Words and Pollocks.

In golden-leafed promise the welcome murmur of autumn leads us wool-wrapped and willing towards winter's chilled embrace.

Beneath weighted sky with stiffened air all nature folds her collar-up; and in hinted-season and time-drawn apparel, makes ready for short and sharpened breath.

Afternoon-dimmed with leaf-softened tread,  the dampened woods draw close their quiet mantle. No stirring nor feathered chatter heard. The whispering air in silent branch brings gentle haze to blur the eye......the trees withdrawn, once more, stand ready.

Picture This.....Not.

"Don't waste words, jump to conclusions..."
That famously ambiguous, contentious and curious quote dubiously attributed to that longtime 'hero' of mine, Mr Millican Dalton.....

Those words can be seen roughly scratched into the rock wall of a cave that this pioneering gentleman of nature, freedom and adventure made his home for 50 odd (some would say very odd!) years in the English Lake District.
However....never judge a book by it's cover....etc etc...
A person's appearance,  manner and character can often be misleading......and you never know... underneath the grey suit, collar and tie there may be a free-thinking bohemian uni-cycling performance artist......or something......and anyway, that questionable jumper/hat/pair of trousers they are furnished in may not have actually been of their own choosing.
'They' say that looking at the books and/or music a person has on their shelves can often indicate a person's character....and intriguingly, what footwear they sport....I'm not so sure....I would hate to think that I ever be adjudged by what's on my shelves

....there is a hell of a lot of both noise and word there by accident, intrusion and by unwarranted gift......and my mode of foot furniture is, to say the least, somewhat haphazard according to activity....and more often than not, mildly inappropriate !
Anyway.......it got me thinking....
Over the years, I appear to have collected a fair number of pictures and paintings that happen to adorn the walls of my home. These pictures make an extremely eclectic (always feels good to use the word eclectic) mix of style, content, subject matter and yes.....subjectively rated artistic merit. In the same way that what sits on the bookshelf and inhabits the music collection of a person can be said to reflect the character of their owner, maybe the displayed choice of their wall adornments also gives insight into their 'inner persona'......perhaps even more directly. If so, I'm in trouble......call Social Services immediately.
A fair number of almost 'chocolate- boxy' landscapes ( I don't know why....I just like 'em) exist amongst a sprinkling of more worthy original nature paintings...Contemporary and classical  prints of various subjects jostle amongst drawings, photographic copies and home-mounted 'art' pieces of dubious and incongruous subjects from Kerouac to Dickens, from theatre props to guitar fretboard close-ups. From framed pages of Eagle comics to classical seascape water-colours. Postcards, drawings and personal ephemera of every kind from marbles to rocks, feathers and a rather fetching collection of hats....... and the rest.....

As I say.......it occurs to me also.....bearing in mind the above......Could the appearances of our furred and feathered friends in any way indicate/influence 'character'....or do they simply look like they do, and are what they are,  and do what they do, simply because of what they are... because of practical natural evolution.....
Because yer everage  bird of prey has the facial features that make it look cruel and fierce ......is it?
Because a fluffy bunny looks to us all cuddly and cute......is it?
Because a chicken by its general demeanour, looks less 'intelligent' than an owl......is it?
Does a well preened badger have more social status within badger society than a scruffy one?
Does a chaffinch actually know its sartorially 'lookin' good' when compared with a dunnock....
These are questions that need to be answered.....
I realize the matter of choice of appearance is not an aspect generally open to fauna, but does their appearance in any way influence their individual and/or collective character.....if indeed a species has such a thing.....*strokes chin whilst musing..
I think we can be forgiven for anthropomorphising a bit......what other way of assessing 'character' have we?
Are sparrows cheeky chappies?
Are weasels mean and nasty?......and so on....
Most animals I can think of seem to have been given a human characteristic according to their species, behaviour...... and perhaps....appearance?
Our domestic pets appear to develop 'characters' in our eyes, so do 'wild' creatures also develop individual characteristics........ and here is the rub.....are these characteristics determinable by their appearance?
Does a grumpy duck actually look grumpy?

Does a happy-go-lucky tortoise look any different from an introverted one?
Do animals and birds have individual characters and can you tell not just by their activity, but by their appearance?........and, reading back through this post............who the hell cares?
I need to get out more.
I was going to include an array of pictorial examples of my household 'art' collection....interspersed with examples of various animals and birds displaying imagined characteristics due to their appearance.......but frankly,  I can't now really be bothered.......maybe at a later date perhaps.......or!...the precious few who read this, could post illustration of their own ??!!....
Nah.....
I'm going for a walk. Autumn has well and truly arrived, and the local woods/river-bank and chilled misty air is calling for me to don those favourite items of warm 'winter' clothing and wander amongst it all......
Yet.........I do wonder what picture I may present to any highly-wicked Goretex-wrapped passer-by as I saunter along dressed in my beaten up old walking boots (with mismatched laces), co-ordinated duffle coat and battered fedora combo......?

