Category: Beyonder Blog

MY BELOVED has no great aversion to men in kilts. She even married one. 

She’s as moved as anyone by the sight of a lone piper on a castle battlement and has been known to step out on the ceilidh dance floor with gusto.

But expose her to what she cruelly dubs “maudlin and sentimental” Scottish music and she’s a lot less sympathetic.

This is the source of the occasional good-humoured marital disagreement, because I have a weakness for the sort of poetry and song that’s guaranteed to make any exiled Scot go misty-eyed with emotion over their glass of malt.

Why so? A childhood of holidays on the Moray Coast and four years at Aberdeen University for a start.

Summers in the sixties were spent roaming the cliffs and beaches of the small fishing village of “Finechty” surrounded by what seemed a huge extended family of uncles and cousins.

The chance to study Scots and Irish literature amid the hallowed walls of the ancient university in Aberdeen meant returning north as a teenager to the Granite City with its seagull cries and those biting winds sweeping in off the North Sea.

The latter half of the 1970s were spent here, enjoying the still calm of a lonely desk hidden among the “stacks” of King’s College library in Old Aberdeen and attempting to explore all of the city’s 250-odd drinking establishments.

After that, a decade working on the local paper, initially as a trainee reporter and later as features editor of the Evening Express, meant years spent experiencing, relishing and chronicling all the trials and tribulations of life in the north-east of Scotland.

Life in Thatcher’s Britain was posing plenty of challenges, but from “district drives” in remote Aberdeenshire villages to interviewing everyone from politicians and professors to farmers and teachers, detectives and criminals, there could hardly be a better way of immersing yourself fully in the community.

It was a young, sociable team on the EE too, with 4pm finishes allowing plenty of time for teatime drinks down at the Kirkgate Bar, which had also been a popular student haunt.

All of which of course means countless memories too: of friends and family, student parties and dances, music and laughter, times of loss and fond thoughts of those no longer around to share the reminiscences.

Which is where the music comes in. But why do we listen to sad music? And is nostalgic music necessarily sad?

The song that has prompted the whole conversation is one that’s a new discovery to me: Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Loved, released back in 2019 and inspired by the death of the Scottish singer-songwriter’s grandmother.

The accompanying video featuring his distant cousin, the actor Peter Capaldi, is a real tearjerker, made in partnership with charity organisation Live Life Give Life to help raise awareness about the issue of organ donation.

It’s a poignant story of loss and hope about a husband who is trying to cope with the death of his wife, who became the heart donor for the young mother of another family, saving her life.

Heartbreaking, uplifting, impactful…the Youtube comments make it clear that this is a song which resonates with listeners, especially those struggling to cope with bereavement. It doubtless became an instant hit to play at funerals.

It’s also brilliantly performed by the actor we know better as Dr Who, or the irascible, foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It and In The Loop.

Like all timeless art, it captures the universality of those shared emotions which help to tie us together, reminding us of our own lost loved ones: the tinkling laugh of a favourite London aunt or soft Scottish burr of a kindly Orcadian uncle, perhaps.

Like a picture from an old album, our thoughts may wander back to a moment frozen in time: that day back in the 1960s when my mum was standing with her brothers and my young sister Fiona outside my grandmother’s home in Findochty, for example.

I don’t remember the smart white coat, but she was obviously very proud of it. My uncles, John-Alec and Willie (“Doods”), would doubtless have been gently teasing my father about his “posh job” in London, and slyly slipping me a half-crown at some point during the holiday that I could use to buy a paperback.

The picture is significant because it’s such an “ordinary” unposed shot, taken at a time when we owned neither a camera nor a car, and all the more poignant because it remained undiscovered for decades in a box of old slides, unseen because we never owned a slide projector either.

It’s not my favourite picture of my uncles, though: that honour goes to an earlier almost biblical shot of the trawler skippers mending their nets in the harbour. But both shots are evocative reminders of where my own family’s journey started.

This is the small fishing village that my mother left as a teenager to train to become a nurse and midwife – initially in Aberdeen and later hundreds of miles away in London.

Our annual childhood visits back to the north-east were an August ritual for years, my grandmother always a familiar figure on the doorstep of “Number Eight”, a house that smelt of polished wood and bubbling broth, where there was an organ in the smart front room and a short-wave radio in the lounge for tuning in to the fishing boats at sea.

This is where my mother and father married in the mid-1950s, surrounded by friends and family at the small village church, guests arriving by steam train on the glorious coastal route along the cliffs from Cullen, a trackbed I would walk as a teenager 20 years later, long after the last train had run.

It’s the same church you can see from the picturesque cemetery where nowadays they and other family members are buried: a last resting place in the most spectacular of locations.

Which takes us back to Lewis Capaldi, perhaps. Nostalgia is all about a sentimental longing for times past, wistful memories of pleasure or sadness from years gone by – like those wonderful summer holidays in Scotland, for example, with relatives who have long since passed.

Capaldi’s sensitive lyrics give the song a broader appeal too, not just for those grieving the loss of a loved one, but for anyone lamenting the end of a relationship, perhaps.

That’s all very well. But why do we often actively enjoy listening to sad music? And are Scots particularly fond of wallowing over sentimental memories?

Scots traditional music is steeped in melancholy, of course: of parting and of unrequited love, of forgotten battles and the homesickness suffered by those forced to leave their homeland and emigrate abroad.

