I am standing opposite this great body of water with the
ripples running all across it from the wind. There are sort of patches, clumps
of trees- willow and oak, sort of right in the middle dotted about the water
and I look at it and think that obviously, part from them being little islands
for birds such as coots, cormorants, mallards and swans, I think I could live
over there. I could go a bit like Tom hanks in Castaway and go and live on one of those islands. But actually there’s
probably not much of a base to stand on because it is made up of the trees
which are clumped together so you would be walking around on tree trunks,
living up in the tree and in the canopy.

Sometimes I see a beer can suddenly glinting in the sunlight
and I suddenly gasp and stop and I realise that this is the closest I am ever
going to get to being a magpie probably, sort of walking along and something
shiny catches your eye. But you see, as soon as I realise it is a can or a ring
pull or any piece of human debris the excitement goes and it sort of turns into
irritation, wheras for a magpie it continues and they pick it up and take it
off to their collection.

The cloud has covered the sun but I don’t mind as its
pleasant walking through the field, its not too hot, so I can slow down and
look at things, whereas I might want to rush home if it were boiling.

It’s interesting looking at things at different times of day
or night. Going out at night is an interesting thing to do, because you use
your senses in completely different ways. The proportions are different. You rely
on your sight so much in the day, and you don’t realise that until you walk at
night, especially if it’s somewhere you haven’t got so much light pollution and
it’s very dark. You are relaying on touch- whether with your feet and feeling
what is in front of you and underneath you, or your hands to steady you as you
walk through somewhere. Even if you’re still you use your hearing more. You’re sense
of smell at particular times of day is heightened. Time eludes you. I remember
going for a night walk once and I thought I was ready for bed but this walk
started at about ten pm and we went to bed about nearly 2 am because we had
been out walking, doing shadow puppets in a nearby quarry space, a good idea in
the dark health and safety wise (!) but then we sat in a field and just
listened. And you could hear distant traffic, a car or two. You could see
silhouettes of the landscape against the sky which was slightly lighter, probably
from the closest town. In the day, you kind of lose that, so you have to really
force yourself to notice those things because you do rely on your sight. You can
close your eyes or just open ears more and it’s a bit like with different weather.
When it is raining the smell of things is heightened because even though it is
dampening, it kicks up all the grass and you get the smell of petrichor- the
smell of rain mixed with earth after a warm dry spell, and you get it in a city
or a town as well, you don’t have to be in the middle of a filed or wood-though
it is less polluted there. It’s the feel of the cold raindrops on your skin
which make you appreciate the fact that you most likely can get dry, you can
got home and dry off. So you can stand there and enjoy it and experience it,
not thinking you need to keep dry or rush off to get somewhere there and then
or stay dry.