The University of the Self #103

Birdsong, Botany and Betterness Part 28

Birdsong, Botany and Betterness Part 28
This article is a continuation of part 27, which can be found here.
Part 29 can be read here.

Image description: this is my painting of a pair of Palestinian Sunbirds. They perch on a beige/grey twig one above the other. The bird at the top faces to the right and has a bright irridescent plumage in blues, greens and browns, and a long black beak which curves downwards. Below, the other bird faces to the left and has a plainer plumage in shades of brown and the same downwards curved beak. Behind them is a wash of brown and blue/grey.

Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is cream with faded stains and age marks upon it. Down the right-hand side are some decorative ink stamps I have put on using black ink – they are three leaves. A section in the centre has been redacted. Written in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below.

“Aunt takes my hand and shows me how to scrub
the carrot tops, peel paper onion skins and free

the leeks from dark rich soil. She calls again, Come,
I’ll show you how to care for flowers…”
(from ‘Scullery’, by Pamela Gormally)

Perhaps it is some sort of survivor’s guilt, because I am here and so many are not. I feel so very haunted this morning – by the ghosts of a thousand, thousand souls. Souls who should have had more time, more peace, more kindness, less pain. I think it is entirely possible that grief never truly leaves the world.

The rain has stopped and blue is making a vague attempt at the sky. What is this book in the end but a conversation I’ll never have with anyone else. I never know how much to confess – I am always worried about the role memory can play, how time and study of them (memories) might alter the original form. I know we try, as humans, to control what and how we remember, how we might, without knowing, reframe, edit and redact what exists in our pasts. Raw, unadulterated episodes are terrible to bear. Maybe I am the only one who thinks like this? I am always worried about my knowing and understanding of experiences, knowing what is real or not real, knowing how to examine memory in a forensic way, a meticulous, entirely correct, unbiased, uninfluenced, uninterpreted way. Maybe this is why touching base with the living facts – birds, weather, plants, insects – so many times has become so important to me. Here is my list of The Real, and all I can do is try my best in-between.

Please note: There now follows a section which I have redacted as it narrates an incident that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t felt ready to write about it, but for some reason wished to note it down today (perhaps because I was thinking about memory). I still do not feel ready to make the incident public, so I am redacting it for now.

It has affected me greatly and there has been a layer of shame and sadness upon me ever since. I have been working on wearing them (my lower leg braces) with – with what? A degree of confidence? Then, a few days after that, a woman came right up to me and loudly asked, ‘what’s wrong with your legs?’ I am really trying to get to the place where I simply reply with ‘nothing’, and move away. People act as if you owe them an explanation, that they have a right to walk up to a stranger and ask, that it is our job to satisfy their curiosity, that we are there to provide a moment’s entertainment. I have unburdened myself of these two recent experiences. I am not anyone’s juicy gossip.

8.07 a.m., a Greater Spotter Woodpecker tests for the hollowness of wood. Distant Gulls have voiced their melancholy. I see a Eurasian Treecreeper on a bare branch in The Seven. A European Robin jewels the Norway Spruce.

Image description: this is my watercolour painting of a hand of leaves from a Virginia Creeper. The painting is done on white textured watercolour paper and there is a blue wash in the background. The hand has five separate leaves in it and each leaf is burning orange colour with strong tones of red, yellow and green.

Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is cream with faded stains and age marks upon it. Written in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below.

“Petals must fall.
A fragile stem supports a full flower.
Thorns offer a handhold.
At the heart of the universe is the spiral.”
(from ‘Pilgrim Rose’ by Pamela Gormally)

Common Wood Pigeon, Goldcrest, Eurasian Blackcap, Eurasian Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Great Tit, Common Chiffchaff, Eurasian Blue Tit, Eurasian Wren, Eurasian Linnet. The app sadly conked so I lost all my birds and have done my best from memory. 8.15 a.m. Eurasian Blackbird. I feel like half my prayer is missing.

Everything feels too snarled in me today, as if I am made from barbed wire. 8.57 a.m. I have just found out through an internet news pop up about Hope Bourne. I feel as if I have found my mother and I am crying and aching, I feel as if my heart has come alive.