Minor curmudgeonly vent....

The writings of Robert Gibbings, John Muir, J.A. Baker, Roger Deakin, Marc Cocker, John Wyatt, Robert Macfarlane etc etc etc.....plus (believe me!)  many, many others of lesser reknown......but of equal merit, people who write of, comment upon and ruminate about the natural world and their individual connection with it.....these books line my shelves and lay scattered around the house in random welcome, each well-thumbed in familiarity, and which all in their own characteristic way, never fail to offer an affirmation of,  and an inspiration to, my own deep felt affinity with the natural environment and my long-felt, and some may say ( how very dare they) my somewhat philosophical,  'hippy-drippy' resonance with it...so there.

I browse with genuine pleasure through the blogs of this illustrious site, and have to admit, am often interested in the subjects raised and even entertained and moved by some of the posts.....(a nod in your direction 'Paying Ready Attention'... amongst a few others)....yet, reading so many of the entries, I sometimes get the feeling that there is a whole population of 'naturalists' out there who undoubtedly get real pleasure from their interests,  and like to share their particular avenues of activity with the rest of us, but somehow, I get the impression that maybe the woods are not being seen for the trees....
To actually know the Latin name for a spiders knee, and then to have photographed it....to have encyclopedic knowledge of every genus of mushroom, moss and molluscian mucus (!)...to have listed and recorded as a life-tick the lesser-throated spot warbler and to have measured the growth pattern of chickpea hybrid.....is all very enthralling, I'm sure....but maybe the core pleasure of simply being in a natural environment is being missed because of tightly focused interest. I can get as excited as the next man about catching sight of a particular bird or animal, and derive real pleasure from 'knowing' about the natural environment around me, but the greatest pleasure of all is gained by the un-thinking appreciation of nature in all its forms by the simple action of being amongst it. No need to identify, list or report. No need to investigate. No need to photograph, collect or study.
Nature's simple, timeless un-classified beauty and miriad aspects are, for me, best appreciated and acknowledged by the simple fact of experiencing it..walking within it....be it forest, mountain, river or beach.

With yer nose pressed up against the viewfinder, (as it were) maybe yer miss the view.
(What is it with naturalists and facial hair, eh?)

In the Outside..

I spend a large proportion of my life inside a darkened room. My work in theatre (the stage type, not the operating type) often requires me to replicate outside, inside.
Through the magic of smoke and whistles, I often turn what is a dark inside into a light outside, and sometimes a light inside into a dark outside...or even make a light outside turn into a darker outside as the inside becomes lighter...because its dark outside....or vice-versa....Its all a bit inside out, so no wonder that when inside, I yearn somewhat for the outside.

The change of season is starting to visibly occur (outside), and so off I went for a short wander inside my local neighbourhood woods. The variant leaf-colour has not quite gotten into its full autumnal livery as yet, but is teasingly hinting at things to come, the air chilled and dampened,  a general feeling of preparation for winter's approach all around.,
I approached the edge of the wood via a small soggy rise of well tended pasture that blended into a more overgrown belt of rougher thicket and 'bramble', and as I looked back over the town behind me, I realised, somewhat pompously, that the old school motto relating to its geographical location was actually quite apt.
Inter silvas et flumina habitans....(We live between the woods and the river).....Pretentious..moi ...surely not.

Anyway, whilst I mentally ran through a few Latin declensions (not)..I noticed a pairing that I suspect are not often seen in close proximity... Oak trees and Bull-rushes.

I may be wrong, but I thought I'd mention it.....also, a proliferation of acorns...

The path through the woods was, as ever, a sheer delight, made even more pleasant by the aforementioned autumn changes starting to take place...a thick carpet of fallen Beech and Chesnut leaves making a seasonal welcome mat.....

....

In direct contrast to the 'inside-outside' silliness of my existence in dressy-up pretend-land, and in keeping with my floppy-haired classical musings prompted by Latin quotations, I was pleased by the fact that the the good burghers of my home town were pretty much 'does what it says on the tin' people when it came to naming some local features.
This bridge across the river is named Planky Bridge....because it is actually planky. It is made of planks.

A little further along the river, and passed Willow corner, named because...well it's a corner....with a Willow tree....

...and along the lane where the humble hedgerow echo'd the changing hue of its distant bigger arboreal cousins by sporting itself a bright smattering of berries in colourful challenge...

The next bridge across the river is named..... Blue Bridge...yes, you guessed it.....because it is blue.

