short stories
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Every Footstep
I began my journey following a little path which took me to an old churchyard. As I opened the old wooden gate my eyes beheld the most verdant green hedgerows bursting with wildflowers, a rush of fresh country air laced with the aroma of the evening primrose saluted my nose. This place was beyond compare.
The Life of the Little Brook
After days of heavy rain the little brook had become dimmed and occluded by a great muddy morass. But now the muffled wind with its waft brought the sound of a slow trickle, having found a heavy boulder it made its first song.
By the Riverside
Here where reeds and waterlilies flourish is a place where herons and kingfishers dwell. In the morning the rain had fallen and hung the leaves with tears, but now the sun is shining bright and as it hits the heavy raindrops they shine like crystals.
Let The Moments Linger
A youthful looking man with a look of intelligence and sensibility approaches me, “Why bother” he bristles, “Why tell your stories, no-one will listen? This is what you should be talking about, this is what people want”. He thrust his phone into my vision with images of space and science fiction; “This is the future” he said. This came as a thunderbolt to me and I listen intensely to what he has to say.
The Nature of Flight
Being fully awake and with the soft magic of the half-light dissolved like mist, I stare in slack mouthed silence as squirrels hurriedly ripple across my path, their spines undulating like waves along a skipping rope. They have become startled by the rooks alighting in the great oak tree. Rooks have a more discerning scent and lead a flock of starlings to an area rich in food. They have a more delicate feel in their beaks enabling them to detect food from a greater distance so have formed a beneficial relationship with the starlings, the rooks also acting as a ‘look out’ for predators on open ground which can be readily observed.
Blue’s Countryside Adventures
As Blue and I enter a narrow country lane where finger posts and forgotten milestones are half hidden amongst the wild grasses and where dandelions are blowing abound with seed, Blue relishes the incomparable pleasure of discovery. As I look up at the watery sky I watch the blue arrows team of swallows swerving and swooping picking off insects as they go. I can hear in the distance the sound of ‘Great Tom’ the famous church bell of St. Thomas and The Holy Rood, what a wonderful sound he makes with a head, shoulder, a waist, a lip and a mouth but also a wonderful voice.
The Edge Lands of our Waterways
I awake early as the day dawns and the morning bright. Woven between dew laden brambles sparkling in the sun was the hoariest grey and white of the spider’s web telling me the promise of a lovely day. They are nature’s weather forecasters, for if she sits in the centre of her web with her eyes downcast, the day will be clear and bright.
An Oasis of Calm
In the heart of every winter is a quivering spring and with the rain now shrunk to a drizzle, the limpid grey clouds are brighter and clearer for my sake.
A Show of Summer Softness
In a small enclave of a wooded copse is a place so delightful and yet so often goes unnoticed and unsung. Here is a place to see wonders great and small; it is the little puzzles and magical ploys it presents to us, where adventures are to be experienced and secrets discovered where no eyes can follow
in the shadowed wilds
In the shadowed wilds of mature deciduous woodland where the trees are throttled by the ivy, the wood anemones now steal the show, cloaking the ground and blooming like a galaxy of stars. The random clumps of snow piercers (snowdrops) their white beauty now faded have provided a much needed food supply for the early bees.
a winter’s tale
As I walked along through the twilight with my breath condensing into clouds in the wintery air, the ground glistening beneath my feet and the trees coated with frost, the transparent icicles of winter hanging from their boughs and softly crackling in the breeze, my thoughts once again turned to my beloved Rocky.
the bigger picture
I will try to offer you a few glimpses into the wonders of our native woodland trees, in the hope that you become better informed of the importance of our woodland treasures.
galleries and umtitumps
In the early summer, when the hedgerows are white with May (the blossom of the hawthorn), the scent of which is heavy upon the breeze, and the birds singing lustily above, the spirit of the times is felt even underground by the mole—the blind miner whose senses are so keen it triggers him to start breeding in earnest.
the melodious warbling of the skylark
If you have ever stopped to listen to a Lark singing in a clear blue sky and have wondered how a tiny fluttering spec can climb so high on tender wings and yet sing more blissfully than any other, you may be sure that he is showing off before his lady and is using both the powers of his voice and a display of his flying to win her regard and accept his devotion.
the ant: the mighty atom
Ants, friend or foe, love them or hate them. Did you know that there are over 40 species of ants? To most people they are just pests; they know nothing of their complex lives.
a little bit of heaven on earth
The wind and rain was raw and mean and would change but for a moment. It would touch your face as soft as a feather, and then all of a sudden the cold would hit you once again, for when nature’s birthing spring, she gets right down to it.
a bower of joy
Pondering through the little episodes of my life helps me to realise that many things exist in life that we don’t really see, hear or even understand.