Celtic tunes crossed oceans and ancient ballads and laments became an important basis for American folk, bluegrass, and country music too.

Music was a constant theme of my university years, at ceilidhs and discos and impromptu jam sessions with talented friends.

From nights at the ABC Bowl in George Street watching Frank Robb and Super Klute to sociable sessions at the Malt Mill or Bobbin Mill, we made the most of Aberdeen’s thriving music scene.

There were regular ceilidhs at the Northern Hotel, Celtic Society and university officers’ training corps, Sunday jazz at the Gloucester Hotel, countless informal get-togethers in snug bars and student flats.

And years later those songs would still resonate in the memory, LPs of bands like Five Hand Reel, Ossian and Runrig on regular repeat to recapture happy memories of those sociable years.

Why do we love sad songs so much, though? As Simon McCarthy-Jones discusses in The Conversation, perhaps it’s all about empathy: that flood of emotions we feel when we relate to other people’s circumstances and can share in their hopes, fears and tribulations.

Nostalgia relates to our memories being trigggered by important moments and shared experiences in our own lives: and from Burns poems to Scotland the Brave or the Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond, it doesn’t take long for a group of exiled Scots to start belting out some familiar classics.

From protest songs like Hamish Henderson’s evocative Freedom-Come-All-Ye to the unofficial national anthem that is Dougie Maclean’s Caledonia, a song with a story to tell is all the more resonant too.

Whether it’s the technical brilliance of a plaintive chord or haunting melody, the beauty of the lyrics or vividness of the imagery, this is music to make the heart melt.

But let me tell you that I love you, that I think about you all the time
Caledonia you’re calling me and now I’m going home

Such songs may stimulate the release of comforting hormones, boost our feelings of connectedness or help to distract us from our problems, but whatever the underlying science, it seems that sometimes allowing ourselves to spend a little time savouring melancholic thoughts can help boost our overall emotional health.

And bring a group of exiled Scots together for a Burns night meal or similar celebration and it’s unthinkable that there won’t be plenty of music and song to accompany sentimental reminiscences about times past.

The lyrics don’t have to directly echo our own life experiences, either: we can empathise with the specifics while tapping into the same broad emotions, conjuring up a kaleidoscope of our own memories spanning the years.

In my case, that might mean nights out with university friends or office outings with colleagues from the Evening Express – to the Insch races, Braemar gathering or rugby in Paris.

Listening to Caledonia might remind me of bumping into Dougie MacLean at a bar during the Edinburgh Festival, the chants on the rugby terraces at Murrayfield, that familiar brewery smell when you step off the train at Haymarket or Waverley.

Or waking on the overnight sleeper to be greeted by those glorious coastal views as the train wends over the border and north towards Dundee and Aberdeen…

Or those countless nights of fun and friendship with work colleagues, tinged with sadness because not all of those smiling faces are still around to share the memories.

Sharing a dram with an old friend who’s been told he is dying, the tunes and the memories are all the more poignant, of course.

We met as 17-year-olds almost half a century ago and have shared plenty of adventures over the years, at home and abroad. There are a lot of tales to tell and laughs to share.

As students we worked long shifts in a Dutch pickle factory and later rode the rails around Europe. We slept on Milan station, played backgammon on a Greek ferry, fell ill on a crowded train in what was then Yugoslavia.

A croupier, teacher, filmmaker, bullrunner and entrepreneur with a mischievous sense of humour, a knack for political incorrectness and a distrust of anyone in authority, he’s fondly remembered by former students for his eccentric ties – one for every day of the teaching year – and even more colourful teaching methods, as well as those school football tours abroad that involved a great deal more socialising than football.

Being around him has its drawbacks. The relentless lack of political incorrectness, the bad jokes and madcap schemes can be exhausting. But the childlike joy at planning a merry jape is ample compensation, especially when you can look back with affection on countless shared adventures spanning more than four decades.

Pour him a large whisky and those old stories start to flow, many particularly poignant because health worries and the advancing years mean that we can’t turn back the clock.

But if the past cannot be repeated, it can certainly still be recaptured – and perhaps that’s where those sad songs are of most importance.

Interestingly, when it comes to his nomination for an old favourite to savour over a dram, it’s a timeless classic from the Scots band Runrig, with a particularly poignant story to tell.

Back in 1973, two brothers and a friend from the Scottish island of Skye formed a ceilidh dance band that would go on to tour the world, release a string of hit records and touch the hearts of millions of fans.

Inspired by the language and history of the Western Isles, Runrig took Gaelic culture from the dance halls of the Highlands to massive arenas across Europe, although when we saw them play at the students’ union in Aberdeen it was a far cry from their final performance four decades later in front of 50,000 crying, dancing fans in the shadow of Stirling Castle.

But you don’t have to come from the Hebrides to understand how our past shapes and defines us, or to appreciate the poignant beauty of music and melody which is infused with both joy and sadness.

And when we watch the emotional video which accompanies “The Story”, there are dozens of intermingled images conjured up by those lyrics: of student nights in an Aberdeen bar or wild ceilidhs in remote village halls, of the annual Highlanders’ dance at Portobello Town Hall in Edinburgh, of all those exploits and hijinks that span the decades: of watching children grow up and grieving the loss of family and friends, of love and loss, of hope and laughter.

