“Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.”
Goethe
That this…
Will become this…
Is just a little bit magical isn’t it…
Tag Archives: learn
Growing Green Again
13 DecNew Beginnings!
6 DecI have had a much needed rest after the last four months of a very crazy Cambodian adventure and now a change is most certainly in order! Not of country, because this place seems to like me and people keep offering me work, nice people, so I am sticking for now. But with a new string or two to my bow I will be re-designing this blog/website over the next few weeks to share more appropriately my other new Cambodian ventures with you. But for now you should go have a look at www.nathanhortonphotography.com because, for part of my time, he is my new boss and he is really rather good at taking snaps! Go see!
In the meantime though my travel and photography blog of this country has lot’s of lovely stuff to read and browse through so go have a nosey and and I’ll catch up with you all soon, very, very soon! www.thecambodianchapter.wordpress.com
‘Between the stones’
6 MarRoyal Victoria Country Park Hospital through slate and stone sculpture ~ 50,000 patients were treated here during WWI, Queen Victoria loved it, Florence Nightingale deemed it vain. I’m really enjoying exploring black & white.
Eden Ahoy!
5 OctTwo of my favourite things plus a night away with my better half was always going to bode well. Dreadzone at eden project in Cornwall on October 1st was like having your favourite pudding and your favourite meal delivered by hand. The following day exploring the flora of Eden was like a 7 course meal for my eyes and camera!
A startlingly beautiful and almost alien venue at night we were greeted by gifts of Acai berry juice freshly harvested from the tropical biome. Warmly welcomed by Dan Ryan, editor of Eden’s online conservation website Plant Talk, who was kind enough to put us up in his camper (thanks Dan!). I have been volunteering for Dan as photojournalist and wasn’t sure if I was more excited to photograph Dreadzone in such an amazing structure or the plant life the following day. But both were as wonderful to shoot as the other.
An intimate gig with an audience of eight hundred nestled between the biomes Dreadzone played with abandoned pride, clearly showing their joy gigging at such an inspiring venue with the multi coloured Cornish crowd in full appreciation. Once the rhythm section of Big Audio Dynamite in the 1980’s the new album Eye on the Horizon is available now on Dubweiser records. Look out for tracks Gangster, Little Britain (not the tv show the song!) inspired American Dread and the hypnotising Tomorrow Never Comes. The band played with personal passion dedicating the track Changes to a member of eden team who had recently lost her father, their connection to their audience as strong as ever. Oh how we danced under eden’s biomes, as those who know would say “Oi Oi!”
Eden isn’t just about plants, occasional gigs (the spectacular Kate Tempest plays next month) and the largest greenhouse in the world. As a registered charity member’s of the team work with the homeless on their Great Grass programme which enables participants to realise new skills on registered training courses and support into employment. There are campaigns to encourage school children to learn how we can grow our own foods, a deep geothermal energy project proposing to build the first UK geothermal power plant, and so much more to learn and explore. Wear comfy shoes and layers, that tropical biome is hot and go, you’d be silly not to!
An Ode to Moths
12 Sep
I’m a bit nuts about moths. It was the dead greater tiger moth that I found under the rose bush when I was three that did it. I carried it into the house and nestled it’s furry body into a matchbox, occasionally opening it to marvel at the delicate powdery wings and stroke a little onto my finger tip. Their numbers have declined 89% over the last 30 years and I haven’t seen a greater tiger moth or even a normal one for over a decade.
But this entry isn’t meant to be about dead moths it is about the very live ones particularly the ‘Old Lady’ that found her way inside one late evening and suprised us flying like a bat around the flat the next morning.
Mormo maura (Old Lady) is a large herbacious and deciduous feeding moth that flies in later summer. I popped her in a box to let out under dark as she was getting a in a real flap and was so large as to be an immediate food source for the young blackbird family that feed at the back door.
Moths are in serious decline. We really need to take heed that some of our most delicate and beautiful of wild creatures, these wee winged beasties that aid their winged cousins in pollenating our beautiful flora, are compromised by human action.
What can we do? Find out more about Moths and how the British Butterfly Conservation Society is working to map and protect declining species and get planting yourself!
Moths in general adore white nectar filled flowers including ~ Flowering tobacco, Evening primrose, Sweet Williams and Wild Honeysuckle.
Day flying moths can be particularly stunning and great to attract to your garden to help your children learn about moths. This red and black 6 Spot Burnett I have found to be rather partial to purple knapweed. Another great project that you could try is the rather alarmingly named moth trap, never fear no moths are hurt during this but a wonderful array of moths can be seen and learnt about, it’s on my list of to do’s!
Circles in the corn…
2 SepIt is 10 years now that I have been visiting crop circles. Late spring begins, the rape fields flower and the circles start to arrive in the fields of Hampshire, Wiltshire and slowly over the decades they have spread up country, over the channel, the atlantic, the globe. Beautiful circles, beautiful art work, beautiful messages, beautiful questions…
‘Who’ is usually the dominant question when people see the amazing images created in the crop fields but after dancing that dervish for a decade and finding myself down Alice’s rabbit hole I am now much more interested in the ‘Why’ of them. Why? For fun, for mystery, for art, for communication, for connection, to create wonder and amazement in the viewer and for those that read these glyphs a little deeper: a truly mindboggling array of geometric patterns to decipher and understand.
Like cherries on the top of a fine cake, crop circles enhance and add that little bit of magic and mystery to an already luscious ancient landscape filled with monoliths, stone circles, archaeology and wild nature that are the fields of Merry England…and beyond!
This little photo series show a few of the circles, the croppies (the people) and the surrounding areas that I visited this year and the wonderful Barge public house that provides safe haven for relaxed colourful campers on the banks of the Kennet Canal.
“In this green and pleasant land
We have a dream to understand
In the mountains of the mind
There is a spirit you will find…” © Dreadzone
I don’t think Dreadzone were singing of crop circles when they wrote this but my, doesn’t it fit well!
A fellow photographer, who creates superb calendars, Steve Alexander is the lucky one who gets to fly above the circles and capture these wonderful images. Like flying over the Nazca lines ~ it is only in flight that we can see the full picture. Thanks Steve :)
Ropewalk Community Garden
30 AugRopewalk Community Garden is one of those little jewels hiding away in the centre of an urban concrete sprawl that you just never knew existed. Back in the cold early month of March I popped down on a drizzly Sunday morning to help with the weaving of a willow arch for the children in the area to play under.
With the guidance of ‘The Willow Man’ the local community; all ages including grandmothers, fathers and their children came together to bend, weave and tie the living willow into an arched tunnel for the children to run through, hide in and marvel at over the years to come. A wonderful day that taught children to tie knots, how something dead can grow and how working together brings many laughs and new friendships. Community work at its best, muddy!
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