairstreak. Moths are emerging for the night. And bats. An adder might be hidden in the quarry you left behind and buzzards could be roosting in that wood. A hare will dart down the slope when your back is turned.
To hear the dawn chorus one May morning would be sublime, but on this June evening swifts circle in the sky and – watch out! – here comes a swallow, as quick as lightning, skimming the slope for insects. In a few months they’ll gather and fly south. You, too, are tethered to another place. We are all migrants now.
Come on. Get moving. Get up from the spongy bed, the grasses forming a crown about your head. Carry on up the hill before it gets too dark. It’s tempting to stay in this spot but there is a second smaller hump to scale and lights are coming on below. You don’t want to be out too late.
On and on, up and up. Watch the scarf on the windy gap and see how the vegetation changes in this little spot. Don’t stop now – most of the hill is climbed.
Finally. There. Breathless. You’re on top.
Vivienne Hambly, 2016
That rich undulating district of Loamshire to which Hayslope belonged, lies close to a grim outskirt of Stony-shire, overlooked by its barren hills as a pretty blooming sister may sometimes be seen linked in the arm of a rugged, tall, swarthy brother; and in two or three hours’ ride the traveller might exchange a bleak treeless region, intersected by lines of cold grey stone, for one where his road wound under the shelter of woods, or up swelling hills, muffled with hedgerows and long meadow-grass and thick corn; and where at every turn he came upon some fine old country-seat nestled in the valley or crowning the slope, some homestead with its long length of barn and its cluster of golden ricks, some grey steeple looking out from a pretty confusion of trees and thatch and dark-red tiles. It was just such a picture as this last that Hayslope Church had made to the traveller as he began to mount the gentle slope leading to its pleasant uplands, and now from his station near the Green he had before him in one view nearly all the other typical features of this pleasant land. High up against the horizon were the huge conical masses of hill, like giant mounds intended to fortify this region of corn and grass against the keen and hungry winds of the north; not distant enough to be clothed in purple mystery, but with sombre greenish sides visibly specked with sheep, whose motion was only revealed by memory, not detected by sight; wooed from day to day by the changing hours, but responding with no change in themselves – left for ever grim and sullen after the flush of morning, the winged gleams of the April noonday, the parting crimson glory of the ripening summer sun. And directly below them the eye rested on a more advanced line of hanging woods, divided by bright patches of pasture or furrowed crops, and not yet deepened into the uniform leafy curtains of high summer, but still showing the warm tints of the young oak and the tender green of the ash and lime. Then came the valley, where the woods grew thicker, as if they had rolled down and hurried together from the patches left smooth on the slope, that they might take the better care of the tall mansion which lifted its parapets and sent its faint blue summer smoke among them. Doubtless there was a large sweep of park and a broad glassy pool in front of that mansion, but the swelling slope of meadow would not let our traveller see them from the village green. He saw instead a foreground which was just as lovely – the level sunlight lying like transparent gold among the gently curving stems of the feathered grass and the tall red sorrel, and the white ambels of the hemlocks lining the bushy hedgerows. It was that moment in summer when the sound of the scythe being whetted makes us cast more lingering looks at the flower-sprinkled tresses of the meadows.
George Eliot, Adam Bede, 1859
Mackarel Scomber scomber, appear in vast shoals on our southern coasts about midsummer. When first taken out of the water it emits a phosphoric light.
Thomas Furly Forster, The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Natural Phenomena, published 1827
The window is open and there’s a distinct buzz coming from somewhere in the distance: a monotonous, metallic drone. Then another strikes up. This one stops and starts, as if someone was using a sewing machine nearby. We leave the house as though beckoned by the sound, to find it’s the chirruping of Roesel’s and great green bush crickets.
The British countryside has been transformed by new arrivals. It is the season when millions of birds come from overseas to mingle with the natives. They spend the summer foraging, mating and fledging. As well as the usual troop of songbirds, there are now water and woodland birds, well equipped to hunt in our waterways and skies.
Something flashes across the perimeter of my vision, a brown smudge that moves too quickly for the eye to follow. A crescent shape with a pair of compasses in its wake. Not the vapour trail of a plane but a small bird of prey, a hobby, which briefly settles on a dead branch before lifting off again and disappearing.
Hours pass. The sun is high in the sky. It’s hot. Bees, dragonflies and butterflies fly back and forth among the vegetation. The hedgerows and reeds are alive with buzzing. Taking advantage of the industry of these insects, new hunters appear, a flock of over thirty hobbies filling the sky. Their gunmetal-grey backs and streaky underparts are drab. Their shape is slight but red tarnishes their thighs as if symbolising the many insects they’ll eat over the course of one summer.
One of the hobbies descends and pauses, almost motionless in mid air before she lashes out with one talon in a kung-fu move. She is aiming for a dragonfly. Time seems to slow to a halt, as translucent emerald wings crumple like a sports car hitting a lamp-post. She clutches the insect close to her belly. As she re-joins the crowd above, she bends her leg and brings her prey up for mid-air examination. It’s a southern hawker dragonfly, just right for a midday snack.