And that’s the beauty of good music. Or, as Elton John tells us:

They reach into your room, oh oh oh
Just feel their gentle touch (gentle touch)
When all hope is gone
You know sad songs say so much

EVERYONE loves a fairy story, it seems.

But Los Angeles photographer Kelly Kenney could never have forseen how her lockdown tale of a virtual encounter with an imaginative four-year-old would become something of an internet sensation.

Better known on Twitter as Kelly Victoria or @saysthefox, the photographer’s pinned tweet thread from December 2020 told of her discovery of a fairy garden created by the parents of a local four-year-old who felt lonely in quarantine.

“At the beginning of the pandemic I went through some painful personal stuff and would often go out at night for long walks because no one was around and I couldn’t sleep anyway,” she wrote.

The elaborate fairy garden was at the base of a tree, complete with painted rocks and tiny trinkets and a Polaroid picture of the garden’s creator, four-year-old girl Eliana.

Posing as a fairy named Sapphire (and with a separate note reassuring Eliana’s parents of her true identity), Kelly began to exchange messages with Eliana, kindling a friendship that would last through some of the darkest months of the pandemic and beyond.

As Kelly herself confessed: “Doing this every night gave me purpose in a horribly painful and lonely time. I looked forward to my days again and I started ordering art supplies and little trinkets to leave her.

“I hope one day when she’s older she can understand that I truly needed her as much as she needed me these past few months.”

As the pen-pal relationship grew over the course of the pandemic, Eliana’s mum told Kelly her fairy friend Sapphire had been a great emotional support for the child, before finally coordinating for the two to meet in person.

When Kelly first tweeted her thread about the friendship in December 2020 and headed for bed, a handful of people had seen the post. By the end of the weekend, it had been liked and retweeted by hundreds of thousands of people.

By the following June, media mogul Oprah Winfrey was sending five-year-old Eliana, her family and fairy friend Sapphire to Disneyland.

But more important for Kelly is the knowledge that despite Eliana moving out of the neighbourhood, this is one friendship that’s likely to stand the test of time.

Says Kelly: “She’s changed me forever and the things her mom has said about how her self-confidence, her kindness towards others and her creativity have skyrocketed since meeting me make me feel like I made an impact too.”

OUR Sunday night Twitter foray this week takes us deep under London’s streets to a maze of tunnels containing clues to the hidden history of the capital.

The @HiddenLondon account has more than 600 followers despite sending out NO tweets during the past six years.

However it does provide an introduction to tours of London’s disused stations, organised through the London Transport Museum and a Hidden London Hangouts channel on Youtube containing 75 videos exploring the city’s underground history, from Highgate to Clapham South, Wood Green to Whitechapel.

The Twitter account may not be an active one, but the Youtube channel has attracted more than 30,000 visitors since it launched in April 2020.

Real-life tours give Londoners the chance to explore some of the stations and spaces that are normally off limits to the public, uncovering the fascinating stories of London’s transport history in the company of an expert guide.

During lockdown, many of the tours have taken place on Zoom, and the Youtube podcast series features the museum’s assistant director Chris Nix teaming up with Laura Hilton Brown, Siddy Holloway and self-confessed Tube geek Alex Grundon to explore closed stations and hidden tunnels from Aldwych to Metroland.

The team use photos, videos and never-before-seen footage from the museum’s collection to explore a station or area, with tickets for guided tours going on sale at regular times through the year.

Find out more about stations that never fulfilled their intended purpose, like Highgate in North London, which was set to become a bustling interchange as part of the Northern Heights project but which now lies in a secluded vale as an urban wilderness home to protected species.

Or disappear 11 stories underground to explore Clapham South deep-level shelter, which has over a mile of subterranean passageways revealing the extraordinary stories of those who sheltered here, from Londoners seeking refuge during the Second World War, to hopeful Caribbean migrants arriving on the Empire Windrush.

Aldwych station is one of London’s secret places, holding myths and memories of times gone by. Opened to the public in 1907, it was never as heavily used as originally intended and closed nearly 100 years later in 1994.

The station has had a varied history from providing shelter to Londoners during the Blitz to being used for film and TV shoots including The ABC Murders (2018), Darkest Hour (2017), Sherlock (2014), and Atonement (2007).

Other tours explore dusty stations and deserted platforms once used by the travelling public, including at Euston station a gallery of preserved vintage advertising poster fragments that have been concealed for over 50 years.

To keep up to date with Hidden London events, sign up to a free monthly newsletter from the main London Transport Museum website.

IT’S A small world, it seems.

Given that the whole thrust of our Tweet of the Week series has been to explore the positive benefits of social media, it seemed appropriate that our (belated) choice this week should be nominated by a follower we only know online.

And yet Wendy Tobitt, who responded to our Sunday night Twitter challenge to nominate inspiring and uplifting social media accounts by suggesting the artist @itsnotaboutwork, is not a total “stranger”, it turns out.

Her nominated Twitter account is a self-confessed “incessant doodler” from the East Midlands whose drawings have been delighting followers for the past 10 years.

“I love his random and usually joyous cartoons. A grasshopper in a waistcoat, for instance,” says Wendy, a Thames Path National Trail volunteer better known to us online as @12beesbuzzing.

