Walking diary
The simple experiences of a walk recorded in words and photos, dwelling in the sights, sounds and senses of nature, chance encounters, musings on landscape, nature, local history, mood and wellness, real and everyday ramblings.
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The season’s gilded edges – An Autumn walking diary
The changes creep beguilingly across the leaf scattered pathways, bursts of vivid colour, softer, lower sunlight, and a breath of magic in the air. Continue reading
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Into the dusk, into the changing season…An Autumn Walking Diary
The deep blue skies are clear but darkening, a soft beckon, a gentle thrall – the energy of day, and of summer – meeting the darker enigma of autumn. I seek to pause, to absorb, to let nature’s breath back… Continue reading
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The wild rose, the willow warbler, and the rabbits: Summer walking diary
Delicious summer drizzle, rabbits on misty fields, heady perfumed flowers, a bounty of birds and the worlds best highland cow… Continue reading
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Walking diaries*Summer*Stolen streamside solace…
A few metres onto the track, I stop, take a deep inhalation of the rain washed greenery… the air takes on that deeper, fuller quality under trees… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Spring*The secret waterfalls…
The pungent dampness in the air becomes sharper and fresher – the landscape here is yet to fully greet the morning – and the rambling dandelions are still tightly closed – awaiting the first rays… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Spring*The Sunlit Mountain…
The coppery stream winds steeply through the ancient woodland, enormous moss covered boulders, flecked with sunlight, casting imposing shapes across its banks. I felt the magic ancient sense of this spot once before, and I feel it again now… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Spring*The Forgotten Woods
Low sunlight pools into open stretches of land, reflecting off jewel-like deep green holly, and sending slender golden trails through bronzed leaves. Somewhere in the woods a secretive Jay emits a rusty call… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Spring* Conquering the lost footpath…
The golden shafts from the canopy glitter with intensified force and mystery – reinforcing the feeling that the forest is mistress in these depths – and they illuminate a suddenly clear track ahead… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Winter*The Wild of the Moorland
Beyond the trees, the land opens out, untamed and barren – tussocks of long grass the only relief to open plains of waterlogged ground. The wind travels unhindered across these flat moors, insisting on its wildness with every breath… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Winter*Chasing the sunlight…
Dry stone walls ramble, reassuringly ancient, over the bare winter mountain, accentuating its stark seasonal architecture. They are innocuous but immovable, like tenacious bones of history – holding the landscape together. Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Winter*Into a frosty wonderland
Winter opens such different vistas – landscapes once obscured, appear in different scale and detail, birds otherwise hidden amidst green canopies become suddenly and joyfully visible… On the forest side of the road, further evidence of autumn’s resolution not to… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Autumn*A spooky dusk walk into the Wild Wood
It is T-minus 90 minutes till sundown. The impending dusk is creeping up the mountain like an embarrassed ghost. Strange rustles in the undergrowth could be furry creatures preparing for bed, or they could be dark ghouls with the stolen… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Autumn*Season of mists and fellow bootiness…
On a thickly foggy October morning, the high mountaintops beckoned me. The low autumn sun shimmered through a veiled sky, gilding the russet leaves in gold, and forming magical landscapes that emerged and evolved from the mist… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries *Autumn* Cocooning calm on the canal-side…
Is there anything more tranquil than the gentle plop of a duck into the still waters of a canal? Soft autumn colours, tranquil reflections and comical birds in a gentle leaf-dusted ramble… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Autumn*The secrets of the mountain..
A journey into a cloaked landscape. Skies overcast with the palest of greys have rendered a flat, still light, hiding the depth and contrast of the hills. It is like nature, in the midst of its magnificent tumble into autumn,… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Autumn* Forest life from the coal dust…
Today’s walk heads into the land of deep evergreens grown upon the spoil of our mining past. A mountain whose landscape has changed and evolved through the mists of time… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Autumn* The magical light of Equinox
The night has fought at last to equal length, and the shadows of the year are creeping up behind the trees. Despite this, the morning light of the low autumn sun is bright – iridescent – and this landscape on… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries*Autumn*The bracken turns to bronze…
The mountain landscape, gilded in low autumn sun, is at the very cusp of change. Verdant green oaks spill their prolific bounty to the ground below, mingling with the first russet leaf-drop. On the open hillside above, the bright green… Continue reading
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Walking Diaries *Autumn*The first whispers on the wind…
Enter that liminal time where summer flowers are fading, but autumn colours have not yet ripened. It prompts us to rove the landscape for bright splashes, hints of magic, and bold defiers of the lengthening night… Continue reading
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Walking Diary *Summer* Cliffs, Coves and Choughs in wildest Cornwall
There is no walk quite like a Cornish cliff top. And today’s weather has furnished us with that most quintessential of Celtic weather systems, a blowy mizzler. .. Continue reading
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Walking Diary*Summer* Hidden pools in the land of lost treasure
As I step over the stile onto the path proper, I feel like I am in wonderland. There is not another soul in sight, butterflies are darting back and forth all around me amongst the long grass, and skylarks are… Continue reading
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Two bats and a squirrel – The birth of an ADHD walking diary
…there is something different here. It doesn’t feel ground-breaking, it doesn’t feel like it will change my life. But it’s a gentle, tangible tonic. It’s a slower stream of oxygen through otherwise stormy veins… Continue reading
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Walking Diary*Summer* Adventure beyond the fallen oak…
This sort of looks like it could once have been a path, but directly ahead of me a huge limb has been severed from a living oak, and it is impossible to progress in this direction without going either over… Continue reading
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Walking Diary *Summer*Sandmartins, Swifts and secret pathways…
Today’s walk was veritable banquet of wildlife, and a testament to the glorious abundance of June. I hadn’t gone out expecting very much, rather, feeling somewhat low in both energy and spirits this morning Continue reading
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Walking Diary*Summer* Runaway robins and retreat in the trees
I arrive at my walking destination knowing I don’t have much time today, but determined to soak in what I can before the days work ahead of me Continue reading
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Walking Diary*Spring*Wind in white flowers
An evening walk. And the air has a brooding quality to it, grey skies and sharp pulls of wind, like something more ominous may be afoot… Continue reading
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Walking Diary *Spring* Tunnels of dappled light
A slight shift of focus, a slight lift of mood, as I continued past the busy roundabout and onto the industrial estate at the rear, from which you can access the glorious Taff Trail. One turn from a busy road… Continue reading
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Walking Diary*Spring* Hazy sun and cockerels herald the season
The weather feels relatively mild for March, and there is a soft haze in the air, not quite sunshine, but that pre-sun light, where the sun sits behind the thinnest layer of cloud – strong enough to cast faint shadows… Continue reading
