Our gingko tree is slowly turning gold and assaulting our front drive with its smelly fruits; we have finally switched on the central heating and, everywhere I look, peeping through the leaf litter, I see not wildflowers but fungi. So far, I have been mushrooming twice this autumn. In two of Worcestershire's ancient woodlands. Shrawley …
I love finding out about my local history, so I was fascinated to learn that we live near the site of a long-lost holy well. The water from the Henwick Holy Well was credited with the power to cure eye ailments, as holy well water often was, and people would seek it out chiefly for …
Photo by Andrea Paz on Pexels.com Once there was a woman who could never get green things to grow, no matter how hard she tried. Each spring, she would sow seeds she had gathered in the autumn. Her pockets and bags bulged with little zip-lock plastic bags; the kinds that had once contained screws, sequins, …
I am told that in ten days Shredtropolis will be complete. Not ten consecutive days you understand; Mr Rixon is a busy man and has other responsibilities. His day job for example, and his children. However, ten full days of labour should be all it takes for him to finish building his seventh – yes …
A.E. Housman may have been right when he declared that the cherry was the loveliest tree in springtime, but for sheer autumnal majesty the gingko tree is hard to beat. We are lucky to have a mature gingko in our front garden. Even on cloudy days, it is a glorious sight but on bright November …
My most magical bat encounter came when I walked into the bathroom and saw a bat on a toothbrush. My brain struggled to process what my eyes were seeing; they kept trying to convince me that it was a used teabag that just happened to have feet. #bats
24 property viewings, 17 months of renting, 5 house offers, 4 surveys, 2 long-awaited glasses of champagne* *Yes, I know these are wine glasses; we hadn't unpacked the champagne ones, LOL.
Last autumn, I told you all about our new dream house in Worcester, minus one minor detail: we didn't actually own it. I suppose I didn't mention it because I thought it would only be a matter of time before we did and because I didn't want to bore you. We had arranged to rent …
If I had to pick a favourite harbinger of spring I think it would have to be the flowers of Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna). I spotted my first one in bud on the shady banks of the Laugherne Brook during the New Year Plant Hunt but I had to wait until 8th February to see …
The month of January is named after Janus, the Roman god with two heads, one of which looks into the future and the other, the past. He is the god of beginnings and transitions, but also of doorways, gates, passageways and paths...