She is clearly not alone – with almost 10,000 followers on Twitter and a healthy Instagram feed too, @itsnotaboutwork is a nature lover whose irreverent drawings have a broad appeal.

Hedgehogs, newts and sparrows rub shoulders with tortoises, frogs and snails, all drawn with an irrepressible sense of fun. And cheeky jackdaws are a particular favourite.

The birds come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes wearing hats and scarves, often playing among the leaves or having slightly surreal adventures, but always raising a smile.

Our doodling addict admits a certain fondness for autumn, as well as jackdaws, but the account includes few personal details otherwise, despite the regularity of the tweets, and the collection of more than 500 drawings on Instagram.

Not that it matters: the drawings speak for themselves, as Wendy points out. And this is someone who should know. Wendy, it transpires, is a friend of local artist Anna Dillon and landscape photorapher Hedley Thorne, and the cousin of artist Tim Baynes, formerly from Beaconsfield but now living and drawing in West Wales.

Not so much a stranger then, just a friend we haven’t yet met…

Do you have a favourite Twitter account which brightens your life? Let us know by writing to editor@thebeyonder.co.uk and we’ll see if they should feature in our Sunday night series.

SUDDENLY, it’s easy to forget that September heatwave that saw temperatures soaring around the country.

Overnight, it seems, there’s a chill in the air and blustery showers are setting the autumnal mood.

It’s the time of year we dust off our warmer coats and cardies, bemoan the loss of those long summer evenings and slowly begin to adjust to the idea that autumn is definitely upon us.

Days have been shortening since the summer solstice but it’s now that we start muttering about the nights drawing in and winter being around the corner.

The children have settled into the new school year after the long holidays, universities are reopening their doors and dramatic skies are warning us of more changeable weather to come.

The colour palette is subtly changing too, the greens gradually giving way to golds, russets and browns. Deep in the woods, it’s conker season for pupils wandering home from school and foragers are out looking for mushrooms, berries and other edible delicacies.

Not that that’s such a great idea for the uninitiated: start nibbling the fly agaric, destroying angel, death cap or white bryony and you could face vomiting and diarrhoea, stomach cramps, hallucinations and even death.

Although we have basked in some balmy weather this September – the month was the second-warmest on record in the UK and the warmest ever in Northern Ireland – it doesn’t take us long to forget those temperatures once the chillier nights set in, especially as we face soaring fuel bills and long waits at the petrol pumps if we can find a garage actually open.

But aside from the moans and groans about fuel prices and petrol shortages, September was a spectacular month for getting out and about, especially now that so many local destinations have emerged from lockdown restrictions.

September is the month when thousands of volunteers across England organise events to celebrate the country’s history and culture for the Heritage Open Days Festival, opening hidden places to the public in thousands of events spread over 10 days.

For art lovers it’s the month of the Herts Open Studios event too, although this year there are more online galleries to view than ever before, and a chance to catch up with artists you may have missed from similar events in Bucks and Oxfordshire earlier in the year.

This Sunday is harvest festival time too, a thanksgiving ritual dating from pagan times and traditionally held on the Sunday nearest the Harvest Moon, the full moon closest to the autumn equinox.

As we mentioned last year, in days gone by the festival was a matter of life and death that would involve the whole community working together, including children. A prosperous harvest that would allow a community to be fed throughout the potentially barren winter months would be cause for much celebration.

As an occasion steeped in superstition, it’s no surprise that so many ancient customs and folklore pre-date Christianity but still reflect the importance of crop gathering and the reverence in which the harvest was held.

Meanwhile it’s still getting light early enough to be woken by the reassuring honking of geese flying past in perfect formation – just one of some 4,000 species of birds around the world migrating in search of milder weather and more plentiful food.

The geese aren’t the only ones of the wing. The skies are hectic with criss-crossing migrants and down at the local gravel pit the numbers of gulls and cormorants will be building.

Bats and owls are busy too, while baby birds like tits, robins, blackbirds and starlings are beginning to look a lot less scruffy as autumn approaches.

Baby squirrels are dicing with death on the back roads, ants and hornets are busy building their nests in the woods, while the baby moorhens are skittering around on their lily pad rafts.

Hedgerows, shrubs and trees are bursting with berries, fruits and nuts, providing a welcome feast for birds and small mammals and a welcome splash of colour in the woods.

Some babies are still being looked after carefully by doting parents, while others are getting their first taste of independence ahead of the harder winter months.

Fungi are springing up on dead trees and fallen branches to the woodland floor and spiders are out in force, spinning their elaborate webs, intricate patterns glistening in the morning dew.

Some dragonflies are still on the wing too for those photographers with the patience, stealth and a zoom or macro lens for close-up shots.

But as September moves into October it’s the changing colours of our deciduous trees that provide one of the big natural spectacles of the year.

Coupled with the bright red flashes of the berries and fungi, the glow of those dramatic sunsets and the spectacular hues of our birds and insects, it’s the perfect time to venture back into the woods and soak up some of that autumnal sunshine before winter really takes a grip.

As always, we’d like to give a very big thank you to all the keen local photographers who have allowed us to use their work this month. If you would like to contribute any pictures, favourite moments or seasonal suggestions to our calendar entry for October, contact editor@thebeyonder.co.uk on email or via our Facebook group page.

