Catching up?

Is spring finally sproinging? Whilst it hasn’t exactly been a long hard winter here in the UK it is still nice to pass the equinox and feel, on occasions, the increasing warmth of the spring sunshine.

I am now in my third spring of owning the wood (where did all that time go?) and I am back to enjoying it as much as I did in the first few months. As regular readers may be aware I had a few problems with unwanted interlopers causing a lot of problems during the first eighteen months or so – not least the burning down of my wood store and compost toilet – and undoing much of the hard work I was putting in. I did genuinely consider selling at one point, something that should have been a constant source of joy was proving to be to an overwhelmingly stressful experience, but I reasoned that things would eventually calm down and stuck with it. Things have calmed down, and besides there’s nothing in there now that can be set on fire; perhaps one day I will be able to build another loo. Instead I have been slowly putting in sections of boundary fencing in order to demarcate the wood as being private property; scrounging and recycling used timber as usual. Extensive fencing wasn’t really in my plans, I had no desire to keep people out of the wood, unfortunately the bad apples have spoilt it for the good ones; the health, protection, and biodiversity of the wood is my number one priority. Going in to the future I plan to have ‘open days’ at certain times of the year so that local people can come and enjoy it, and I still have plans to work with local schools for field trips and nature projects. Friends, though, are always welcome.

My lovely dad came and helped with the fencing.

Talking of wildflowers, I am still very much in the learning curve of identification; I have some truly wonderful flora abounding – swathes of Wood Anemone, Lesser Celandine, Wild Garlic, and English Bluebells begin to carpet the ground at this time of year followed by a kaleidoscope of others throughout the seasons – some of my favourites are Yellow Archangel. Red Campion, and the delightfully named Opposite Leaved Golden Saxifrage.

This year I found, for the first time, a small colony of Snowdrops flourishing in a quiet corner. I have also recently discovered what I think may be a mature Guelder Rose or Dog Rose, I’ll identify for certain later in the year.

In other news:

I have recently been working in London on a refurbishment project and have taken the occasional window of opportunity to get out and explore some of its green spaces on my bicycle. A thorough circumnavigation of Wimbledon Common was disappointingly lacking in any Womble sightings. I did however discover that there is a fully restored windmill there, and I found some excellent singletrack. Who would have thought it possible to find singletrack in the heart of the capital? 

The expansive Richmond Park was also charming, and surprisingly natural. I sauntered past a very nonchalant herd of deer who seemed far less interested in me than I was in them.
(Considering it was created as a deer park in the seventeenth century by Charles I it shouldn’t really be a surprise).
In such a densely populated area it is a surprisingly beautiful place to visit, and it’s status as a Nature Reserve, Site of Special Scientific Interest,  and Special Area of Conservation, cement that fact.

As a Royal Park it is also quite posh. I called in at the cafe at Roehampton Gate for a cup of tea and whilst idly perusing the menu I noted that they served such delights as Sourdough toast, Quinoa salad, and Spinach smoothies, along with some things on the menu that I didn’t even know were food; the corresponding prices, as you might imagine, matched the lofty intentions of the fare. I elected to eat somewhere else.
In fact it is so posh that they even had a Park Tool work station for passing cyclists with any minor mechanical issues. (For those of you that don’t know what I’m talking about Park Tool are very expensive).

And finally: