Off to the Woods

I returned to my old stalking ground over the Easter weekend. I was visiting the woods that I walked in every day when i lived in a country cottage just across the road from it. It was wonderful to spend time in a rural environment that I knew so intimately.

I’m happy to say the old place is just as beautiful as I remembered it and just as people-free too.

It is still possible in England to get off the beaten track and to enjoy that particular calm that is only found in ancient woodlands.

We might not be quite ready in these parts for those mystical fields of English bluebells – I think they’ll be at the best next weekend if the weather is good.

But, if it was too early for the bluebells, there was plenty to delight. I have always loved the way the sun shines off holly leaves livening up even the densest undergrowth.

I was pleased too to have been in time to see those delicate carpets of Wood Anenomes….

…flowering this year along side their usually earlier companions, the Lesser Celandine.

..and along the sides of the paths, there were little colonies of violets.

These shy plants are easy to miss but it is well worthwhile to stop and pay them the respect that they’re due.

Everywhere within the woods, there were the spectral stems of bluebell buds. I might go back to see them in bloom next week.

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I’m going to be appearing with three of my fellow Ward Wood writers in Greenwich, London on 30th April. Come along if you can – it would be good to see you.

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STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.