SUNDAY night seems an appropriate time to enjoy a quiet moment of contemplation about the ups and downs of the past week, and to prepare to make the most of the week to come.

So what better time to launch a new regular feature highlighting some of the more stimulating, thoughtful and thought-provoking material to be found on Twitter?

Social media may not seem the natural place for a relaxing read, but perhaps that’s the point of taking time to focus on the best that it has to offer, rather than the worst.

We know that some people find Twitter a dangerous place, filled with harassment and abuse. The company has been roundly criticsed for failing to act quickly enough to remove rogue users and prevent menacing and threatening behaviour.

But the platform also provides an excellent opportunity to communicate with a worldwide audience of readers who share similar concerns and interests, so of course it makes perfect sense as a complementary platform that allows us to spread the word about our website’s content to a broader audience than our core Facebook membership group.

Reaching new audiences can be a mixed blessing, of course, as we discovered when Jeremy Clarkson responded to our recent Tweet about queues outside his Cotswold farm shop, prompting “likes” from more than 10,000 of his followers, not to mention a fair share of acerbic remarks.

But having been on the platform since June 2018, we have been protected from most of the worst aspects of online interaction, and instead have been able to savour the posts of the 1,000-odd people we have chosen to follow, from naturalists and wildlife enthusiasts to farmers, growers and local groups with a special interest in what the Chilterns has to offer.

Back in July 2018 we wrote about the benefits of positive thinking online, of attempting to surround yourself with engaging and upbeat company rather than become depressed by the unrelenting misery of negative news feeds and toxic exchanges which sap our energy and undermine our peace of mind.

With that in mind, our new feature is very much focused on finding the positive online and seeking out those voices that provide us with joy – particularly when that takes the form of accounts which celebrate wildlife and the great outdoors.

It might be a joke, cartoon or nature clip, or perhaps a thought-provoking commentary or personal experience that chimes with the magazine’s aims.

In our own posts we have attempted to be uplifting in output, deliberately restricting the number of weekly tweets and trying to provide our 450+ followers with pictures and links which brighten their day rather than the reverse, as well as linking to the content of our regular and one-off features.

Local photographers have been out and about capturing the magic of the Chilterns landscape for our monthly calendar feature, while artists across the region have featured in our Monday Picture of the Week series, which has been running for the past year.

The magazine’s Twitter feed is slightly more political than our Facebook group page, reflecting growing concerns about climate change and the state of the planet. But at the same time as highlighting unavoidable concerns, the mood of the feed has always tried to remain upbeat and positive.

Whether that means singing the praises of moths or slow worms, highlighting colourful characters who adore the Chilterns countryside, exploring our fascinating local heritage or spotlighting dozens of top local attractions for family days out, the focus has been on celebrating the very best our region has to offer, and hoping to encourage readers to spare a moment to peruse the magazine’s main website in a little more detail.

With almost 300 articles to choose from, we hope those who find their way to the website are able to find something to hold their interest, from characters with interesting stories to share to stories steeped in the history of the extraordinary Chilterns landscape.

So do join us over the coming weeks as we try to seek out some of the most inspiring, entertaining and informative Twitter users who prove social media can be a powerful force for good, and not just a place for division, gossip and abuse.

Do you have any nominations for favourite Twitter accounts which brighten your life? Let us know your favourites by writing to editor@thebeyonder.co.uk and we’ll see if they should be featured in our Sunday night series.

FOR thousands of years, drovers, traders and invaders have walked or ridden the prehistoric trails which stretch for hundreds of miles from the Dorset coast to the Wash.

High in the Chilterns at Bledlow Ridge, the route offers a drier and less wooded journey for travellers than the spring line settelements below – and it’s amid this ancient landscape that Chilterns travel blogger and tourism marketing professional Mary Tebje ventures off the beaten track to explore the picturesque village of Bledlow.

Lying just outside Princes Risborough on the western edge of Buckinghamshire, this is a village of wobbly brick and flint cottages where signs for the long-distance trails invite you “up and away over the hills”.

“It would be no coincidence that the communities who lived here either welcomed visitors, or had to defend themselves at the sound of soldiers boots on the chalk,” writes Mary. “Not hard to imagine as there’s something refreshingly untamed about the place.”

Here, she discovers a ‘fabulously wild’ parish church, a manor house with a secret water garden and a ravine of noisy tumbling streams.

The article is one of numerous entries in Mary’s “quiet exploration” of the Chilterns in which she shares the stories of the people and places that have shaped the region and attempts to “capture the beauty in the mundane”. See more of Mary’s adventures here.

SOME stunning new pictures have been added to the header pages of The Beyonder – thanks to the generosity of local photographers Nick Bell and Graham Parkinson.

The pictures form part of a carousel of around 30 images which appear as a background on the site whenever someone opens a new page.

Until now the images used on the site have almost all been taken by Beyonder editor Andrew Knight, supplemented with occasional free photographs shared by photographers on the Unsplash photo-sharing website and credited on the magazine’s Support Us page.

Says Andrew: “We have always wanted to feature local photographs on our pages, but in the early days of the site my cheap point-and-shoot digital camera simply wasn’t good enough to produce top-quality images.

“We were grateful to the photographers on Unsplash who share their work in return for a credit, but we also wanted to ensure that all our pictures are local ones and feature a cross-section of wildlife as well as landscapes.”

