The island I live on is beautiful. A palm fringed beach surrounds it, and the interior is thickly forested with all kinds of tropical fruiting trees. A shaded pool overhung with creepers and fed by a crashing waterfall provides sweet water. Exotic birds fill the trees with all manner of songs and their plumage flashes in the sun. Life here is easy, with food to hand and time to spare for any diversion I can imagine.
Then one day a ship appeared on the horizon and sailed right in to the island's largest bay. From its anchorage the men of the crew were visible to me, busy with a round of mysterious tasks, swarming up rigging, mending sails, cleaning tackle. They shouted between each other, in raucous voices, curt jokes and harsh commands. I stood on the beach and watched.
The next morning it had gone. I searched along the strand and looked hard at the horizon but no trace of the ship remained. Turning back inland I walked through the trees to the pool and started to swim. The island's sounds surrounded me again and I wondered how long it would be until I forgot the ship, and the crew, and their voices sounding to me across the water.
Showing posts with label water. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water. Show all posts
Monday, October 8, 2007
A Country Park
This morning P and I went for a walk in a Country Park a few miles away. I dislike its tidied and urbanised nature but at its centre are two lakes which make it worth a visit.
We go briskly along the near side of the main lake without my really noticing it, and then break away from the main track to find a wilder patch. The bracken here reaches up to my chin and to start with the path I found here a few months earlier eludes me. Then I find it, and my hollow footfalls on the beaten earth sound as though I'm walking along above a secret tunnel. September's sun is low against my face.
On the far side of the smaller lake I sit down on a convenient fallen trunk, sprung against my weight across a gap, and the sun promptly goes in. Then I notice the mildly sulphuric smell of the backwater - too late: P is up to her elbows in stinking black mud. We move to a cleaner stretch of the lake and P continues her investigations along the bank, sending ripples through the reflection on overhanging trees. Tiny pin pricks all across the water's surface reveal the movement of insects below. Heavier versions of dragonflies hover like bombers, their wings a slow, nearly-visible blur. By now, P is trying to find something forbidden to get my attention. Failing repeatedly, she comes eventually to sit beside me. Time to move on.
The ground is thick with acorn cups, but where are all the acorns? The under-storey of the bracken is dieing and turning Pippa-coloured. Away from the pond, the fragmented glare of light bounces off a mass of small leaved trees and I pluck a sprig from them to check its identity later (unsuccessfully as it turn out).
We come back on high ground above the main lake, on a wide track with banks arching up around it, the sides held back by fingers of roots. Among the trees are a mature holly, its branches in gracefully swept dense layers, and a painfully slender rowan with ornamentally complex leaves.
Even up here the park management seems heavy-handed to me. Around one tree-trunk, a trio of next boxes is packed together, making me wonder whether birds care to be housed in such proximity. I suppose it saves on flying time for visiting - and also on ladder moving time when putting them up there.
We're nearly back at the start. The graveled path changes to tarmac. Just as I'm getting really annoyed by the growing traffic noise, we pass the last few bushes and suddenly the main lake is there - arrestingly beautiful. I remember why we come back here, as the sunlight glints on the water. Watching, I discern more and more patterns across is as clouds move above, the light changes, and wind ruffles the surface. It must never look quite the same for two moments together. Even the unconvincingly antiqued boat-house is in keeping in such an obviously picturesque setting.
No wonder they take such care of it all really.
We go briskly along the near side of the main lake without my really noticing it, and then break away from the main track to find a wilder patch. The bracken here reaches up to my chin and to start with the path I found here a few months earlier eludes me. Then I find it, and my hollow footfalls on the beaten earth sound as though I'm walking along above a secret tunnel. September's sun is low against my face.
On the far side of the smaller lake I sit down on a convenient fallen trunk, sprung against my weight across a gap, and the sun promptly goes in. Then I notice the mildly sulphuric smell of the backwater - too late: P is up to her elbows in stinking black mud. We move to a cleaner stretch of the lake and P continues her investigations along the bank, sending ripples through the reflection on overhanging trees. Tiny pin pricks all across the water's surface reveal the movement of insects below. Heavier versions of dragonflies hover like bombers, their wings a slow, nearly-visible blur. By now, P is trying to find something forbidden to get my attention. Failing repeatedly, she comes eventually to sit beside me. Time to move on.
The ground is thick with acorn cups, but where are all the acorns? The under-storey of the bracken is dieing and turning Pippa-coloured. Away from the pond, the fragmented glare of light bounces off a mass of small leaved trees and I pluck a sprig from them to check its identity later (unsuccessfully as it turn out).
We come back on high ground above the main lake, on a wide track with banks arching up around it, the sides held back by fingers of roots. Among the trees are a mature holly, its branches in gracefully swept dense layers, and a painfully slender rowan with ornamentally complex leaves.
