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

I'm here

So I cycled through town up to Euston, got the Tring train and wended my way to the lake via the gorgeous, cool, Grand Union Canal to be greeted by Cathie Hasler and a rucksack left by Alistair with such necessities as a thermarest and medicinal Laphroaig for my second night in the yurt. It's warm, quiet and very lovely here. All poppies and wood pigeons, low speed trains and lapwings.

We Aren't Here

Well, it's been so long since I was at the lake We Aren't Here seems more appropriate a name for the residency.

The Renga day didn't happen around midsummer - we are hoping to re-run it in the autumn, with more publicity. Fingers crossed.

And I'm pleased to say that I will be back for an overnighter later this month.

Some more photos from day four

Samuel Palmer

Being here nice and early is making me think of Samuel Palmer's 'Early Morning'

Palmer lived for a time very near to where I live in S.E. London.

I love his intense and warm engagement with nature in the image.

Believing the bird

As I write I'm sitting in the tump hide on the edge of the lake.

I stayed overnight in the yurt, and was early to bed and early to rise, with just the wind for company.

I worked with a small group of children from Ashmead school yesterday, taking photographs and writing.

We had a good day - it was a real pleasure to see them becoming more and more absorbed in nature; in the place.


It has been a real pleasure to be here in evening and morning light, and to
watch and hear the birds - lots of lapwings and housemartins, the odd hobby and kite -  and also to watch lolloping hares, and catch one of my favourite common-or-garden flowers, the campion, in its white and pink manifestations...

...as well as the much rarer white helleborine, which some field guides are surprised is doing so well here, I was told by Chris, the education managed, who was doing a survey of some of the flora here yesterday.

James Audubon once wrote: "If the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird."

If the flower and the field guide disagree, we probably need to believe the flower.