Original Beyonder display pictures featured a range of destinations pictured through the changing seasons, from Langley and Black Park to Burnham Beeches, Cliveden, Marlow and Penn.

Several of the new pictures featured in the first part of a profile of Nick Bell featuring his insect pictures.

“Nick’s photographs are stunning and they help us to reflect the breadth of content on the site,” says Andrew. “Capturing fast-moving insects and birds is a very specialist skill, and it’s very exciting to be able to use images of this quality in this way.”

As well as a quartet of insect photographs, other shots show sunbeams in woodland and a dramatic picture of clouds at sunrise. Additional pictures featured in a second article spotlighting Nick’s bird photographs.

Other pictures taken by Graham Parkinson have featured in an article about his hobby and in local walks featuring a cross-section of his portraits of locations like Homefield Wood and Littleworth Common.

“Not all pictures are suitable for these background displays because of having to be able to read type over them,” Andrew explains. “But we are looking forward to including more pictures when we can find just the right ones.”

The random nature of the header selections means there’s no way of selecting which one will appear on any particular page – so anyone looking for a particular image may find they need to refresh the page quite a few times before it appears.

“It can be quite hard to replace images because some of the older ones have so many happy associations,” says Andrew.

“Many of them were taken on local walks at different times of year and conjure up other images of a particular day out – the colourful fungi in Penn Woods, the flooding by the Thames near Bourne End, an autumn day in Black Park or springtime coming to Spade Oak quarry.

“But Nick and Graham’s pictures are a reminder to visitors that there’s much more to the website than just people enjoying a ramble in the woods.

“We have a lot of articles about all sorts of things, from birds and insects to local history, interesting people with a story to tell, book reviews and places to visit once the lockdown restrictions allow.

“For anyone stumbling on the website for the first time, there are now more than 200 different articles to read, so hopefully there will be something that catches their eye.”

Have you a photograph which might be perfect for The Beyonder? Drop us a line at editor@thebeyonder.co.uk

EXPLORE the sprawling Ashridge Forest in the company of Chilterns travel writer Mary Tebje, whose blog sets out to capture the beauty in the mundane, the stuff “that the locals have stopped noticing but is the very essence of what makes this place special”.

Despite the continuing lockdown, Ashridge Forest offers plenty of space and the distance needed for enjoying the great outdoors, she writes in her most recent post.

“I am fortunate in having many outdoor options that are local to me, where I can walk and feel almost that life is ‘as usual’,” she writes.

Mary has written extensively about Ashridge Forest, Ashridge House and the surrounding countryside.

The monastery and monks are long gone, buildings destroyed, treasures looted and the monks banished on the orders of King Henry Vlll, but you can find out more about the history of the estate in: Ashridge: A Flourishing Trade and explore Ashridge House Gardens too.

MAYBE it’s the proximity of a couple of welcoming pubs that has made Littleworth Common so popular with walkers.

The location beside Burnham Beeches helps too, not to mention its handy position on the 16-mile Beeches Way, which runs from the Thames at Cookham to the Grand Union Canal at West Drayton.

Whatever the reason, a host of ramblers find it a handy starting point for a walk, whether that means a leisurely stroll around the common itself or a more demanding circuit taking in some of the substantial areas of woodland that surround this spot.

The 40-acre SSSI (site of special scientific interest) is common land owned by South Bucks District Council and comprises open heathland, most of which has developed into birch and oak woodland, although some remnants of acid heathland survive.

A network of paths criss-cross the common and the “muddy boots welcome” sign outside the Blackwood Arms says it all.

This is one of several dozen Brakspear’s pubs which feature a number of local walks on a handy app, and a trio of routes are suggested, ranging from a half-hour wander around the nearby common to a longer three-hour adventure taking in nearby Egypt Woods and Burnham Beeches.

Thirsty souls can choose between here and The Jolly Woodman: both pubs have featured in the Midsomer Murders series and provide a perfect base for a wander.

Across the common lies the pretty 150-year-old church of St Anne’s at Dropmore with its small graveyard, where passers-by on a Sunday may be able to drop in for a cream tea during the summer months.

It’s one of a few dozen buildings encircling the common, which is popular with dog walkers and other locals and the starting point for a range of routes allow you to quickly slip away from other ramblers to discover less well frequented trails.

Fancy Free Walks, for example, suggest a three-mile circuit that takes in some of the less familiar parts of Burnham Beeches for those who fancy a day exploring the ancient woodlands.

It’s one of more than 40 mapped routes contained on the not-for-profit website set up to introduce more people to the countryside and to connect with our historic land, towns and villages.

The site has a 10-mile circuit too, taking in Stoke Common and Hedgerley, and for those wanting to ring the changes, permissive paths on the Portman Burtley Estate provide an opportunity to explore a range of mixed woodland habitats.

Burtley Farm boasts around 1,000 acres of mixed woodland ranging from conifer plantations from the 1920s and 1950s to older oaks planted following the Napoleonic wars when there was a perceived shortage of timber for ships.

The most ecologically important area of woodland is Egypt Wood, part of the Burnham Beeches National Nature Reserve complex and reached on a footpath from Abbey Park Farm.

This is also part of a longer two- to five-and-a-half-mile signposted circular walk taking in a picturesque Buckinghamshire village of Hedgerley as well as an RSPB reserve and remnants of the once important local brick industry.