The sun is at its height. Summer is at its peak. The birds must make haste before the cold returns. At midday the air is warm and seems liquid. In the distance, a larger silhouette appears and heads for the lagoon, our second hunter to appear on the scene. He too wears the uniform of a bandit, a dark mask over his eyes. The harsh midday sun is bleaching the landscape to monochrome, matching the bird’s own colours. He is an expert at long-distance travel: he doesn’t have to flap but lets the hot air currents do the work.
Ospreys dive less often than terns or gulls, but more successfully. This star performer is a young male. He has already spent many hours practising nest construction. He is not yet ready to breed, but by next summer he will be and his nest-building skills will be put to good use. Now he has come to feed. He circles slowly over the water. For the creatures below the surface the shadow of his wings blocks out the sun itself. The blackness of his feathers seems to darken the sky. Eyes by turns topaz and dandelion yellow can see the whole underwater world, hidden from human sight.
Perceiving his chance, he plunges. His legs are outstretched in front of him like a long-jump athlete, and his wings are back and aloft. On impact, he seems to disappear into his own froth and spray. But he is no gannet or cormorant; he has not dived to the depths. Moments later he rises from the water. Clutched in one black talon is a fish, which struggles and flaps like a leaf in a gale. The fish, caught in the net of his toes, goes from flaccid to rigid and back again as it tenses and releases. It can’t escape. Carried skywards, the fish’s scales no longer gleam silver but become the colour of varicose veins and a muddy farmyard. Stress and asphyxiation make its eyes bulge and its tail jerk frantically.
Our hunter alights elegantly on to the same dead branch used earlier by the hobby. As the crest of feathers on his head stands proud, it is not hard to imagine this same feat being performed in the heat of the African sun. He picks delicately at his meal, one foot holding the fish flush to the bark, which begins to darken with a m
ixture of water and blood. He is using his other foot and his beak to tug at taut, stringy entrails and muscles until they snap under tension and come loose, free for him to swallow. He has the makings of a good father ready for next year, for in the world of ospreys (and of hobbies), good parenting relies on good hunting.
Matt Adam Williams, 2016
‘Oi’ Way? Or ‘Adventure’ Way?
It’s a choice that defines a person, and Eddie gave it his full attention. The canoe was in the water, and we had just scrambled on board, Eddie in the middle and me at the back so I could steer. Ahead of us the Waveney, gentlest of rivers, dividing – or uniting – Suffolk and Norfolk. Always seems to be slack water on the Waveney.
The promise of spring had given way to the achievement of summer. Unneeded extra layers in the dry-bag. First dip of the paddles and the stout, accommodating, infinitely tolerant craft came alive. But the question hung in the air: should we turn left or right when we hit the main drag? Turn right and we go through the pleasant town of Beccles – and crucially, under two road-bridges. These naturally give us the opportunity to shout ‘Oi!’, the call booming satisfactorily between the low roof of the bridge and the watery floor. This has an irresistible charm, and Eddie – my younger son, aged 14, who has Down’s Syndrome – was keenly aware of the pleasures of the ‘Oi’ Way.
But turn left – up-river – and you leave the town behind. The river gets a little wilder between the tangled banks. Mostly we have the water to ourselves, and so we become a part of the wet wild world. I tried to keep my tone neutral, because it’s only right and proper that Eddie made the big decision himself. ‘Oi’ Way? Or ‘Adventure’ Way? A world of understated joys echoing in that special word. Can Eddie hear them? We left the cut and joined the river as Eddie made the decision.
‘Adventure.’
‘Let’s do it.’
We crossed the stream to hug the right bank, and at once found the right rhythm – the rhythm of the paddles, the rhythm of the river and the rhythm of life in the summer. That is to say, a certain lazy purposefulness. We were so close to the water we were more or less a part of it, affected by every gust, feeling the gentle tug of the tide and the river’s movements.
The speed itself is a special experience: a little slower than an unhurried walk. But you can’t stop on a sixpence as a walker can: you are committed to the steady movement through the water: observing what you see and hear with rather special closeness, but still committed to inexorable forward motion.
In June the warblers are still singing away, though less frenziedly than they did the previous month. I have counted seven species in an hour’s paddle with Eddie; the sudden shout of Cetti’s warbler and the lovely lisping descent down the scale from willow warbler are special favourites.
I remembered the words of the Water-Rat – Ratty – in The Wind in the Willows, as he told the Mole about the river. ‘It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing.’
And when you’re on a river – the river as the Rat would prefer – in summer, when the livin’ is easy, then no other world seems even possible. Sometimes Eddie paddled away like a good ’un, sometimes he rested his paddle at 90 degrees to our direction of travel and thought rivery thoughts.
