"The Song Of The Rolling Earth" - John Lister-Kaye

I've only recently come upon the writing of John Lister-Kaye, an omission in my reading which I can neither excuse or indeed account for, so I still have several other volumes to look forward to in the coming winter months.

"The Song Of The Rolling Earth", subtitled "A Highland Odyssey", is the story of the Aigas Field Centre which he founded in 1977 in a remote house in the Scottish Highlands. If you click on the link above you'll find that you can take a wildlife holiday there and experience the area for yourself. (Another long-time resident on my to-do list!).

But it's a lot more than a dry factual account of the centre's history. And it's not just an advertisement for Aigas Wildlife Holidays either, though it would serve admirably for that purpose. The book covers many stories.

It's the saga of the development of the Highland landscape from prehistory to the present. It's the biography of the house from Victorian respectability, to near ruin, to eventual resurrection. It traces the development of Lister-Kaye himself as a landscape scholar and human being. But it is also the tale of the local inhabitants, the weather and seasons, the animals of the hills, the fish in the streams, the birds of the air, the guests and staff who come to Aigas...... 

All these various threads and many more are artfully intertwined by the storyteller so that the whole book hangs together as a glorious tapestry. The writing is considered and skillful. The overall mood of the book is of the mature John Lister-Kaye sitting alone at the fireside of his oak-panelled study, glass of Scotch in hand, gazing contemplatively upon the landscape outside his window as it springs to life with the memories and dreams released from the depths of his heart.

The story should be savoured in similar unhurried fashion, though if you haven't any whisky a good cup of tea will do nicely. 

Take care.

Walnut Tree Farm

Roger Deakin's "Notes From Walnut Tree Farm" has taken up residence on my bedside table for most of the time since I first read it a year or so ago. It's the ideal volume for dipping into at odd moments - I  still keep finding new things in there! Roger Deakin also wrote two other books, "Waterlog" and "Wildwood", both of which are also excellent, but somehow "Walnut Tree Farm" is the one which I find myself re-reading.

For the last six years of his life Mr Deakin kept journals mostly centred on the farm which he bought in a fairly derelict state many years previously. Extracts from these diaries have been arranged to give a picture of a typical year. In many ways it reads like a rather superior blog, as one keeps learning new things about the author and his views.

It soon becomes apparent that he has a rather idiosyncratic lifestyle - newts make their way across his study floor; he goes swimming in an old moat; he makes sculptures using a chainsaw; he often sleeps in an old shepherds' hut. His journals are similarly undisciplined, erratic and colourful; full of reminiscences, ideas, reflections, art, history, ecology, poetry.....

But each anecdote and observation, like individual brushstrokes, builds a picture of who Roger Deakin is and, to paraphrase Loudon Wainwright's song, tells you "what he stands for and what he just can't stand". It also reveals his vision of the English landscape which has been formed, not by academic study, but by getting close to the land by working on it. It's no accident that we meet him, at the start of the book, laying on the cold ground blowing into a fire to get it started. And his story is soon crackling and flaring up, fanned by his restless imagination and gentle humour.

His landscape is a welcome antidote to what I call the National Trustification of the British countryside. That over-fussy, manicured type of scenery which has no real purpose other than to look nice to the casual passer-by. Roger Deakin lives in his landscape and everything has a real function, however whimsical and unpredictable that may be. 

This book will certainly entertain and maybe give you new ways to look at and appreciate the world around you. For another review and a woderful photo of Roger at his farmhouse door  click on this

"The Open Road"

Last night I was searching for some postage stamps; I know I've got some somewhere. In amongst the dried-up biros, broken nail-clippers, odd socks and used train tickets I found this little notebook with "The Open Road" written neatly on the cover.

It's a booklet in which I collected quotes which caught my eye and my imagination in various books I'd read. It takes its title (if "title" is not too grand a word for the ballpoint scribble on the front cover) from the quote on the first page

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

                                                                    Walt Whitman

At the time I spent every holiday walking the footpaths and byways of Britain, sometimes with a friend but quite often alone. This little book nestled in a corner of my rucksack pocket and tended to get brought out at those inevitable low moments when the rain sheeted down or the promised pub turned out to be closed.

On a long walk there is within us a small lamp that now and again burns low.
                                                                                     Hillaire Belloc

There is a Tibetan saying that on a long walk obstacles such as rain, hail and snow are the work of demons intent on testing the integrity of travellers and eliminating the faint-hearted among them.
                                                                            John Hillaby

It was good to know that others had experienced the frustrations and occasional boredom on long journeys afoot, as far too often accounts of walking in the countryside are depressingly uplifting and cheery. But it was good to be returned to those happy hours of striding out across the tops without a care in the world.

I must be rising and I must be going
On the roads of magic that stretch afar
By the random rivers so finely flowing
And under the restless star
                        Neil Munro

I love that - "random rivers so finely flowing"

Feet wet and lunch forgot -
     that's the way to travel
                            Gary Snyder

During that period of my life I walked many of the official long-distance paths of Britain - The Pennine Way, The Coast To Coast Walk, The West Highland Way, The Pembrokeshire Coast and others. I also made up routes of my own and sometimes just wandered about aimlessly in places like The Lake District, climbing a mountain then sitting on the summit and deciding where to head next - off to an adjoining peak or down to the valley for food or a pint. This little notebook is similarly serendipitous.

Corruption has never been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.
                              Robinson Jeffers

The place you're at
Is your habitat
Everywhere else you're a foreigner.
                                               Ogden Nash

The longest journey starts with just one step
                                                 the Tao Te Ching

Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side
                                        You-Know-Who!

We are most of us too busy, too worried, too intent on proving ourselves right, too obsessed with ideas, to stand and stare.
                                           Bill Brandt (photographer)

There are pages more of this and I'm surprised how well I remember these words after so many years. Have you got any quotations which I should have included ?

stay together
learn the flowers
go light
    Gary Snyder

Take care.
(never did find those stamps).