..and just to round things off, I walked through the infeasibly attractive area of patch-work cultivation that is born of our local proud chapter of Allotmenteers. An area of outstanding vegetables, fruit, flowers and ramshackle structure...and no doubt, hidden caches of Peruvian sherry.."just to wet the whistle, and keep the slugs at bay".
This area was once owned by local farmer, Tommy.
It has, of course, been named......Tommy's Field.

Ahhh, all is well with the world if such beautiful, logical sense can purvey in the naming of things.

Yew Wood Too....

I took into my head to look for another wood to walk in....a wood that I had not yet been to...a wood that was nearby and easily accessible....a wood that was deciduous, mixed and hosted a river of some sort....a wood on the doorstep, as it were....but different to the wood that was already on my doorstep...er.... as it were.
So, after a quick glance at the local map, I tootled off in the car heading for the deduced arboriality. (good word..suspect it doesn't exist though).
The ten minute or so drive that took me to my intended location was a pleasure itself to be honest. I left home and was soon sedately pottering along  the quiet leaf-dappled back-roads, window down, relishing the slowly rolling views of greenery through the summer-thickened hedges and tree-arched avenues that were starting to hint at changing their hues into this year's autumn colours.
As I passed, I acknowledged the welcome presence of the usual suspects of Rook, Crow and Magpie going about the business of being Rooks, Crows and Magpies....

and also, along the way, noticed a constant blurring of Swallows constantly dotting the sky in their ceaselessly deft flight patterns as they, too, went about doing what Swallows do......

On the outskirts of the small but perfectly formed village that was, according to the map, the starting point of my little excursion, I parked the car verge-bound and after closing the car door behind me, paused for a few moments as I attuned to the instant quiet of a country silence after the constant car-rumble of my drive. I say a country silence, because it rarely is a complete silence.....my ears began to pick out the subtle tapestry of characteristic sounds....wood-pigeon cooing...

.the occasional craark of a Rook....a distant sheep bleat..a very distant buzz of a chain-saw....a couple of barks from a field-far dog.....the silly clatter and squark of a near-by Pheasant....the underscore of haphazard delicate tweets and twitterings of guessed at Blue Tits....etc etc...

The air was still and mild and had a feel of gentle dampness to it, and just like the start of the changing leaf-colour, the air itself seemed to be hinting at the autumnal change of season...
I wandered on along the roadside for a short while looking at the thick Hawthorn hedge alongside, ably supported by multi-stemmed Hazel and coppiced Ash, (the hedge that is..not me) and presently came across the almost un-seen niche in the hedge that offered entry into the wood. Nearly smothered by an old Yew tree, a very weathered and bramble-wrapped wooden signpost kindly pointed the way in....I obeyed.
The overgrown leaf strewn pathway led me steeply down away from the roadside hedge and down the thickly wooded slopes, across an ornate stone bridge,

into a 'secret' winding valley. Within a few minutes of leaving the road, I was completely enfolded into the woodland.... and it was clear that anything that had ever happened outside this ancient and peaceful habitat was unknown by it, was irrelevant and would ever remain so. I continued to follow the faint course of the pathway down amongst the arching Beech, Sycamore, Oak and Birch whose overhead leaves were jointly embroidered into a canopy of a graded greens and browns, throwing dancing shades of light and shade onto the soft ground beneath.  
The promised, and hoped for river within this wooded sanctuary quietly began to whisper its song, and as I approached, the bracken-ish water glistened in a reflective, sparkling dance and it's tune of pebble-splash and gentle gurgle became a little louder, and its tinkling refrain became a constant gentle tune to the quiet wooded chorus.

I continued to walk along the tree-sloped gentle riverside... the slow, shallow course of the water interrupted by a smattering of lushly mossed rocks....and the occasional fallen branch....each causing a silver line of eddy and lazy swirl as the flow rounded and moved on....
I wandered on...
I rounded a bend, and set a little back from the pathway and nestled well in to the wooded slope behind it, a curious stone archway was revealed.... and on closer inspection it became obvious that some sort of 'folly' or grotto had been imaginatively constructed, long ago, out of the rock...with a short low tunnel leading under the path to the river.....

An unseen flight of geese honked its way noisily overhead, the sound of their passing intruding like a very slow doppler effect through the trees..... I startled a Robin

into bad tempered admonishment of my presence and a rather insistent Pheasant

barked its stupidity at me from the other side of the  river.
In the middle of the path was a colony of mushroom-like fungus that had quite clearly decided to flourish copiously in that one specific spot..and no other, as far as I could see.

I momentarily left the far end of the wood, to emerge into an open meadow of gorse-lined pasture and stood still for a moment, and as I stood, a large Buzzard

airily took off from high up in the trees in front of me, circled a while, and floated off out of sight over the distant tree-tops.......The edge of the field was bordered by a couple of houses with a paddock that was home to two clearly contented horses setting a scene of rural idyll...

and alongside me in the hedge, I noticed the seasonal berries were almost ready for the picking...