Many wanderers are happy to stay close to the common, but more ambitious ramblers can check out the long-distance route west to Hedsor and Cookham or east to Stoke Common, Black Park and Langley.

For other ideas for local walks and places to visit, check out the highlighted pages.

THE tiny square of pebble-covered ground outside our front door is a little humble to be classed as a front garden.

But a bird bath and feeding station have transformed it into a source of constant activity over the past three years.

Our smattering of largely unremarkable plants may be of only passing interest to wildlife, though our neighbour’s small pond is close enough to provide refuge for the occasional toad and the hibiscus hedge provides welcome cover for the dunnocks later in the year.

Around the country, millions of us have been relying on our feathered friends for company during the darkest days of the pandemic. And as a nation it seems we are now spending up to £300m feeding the birds in our garden each year.

Unsurprisingly, studies have shown that seeing and hearing birds in the garden has a direct link to lowering levels of stress, anxiety and depression – and that people who spend less time outside are more likely to feel depressed in their lifetime.

Most of us probably don’t need any convincing that having trees, shrubs and birds close by makes a difference to how we feel – and the daily antics of our garden visitors are a source of delight to millions of us too, increasing our levels of happy hormones.

Against a backdrop of unprecedented biodiversity loss, researchers have increasingly recognised the range of benefits provided to humankind by nature – and that became even more evident as people struggled to cope with lockdown pressures.

Research by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has shown our growing love affair with feeding the birds has significantly altered the composition of our garden bird communities over the past 40 years, helping the populations of some species grow and increasing the variety of birds visiting feeders.

In the 1970s, feeders were dominated by house sparrows and starlings. Today, a much broader range is commonly seen taking advantage of the growing variety of supplementary foods on offer, with population growth across some 30 species, particularly those like goldfinches and woodpigeons.

The former were in long-term decline but with the introduction of sunflower hearts and nyjer seed to bird feeders, the numbers have been steadily increasing.

There are dangers too, of course, not least the possibility of disease transmission at feeders, but those following BTO tips to avoid such worries have delighted in the huge range of species appearing in our gardens – up from around 18 in 1987 to some 130 today.

Looking back over 2020 in our own small patch, there have been around two dozen different bird species dropping in to visit.

Much of the time it’s the squirrels, pigeons, tits and robin providing the daily entertainment, and what delightful and uplifting visitors they are.

As well as the blackbirds, there are plump thrushes and occasional magpies too. Living close to water means that ducks are daily visitors, with the occasional moorhen, pheasant or partridge showing up for breakfast.

Long-tailed tits are among the regulars, darting about in the bushes along with the other tits and dunnocks so that the undergrowth sometimes seems alive with movement.

Rarer visitors have included woodpeckers, jays, starlings and even a ring-necked parakeet, currently in the firing line for a government cull because they have been spreading around the country so quickly.

Recent favourites have included goldfinches and a nuthatch, the distinctive black eye strip making him look like a cheeky bandit.

There was even a tawny owl audacious enought to turn up on the roof on the very night we had been unsuccessfully scouring the local woods for hooting owls – a delicious irony.

Living beside a small nature reserve means that we don’t have to travel far to encounter a wider range of birds – an egret, heron, mandarin duck or kingfisher along the river, perhaps – and Kevin the red kite has been a long-standing resident of the Cedar of Lebanon that towers above the houses here.

But we are the lucky ones. An RSPB study a few years ago suggested that only one in five children are connected to nature and wildlife. Successive surveys by different bodies keep confirming what we might already guess – that youngsters spend about half as much time outdoors as their parents did, and twice as much time looking at screens than playing outside.

Perhaps lockdown will change that a little. It may be a pretty chilly January day but there are couples and families out in the woods walking everywhere. Yes, the novelty may wear off, but these cold family days out might just be sowing the seeds for a new generation to show more interest in the natural world around them…and that could only be a good thing, not only for everyone’s mental health, but for future of our troubled planet too.

Back at the feeders, there’s a final flurry of activity from the robin, tits and dunnocks which the cat pretends not to notice, assuming an air of benign innocence.

Lockdown may have stopped us going out and seeing all the people we would love to spend time with, but it’s surprising how much pleasure these small creatures have brought us during these most difficult days – and hopefully their winter food gathering has been a little easier too.

Sincere thanks to Nick Bell, Graham Parkinson, Neil Richards and Angela Scott for their wonderful illustrations for this article.

THERE’S something immensely satisfying about watching a canal boat negotiating a lock.

Whether that’s because of our fascination with water or the step-by-step ritual of filling the lock chamber and opening sluice gates to raise or lower a vessel, we’ve enjoyed studying the process for centuries.

“Gongoozlers” is what canal folk call those of us who idle on the towpath watching others do all the hard work in this way – but if it was used derisively in the past, nowadays there’s no shame attached to the curious spectators intrigued by the graceful art of lock navigation.

And so it is with a mixture of curiosity and admiration that we are on the towpath on a murky day at Denham Deep Lock watching the owners of The Hatch Shop showing just how to do it in style.

This is the deepest lock on the Grand Union Canal, bringing the canal down by a whisker over 11 feet – nothing dramatic by national standards, perhaps, given that those in Bath and at Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire are almost 20ft, but a decent drop nonetheless.