14.05 p.m. Front. Stormy, dark and light mixed sky, greys and whites. Hot sun competing with rain. A brisk breeze. 20°C. A Red Admiral spent some time opening and shutting its wings on the Petunias – such amazing colours in such a small area – almost lime green leaves, purple-cerise floppy blooms, the velvety black, red, white of the butterfly. Coming between Horlsey and Ovingham I saw many Western House Martins – the sky was alive with them. A cloud, almost black is passing. Our Western House Martins above me right now, with a single Gull flying in with them – almost as if it is playing with them, joining in the joy of flight with them for a while. Wind has become stronger again – the parasol is attempting to become airborne.

Eurasian Jackdaw, Common Chaffinch, Great Tit, Goldcrest, White Wagtail, Coal Tit, European Robin, Eurasian Magpie, Long-tailed Tit, Eurasian Blue Tit, Dunnock, Common Wood Pigeon. Rain is now falling, just a light smatter. 14.28 p.m.

Image description: this is my watercolour painting of half of a Sycamore leaf. The painting is done on white textured watercolour paper and there is a blue wash in the background. The leaf is outlined with rusty brown and inside is a mix of rusty bron, green and yellow with one black sopt to the left side of the leaf.

29^th August, 8.28 a.m. Back. 14°C but seems warmer. Bright shining sun, lots of blue under the white and grey clouds. Slightly misty horizon, very fresh-feeling, lots of shades of pale green in this light. Lots of calling from Ring-necked Pheasants this morning. Horned Lark shows up again (on the app), but greatly doubt this. Eurasian Wren, European Robin, Carrion Crow. Very pungent greenish smells. Many red tips now over on the Quinoa side of the field. Sudden blast of sun. Everything well-saturated from rain, last night and early this morning. Dunnock, Common Wood Pigeon, European Greenfinch, Eurasian Blue Tit, Eurasian Linnet.

Sun beaming on the fields over Horsley way. Eurasian Blackbird. I am having too many thoughts right now – everything feels jangled and jumbled. I feel rushed as I need to shower to make myself presentable for the big wide world of Prudhoe. I want to go to the charity shop. I really am a mish-mash this morning. Heart feels high up in my chest. Eurasian Magpie, Common Chaffinch. Huge arachnid on the little wooden table – tiny yellow/orange body, massive long legs – sort of like what we used to call a ‘Daddy Long-legs’. On closer inspection, it was missing three legs – the three legs are a few inches away on the table, fine as hairs. Now I feel completely heartbroken and sad. 8.45 a.m. How strange I feel so grief-stricken. I’m going in.

11.36.a.m; as I was travelling back from Prudhoe, an absolute deluge of rain came – one of those instant, savage downpours. Over by 11.41 a.m. Hope this helps all the thirsty, desperate trees and plants. Huge roadside puddles filled within moments. Roads running like grey rivers.

12.37 p.m. Front. Mild and still, as if the deluge never happened. Brightened up. I’ve been thinking about the arachnid this morning – I haven’t solved why it affected me so much yet. I can’t help wondering if Nature wanted someone, anyone to witness its death (by the way, when I looked the arachnid up, I learned that Daddy Long-legses are not spiders – they are Opiliones. Spiders have two sections to their bodies and Ops have one. They have no venom. Spiders have eight eyes and Ops have two – their eyes they look really cute, balanced on top of their bodies. Ops don’t make webs and have no secret lakes of silk inside them. If they lose a leg, unlike spiders, it won’t grow back).

12.52 p.m., a huge Bumblebee is singing its mental map into the dishes of each Anemone – it spins round and round the yellow wheels in the centre, zizzing. Lots of lovely blue sky opened up, many white clouds. I was thinking again about my list of names – why are names so important to us? Why does it hurt so much when our names are left out? Are our names equal to our notion of existence? I am blocked inside – all the jumbled thoughts from this morning proved too much weight to carry and my emotional nerve centre has shut down. I currently have no access to them (my emotions), so I can’t remember, right now, what they were/are.

Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is cream with faded stains and age marks upon it.Bottom right if the page is a decorative ink stamp I have put on using black ink – it is of a section of long grass. Written in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below.

“When you return, the rowan tree still stands,
curls roots into the earth, bare branches in the storm.

Winter light pours honey down the terrace.”
(from ‘January’, by Pamela Gormally)

Coal Tit, Graylag Goose, Common Chiffchaff, Eurasian Collared Dove, Goldcrest, European Greenfinch, Great Tit, Eurasian Linnet, Common Chaffinch, House Sparrow, Common Wood Pigeon, Eurasian Blue Tit, European Robin, Eurasian Magpie.

I write your names, I write you all into my heart. Perhaps I want to say so much but end up always wondering what the point is ultimately, when I can write about birds and flowers instead. I write this thought at the exact moment, 13.23 p.m., that a Common Buzzard wails into the sky. All my thinking is disjointed. Perhaps, after eighteen hours I need to eat, but I want to be light, I want to be transparent, with the sun passing through me, all my human colours shining like stained glass. Wonderful warmth right now – a wasp trying to tangle in my hair. Eurasian Blackcap, 13.27 p.m.

14.34 p.m., 23°C, a Buzzard cries, cries, cries, endlessly turns and tilts as if it is its job to turn the wheels of the world. Gyres of Paradise. Two of them. 14.45 p.m., I heard a strange whizzing sound – out over the wildplant field, a drone was being flown. Surrounding it was a group of Western House Martins – the drone had become enmeshed in their number. I disliked the drone intently and I was happy it flew away. I do not know who it belonged to. They are an invasion. 14.56 p.m., Buzzards (pair) and Martins (so many) still swirling together – the Buzzards shy as the Martins either swoop at them or near them – sometimes low, sometimes so very high.

18.20 p.m. Back. Stunning, high-definition white and grey clouds along the east horizon. So much shadow and shade so clearly reflected upon them. The wildplants are all very faded in tone tonight – lots of colder, ashy tones. 19°C. The north horizon is smudged grey and lilac. It has been astonishing today how many House Martins there have been. I am watching just one, right now stitching the sky. I’ve been solving some of my confusions with some writing this afternoon, which has untangled me somewhat. And I did write a very small poem, which I have written onto a postcard for my friend.

The grey-lilac clouds from the north are enclosing the last blue. Quite quiet for birds this evening. Eurasian Magpie, European Greenfinch, Willow Warbler, Eurasian Jackdaw, Common Chiffchaff, Eurasian Wren, Eurasian Linnet, Common Redstart, Eurasian Collared Dove, Common Wood Pigeon. Watched two aeroplanes taking off. Lots of dark brown Curly Dock. European Robin, Common Chaffinch. 18.50 p.m.

30^th August, 8.00 a.m. Back. 13.5°C. Feels so much hotter – my thermometer is in the shade. Sun incredibly, unfeasibly bright. Sky as blue as only blue can be. Leap into it blue. Little pockets of mist sunk into the riverbank trees. Southeast sky too bright to look at. Thin wisps of cloud here and there. Western House Martins dipping above the field. The heat is rich and mellow, everything wet with dew. Nettle tops sparkling silver. It has just occurred to me that I have never really tried to map where I am. I have a habit in life of assuming that because I know something, everyone automatically knows it too. Conversations can be difficult with me for this reason – I start one half way through a thought and blithely carry on as if the world is aware. Our little wooden cottage is situated between Ovingham and Ovington. Across, if I look north, is Field House Farm, the historical off-grid cottage settlement, two fields away, with the road between. Further northeast, just visible on the horizon is the village of Horsley. North, behind the treeline is the A69, which takes you, in about twenty minutes, to Hexham. Behind the south riverside trees, up the steep hill is Prudhoe, with the train track running beside the River Tyne at the bottom.

The quotes I have used in this article are from the wonderful book ‘Knucklebones and Pegs’ by Pamela Gormally, published in 2025 by Indigo Dreams, which Pamela kindly gave me as a gift earlier this year and it is really lovely.

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