A 'single-seater' aeroplane then passed over.....somewhat more noisily and far more intrusively.
I turned, and as I made my way back through the water-side trees, I once again became absorbed into the special quiet atmosphere of the ancient, shrouded woodland....enjoying and sensing that indefinable feeling I get from being within that specific environment...
I slowly made my way back to the car,  rising out of the deep valley and emerging from the half-hidden exit point the way I had come...the vale disappearing behind the hedgerow behind me. As I leaned on the bonnet taking a drink of water from my flask before heading off,  a couple of motor-bikes turned the bend half a mile or so up the quiet lane I was parked beside, and approached quickly, very quickly, obviously making an increasing amount of noise as they did so.....they roared passed me in a cacophony, all day-glow leathers and exhaust,  leaving a wake of fleeing, squawking and panicking fauna behind them....
I totally appreciate the genuine pleasure and thrill one must get from riding a motor bike along a winding country road, but can't help thinking.....well, y'know..


 
    

Get yer Rocks off...

Undeniably compelled today to go somewhere.
Couldn't be bothered to drive across to the 'Lakes'.
Toyed with the notion of wandering the usual walks on my doorstep.....
Then.....light-bulb over the head moment....The Wanneys....that's where I'll go ..... The Wanneys.

The Wannys are a bunch of small friendly rocky escarpments upon which I used to clamber about on, and occasionally fall off from, in my crag-rat climbing days...er, a while ago.
Magically placed mid open moorland, but accessible by a pleasant 'walk-in'.
So off I went.
I fired up the jalopy and tootled along the back roads in the sunshine...
In just a few short miles, the route took me through some of the most appealing and beautiful countryside so typical of Northumberland.

Lushly wooded, pastoral meadow...

High-hedged lane, branch-domed and worn..

Olden-spired, warm-stoned villages.....

Leaf-dappled, blue-brown, stone-sparkled rivers...

Open-viewed, farm-placed greenery, stocked, lowing and bleating...

Anyway.....
En-route, I casually noted a whole bunch of houses and locations where I would blissfully surrender my remaining eye teeth to live in.

Presently, relying on my memory of the locale, I parked the car in a conveniently placed county council roadside gravel heap, and ambled off across the once way-marked er, way...over tussocked moorland in the sunshine, in the general direction of a pine wood leading to the rising horizon of The Wanneys.
Half an hour or so later, after not a little stumbling about in what turned out to be an inpenetrable quagmire under face-lashing brushwood,

I retraced my steps to the car-mounted gravel mound, and decided upon alternative approach. Clearly, the topography had been changed by someone in my absence...
Happily I came across the correct spot a little further on, and
a very pleasant and easy sloped moorland walk led me up to the mid-distant Wanneys.
On reaching one end of the top of the ridge, I took an off-piste stumbling shuffle down through the glorious, but ankle grabbing purple heather,

and wandered along the base of the crag, and gazed rememberingly at the rock formations.....in my minds eye seeing a teen-aged me spidering about on its stony monoliths.

Absolutely on cue, I heard a sound I had not heard for years.
A Curlew.

Northumbria in a feathered nutshell.
As chance would have it, a couple of climbers were preparing to ascend 'Foxes Hole' (remarkably, I remembered and recognized the route!), so I lingered and watched their endeavors.
I am sure they were enjoying themselves, but they appeared to make rather clumsy hard work of it.
Festooned with gear, helmeted and loudly going through the format of vocal exchanges.........

Hmmm, get me.
I wandered off further along the base of this lofty, isolated and moor-lonely crag, enjoying the now quiet solitude, eventually to again take an off-piste foray up through the dense heather and gorse to reach the top the 'easy way'. Pah!...easy way indeed.
After 20mins of sweat-drenched, shin-scraping, face-planting crashing about, I hauled myself up on hands and knees through the undergrowth to collapse exhausted at the top.....to be met with a family outing, complete with Grandma, all sandals and sun-hats, holding their cameras out and asking if I would  "take their photies pleez".
I of course did.
Once the Giles group had gaggled off the way they came, I sat a while and looked out over the broad horizoned landscape of the open moor. A real pleasure.
As I walked back to return to the car, I was surrounded by a swooping squadron of swallows glutting on the insects in the warmth of the sun, and a single mew of the Curlew sounded out once more.

Sweethope Lough came into view as I descended the kindly sloped back of The Wanneys, its blue shimmering water cradled in wooded perimeter

....and just to complete the picture, a lone boat of two fly fishermen drifted into silhouette....lazily casting over the water.

A magical impromptu few hours really. ( unabashed prompt for famed Northumberland based image!)