fire and ice

I arrived at College Lake yesterday well-prepared for the chilly day. We are talking thermals and fleeces.

Suitably warm, it was a real pleasure to wander round a very quiet lake - the upper lake unfrozen, the lower lake, apart from a small area, totally frozen over.

The range of colours in the landscape, reduced anyway in winter, was reduced further, which meant that subtleties became more apparent - as well as bird tracks in the ice, which was frozen slush.

I hope you like the photos...

Renga Day

Eight of us met for a day of rengaing just before the winter solstice, towards the end of December, on the busiest shopping day of the year.

We sat in front of a roaring woodstove in the barn, with some trips outdoors for inspiration.

It was a real pleasure to share the day writing, and to share the process of renga.

Here it is:

CRACKLE AT THE FEEDER

 I walk to the station

frost patterns on car roofs

in yellow street light

 
a flash of fire

through all that was bleak
  
birds have flown miles

to be right here

with us
  
   arriving like a solstice:

inevitable 

bees bouncing

from berries

to bush

  
I thought of you then

with your walking boots on
  
impressions

moving deeply

towards stillness
  
   we prepare
      for solid ground

little witches

swimming in silver 

bring it on!
  
will the rushes

chant our whisper?

wordless 

the tiny wild

narcissus

hear the earth shift 

well rehearsed.

A Renga in Winter at College Lake, Tring. Saturday, 17 December 2011

Participants: Subhadassi (master), Alastair Will, Charlotte Gledhill, Jay Hall, Jenny Mathers, Kathy Brooker, Moyra Zaman, Victoria Flinn

You can find out more about renga here

early winter

I had the pleasure of visiting College Lake again in November, and caught the last vestiges of Autumn in the warm afternoon sun, and a taste of winter as the sun went down.

I have moved house twice since I was last at the Lake, so it was a pleasure to return to a place familiar and beautiful, in its own unique way.

I now live not in the centre of London but on the edge of the South Downs, so my journey was  from one rural to another via London, which was a very different  one to my previous journey of urban to rural. 

I hope you like the photos.

August 24th

I visited the lake last week, on a gorgeous day. It took me five hours to get round the lake, which is usually a one hour walk - a sure sign I was working hard!

I bumped into Graham, who set up College Lake - he started worked at the lake as a lorry driver when it was a quarry/cement production facility in the 1970s, and through charm, brains, cunning and passion helped the company see that it would be best to make it a nature reserve rather than reverting it to agricultural land. That is a very condensed version of the story.

Below are some photos I took. More people this time.

pics from yesterday