Even up here the park management seems heavy-handed to me. Around one tree-trunk, a trio of next boxes is packed together, making me wonder whether birds care to be housed in such proximity. I suppose it saves on flying time for visiting - and also on ladder moving time when putting them up there.
We're nearly back at the start. The graveled path changes to tarmac. Just as I'm getting really annoyed by the growing traffic noise, we pass the last few bushes and suddenly the main lake is there - arrestingly beautiful. I remember why we come back here, as the sunlight glints on the water. Watching, I discern more and more patterns across is as clouds move above, the light changes, and wind ruffles the surface. It must never look quite the same for two moments together. Even the unconvincingly antiqued boat-house is in keeping in such an obviously picturesque setting.
No wonder they take such care of it all really.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
From Toulouse to the hills by train
There was the usual high speed train trick: somebody started to move the platform. A few minutes later the train is darting forward, uncannily smooth for its speed.
The sun is out here just as it was at home, but here its heat seems stronger. Pale stony soil and bleached stubble stretch out on either side of the track's low embankment. Grey woods look even greyer in the distance, and cars as small as toys shoot along on an invisible road. There is an un-English absence of hedges. Suddenly against the sky I see a stepped wall of bells, improbable and over-dramatic as stage scenery.
We slow in respect of a small town but don't stop, like passing a lesser picture in a gallery. By unspoken agreement all buildings are ocher, cream, pale grey - anything but white. When we pass a lone exception it is clear why: it seers the eye with brightness, even in autumn.
Then for once the train is delayed, and we wait and wait in the middle of the faded dusty landscape. The small far clouds are unmoving and even in September the sun bakes the train. I look out and long for the garden I have been ignoring for the last six moths, and the verdure of England at the end of a wet summer.
Eventually we move off towards the next town. Gardens, edged with serried ranks of trees, all contain some version of a swimming pool. The houses are small, single storey, with shallow-pitched roofs bearing inter-crinkled red tiles. Everywhere everything looks rectangular. At each few houses there is a well, an orchard, immaculately tended rows of vegetables.
A line of plane trees, like English willows along a riverbank, marks a canal, from which a barge protrudes above the horizon. A few minutes further on, a driveway through fields is picked out by a double file of mediterranean pines.
Without my noticing, the clouds have gathered, and the light is no longer as clear. Vines replace stubble, overlaying each hillside with a directional grain as though a comb had been passed through them. Like trees in a plantation they seem a muddle until you reach just that point when you see plumb along the line. Each vineyard brings yet more long green walls, all on little wonky legs.
Beyond Carcasonne we travel up the valley of the Aude, through towering gorges with the modest river that carved them bubbling along below. The water is shallow and beautifully clear; as usual with natural things I ask it its prayer, not really expecting an answer. The following day I lean over the bridge on a wander through town and a reply comes to my mind. It is what it does, and it does what it is. So I began to write.
The sun is out here just as it was at home, but here its heat seems stronger. Pale stony soil and bleached stubble stretch out on either side of the track's low embankment. Grey woods look even greyer in the distance, and cars as small as toys shoot along on an invisible road. There is an un-English absence of hedges. Suddenly against the sky I see a stepped wall of bells, improbable and over-dramatic as stage scenery.
We slow in respect of a small town but don't stop, like passing a lesser picture in a gallery. By unspoken agreement all buildings are ocher, cream, pale grey - anything but white. When we pass a lone exception it is clear why: it seers the eye with brightness, even in autumn.
Then for once the train is delayed, and we wait and wait in the middle of the faded dusty landscape. The small far clouds are unmoving and even in September the sun bakes the train. I look out and long for the garden I have been ignoring for the last six moths, and the verdure of England at the end of a wet summer.
Eventually we move off towards the next town. Gardens, edged with serried ranks of trees, all contain some version of a swimming pool. The houses are small, single storey, with shallow-pitched roofs bearing inter-crinkled red tiles. Everywhere everything looks rectangular. At each few houses there is a well, an orchard, immaculately tended rows of vegetables.
A line of plane trees, like English willows along a riverbank, marks a canal, from which a barge protrudes above the horizon. A few minutes further on, a driveway through fields is picked out by a double file of mediterranean pines.
Without my noticing, the clouds have gathered, and the light is no longer as clear. Vines replace stubble, overlaying each hillside with a directional grain as though a comb had been passed through them. Like trees in a plantation they seem a muddle until you reach just that point when you see plumb along the line. Each vineyard brings yet more long green walls, all on little wonky legs.
Beyond Carcasonne we travel up the valley of the Aude, through towering gorges with the modest river that carved them bubbling along below. The water is shallow and beautifully clear; as usual with natural things I ask it its prayer, not really expecting an answer. The following day I lean over the bridge on a wander through town and a reply comes to my mind. It is what it does, and it does what it is. So I began to write.
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