No sound to trouble us but the birds, the cloop of my paddle as I performed my best J-stroke, and the bubbling run of water under the boat as we glided between each stroke with idle purpose. And then, on the inside of a bend where the water was at its idlest, as the plants make their stand in the shallow water, this slightly secretive little spot seemed at once to be filled with impossible, enchanted creatures. Clap hands if you believe in fairies!
What else can they be: for they were dancing, dancing in the air on wings that had been dunked in the same Quink blue-black ink that I used at school, but transformed into calligraphy more lovely than my pen ever attempted.
You see one, you see hundreds, for it was that kind of day. Time and again we came across another of the floating ballrooms and watched the dancers dance. At each dance-floor I told Eddie their name, and soon he had it for himself.
‘Banded demoiselles.’
‘Brilliant!’
Brilliant indeed: these were the males and their dance was the dance of life and death, a competitive choreography with the prize a gorgeous bronzy female and the opportunity to pass on their genes. They are related to dragonflies, though in these dancing frenzies they look more like a cloud of the most gorgeous butterflies.
To us passing paddling humans it looked like a show put on for our special benefit, but for the dancers it was the most important thing they would ever do in their lives: the thing for which all the time as a larva beneath the water’s surface had been a long preparation. This was the Olympic Final: the time when all second chances have gone.
But all the same, how beautiful: the eternal gavotte of les demoiselles du Waveney. ‘Shall we head back, Eddie?’
‘Not yet.’
Another good decision, he was full of them that day. A little further on, a fizzing blue streak, low to the water, crossing right in front of our boat, giving Eddie the best of views. You know when you wave a sparkler in a circle on Bonfire night? You close your eyes and you can still see the track of its movement, burnt onto your retina. It’s like that when you see a kingfisher. But blue, a blue laser streak inches above the less-blue water of the river.
We paddled back, navigating from ballroom to ballroom on the opposite bank as the dance continued. Soon, but not too soon, we would be in the garden of the pub, cold drinks and the river before us. Every season in the wild world is an adventure, but the gentlest and kindest of adventures take place in the summer.
It felt that day as if we could paddle forever.
Simon Barnes, 2016
Haymaking
After night’s thunder far away had rolled
The fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold,
And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled,
Like the first gods before they made the world
And misery, swimming the stormless sea
In beauty and in divine gaiety.
The smooth white empty road was lightly strewn
With leaves – the holly’s Autumn falls in June –
And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat.
The mill-foot water tumbled white and lit
With tossing crystals, happier than any crowd
Of children pouring out of school aloud.
And in the little thickets where a sleeper
For ever might lie lost, the nettle-creeper
And garden warbler sang unceasingly;
While over them shrill shrieked in his fierce glee
The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow
As if the bow had flown off with the arrow.
Only the scent of woodbine and hay new-mown
Travelled the road. In the field sloping down,
Park-like, to where its willows showed the brook,
Haymakers rested. The tosser lay forsook
Out in the sun; and the long waggon stood
Without its team, it seemed it never would
Move from the shadow of that single yew.
The team, as still, until their task was due,
Beside the labourers enjoyed the shade
That three squat oaks mid-field together made
Upon a circle of grass and weed uncut,
And on the hollow, once a chalk-pit, but
Now brimmed with nut and elder-flower so clean.
The men leaned on their rakes, about to begin,
But still. And all were silent. All was old,
This morning time, with a great age untold,
Older than Clare and Cobbett, Morland and Crome,
Than, at the field’s far edge, the farmer’s home,
&nbs
p; A white house crouched at the foot of a great tree.
Under the heavens that know not what years be
The men, the beasts, the trees, the implements
Uttered even what they will in times far hence –
All of us gone out of the reach of change –
Immortal in a picture of an old grange.
Edward Thomas, 1917
What country was I walking in, what age? Across the hedge there was a perfect Tudor manor, three storeys high, with two great brick chimneys standing as tall as a man above the stone roof. As I got closer I saw the house was hemmed in by caravans and that the road was thick with dust. There were no people, just the empty vans, ranks of them, and the house that stood as silently as if it were circled by snow.
The light was falling unimpeded now, in sheets and glancing blows. I wanted, like Laurie Lee, to stagger into a village and be revived by a flagon of wine. Instead, I tramped through the dust, dodging blue-black dragonflies, and crossed the A275 by the temporary lights. Just before Sheffield Park Bridge the path ducked through a hedge into a spreading meadow of thigh-high grasses. And there was the Ouse, all of a tumble, the sun skating off it in panes of light. It was a proper river now, passing between banks made impassable by a wild profusion of mugwort, nettles and Himalayan balsam. On the far side a dog rose had scrambled its way along the branches of an elder, and the little faded roses grew intertwined with flat creamy umbels that smelled precisely of June. The water was opaque and so full of sediment it looked liquid mud. Its surface caught and distorted the shadows of the plants and beneath them the castellated reflections of clouds slowly shuddered by.
Summer Page 5