(If you really want to see a lock with a formidable drop, take a glance at the Ardnacrusha Lock on the River Shannon near Limerick, whose two chambers offer a total rise of 100ft, or the world record-breaking 138ft Oskemen lock in Kazakhstan.)

Anyway, Denham Deep Lock may not be able to compete with those figures, but it still offers plenty to distract the casual observer wandering along this section of the Grand Union Canal as it passes through Denham Country Park.

The original Grand Junction Canal, constructed more than 200 years ago, ran from Birmingham to London, some 137 miles and with 166 locks. Nowadays known as the Grand Union Canal, this is the trunk route of the canal system, passing through rolling countryside, industrial towns and peaceful villages as it gives voyagers access to Milton Keynes, Northampton and beyond.

Back in Denham, The Hatch Shop is making light work of the lock on its way to Uxbridge. Officially opened back in July but hampered by lockdown restrictions, the pop-up narrowboat shop – complete with Vietnamese rescue dog Sidney – has been moored in London and Oxford, selling a bohemian collection of trinkets and mementoes, from dream catchers and incense burners to cute signs and candles.

With the rear lock gates shut, it’s time to open the sluice gates and allow the boat to slowly slip down to the level of the canal on the other side of the chamber.

That means a little bubbling and boiling as the excess water slips through those atmospheric lock gates, coated with lichen and ferns.

Once the water level inside the chamber has subsided, it’s time to push open the heavy lock gates and move out into the lower level, ready for the onward journey.

With over 1500 locks on the canals, building new lock gates is a year-round job for the Canal and River Trust. Each one is unique, and made to measure by a team of carpenters.

An average lock gate lasts for about 25 years and it could take anything from a fornight to a month to build, using green, sustainably grown oak with steel fitted to strengthen the joints.

Safely out of the chamber, it’s time for The Hatch Shop to resume its journey to Uxbridge, leaving the country park behind.

On a drizzly day in November, it has to be said that this is not the most prepossessing section of the Grand Union, particularly with the roar of traffic from the nearby motorway and a motley collection of vessels in various states of repair dotted along the banks.

The park opens out to the north, towards Denham Quarry and a succession of other attractions in the Colne Valley Regional Park, but the mosaic of rivers, lakes and farmland is not looking at its best at this time of year, and HS2 construction work has left heavy scars on the local landscape too.

Walkers still flock here all year round, but we may have to wait until the spring until the place perks up again and the crowds return to Frans Tea Gardens for a welcoming cuppa by the side of the lock.

Guest writer Lucy Parks continues her occasional blog about how Cypriot rescue dog Yella has adjusted to life in the Chilterns

IT WAS a beautiful summer afternoon and we’d taken the dogs – Yella and her daughter, Lumi – to what was one of our favourite spots: Shardeloes in Amersham.

As Lumi’s human mum and I sat on a bench, enjoying the view across Shardeloes lake and on to the Chilterns, we saw Yella belting across the field below us, having the time of her life.

And then realised that she was in hot pursuit of a brace of grouse. With equal horror and admiration we watched in almost slow motion as the birds flew away… apart from one, which decided to run rather than fly… and Yella caught it.

This was not Yella’s first rodeo. Although she now had all the home comforts she needed, Yella was still at heart a street dog. The first time this showed itself was when she was (unbeknownst to me) pregnant and obviously craving food. One of the cats caught and brought me a pigeon. Yella spotted it, grabbed it, rushed into the garden and ate the whole thing – feathers, bones, beak and feet. I could only watch in astonishment and Nancy, the cat, was furious.

A couple of days later on a walk down a wooded alleyway and Yella caught her own pigeon. In fairness, it must have been pretty dozey to have not flown off, but Yella had her prey. She ran off with it into the garden of a nearby large and rather fancy house and emerged without it only a few minutes later. From the mud on her nose and paws, I reckon she buried that one in someone’s garden…

That afternoon in Shardeloes, Yella proudly brought us her catch. She growled when Lumi went near it but allowed me to see her wondrous prize: it was still alive and didn’t seem hurt (apart from being in the jaws of a small dog).

After some deliberation, we decided to seize a moment when Yella had dropped the poor bird to pop her lead on, drag her away from it and briskly leave the area. She wasn’t happy, though, and she never forgets.

Subsequent visits to Shardeloes resulted in Yella returning to the scene of her crime in search of grouse – to the point that we can no longer go back there because, so single-minded she is in her determination, she’ll go missing for 20 minutes at a time exploring any faint sounds of rustling.

It’s a shame because it’s a lovely walk but, while the squirrels and deer she chases will always out-pace her, Yella the Street Dog just can’t be trusted when it comes to dopey game birds.

Lucy Parks lives in Amersham, in the glorious Chiltern Hills. She adopted Cypriot rescue Yella in July 2018, her first dog. A journalist by trade, Lucy left corporate life in 2018 and set up her business, Parkslife, as a freelance journalist and artist. She’s also a veterinary receptionist, allowing her to indulge in her love of animals. Click on these links to see her earlier posts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Next time: How lockdown brought the dog-walking fraternity closer

OUR local woods are a constant delight – and although Black Park Country Park is spread over 500 rather than 100 acres, it never feels as if Pooh, Piglet and Tigger are too far away.

If proof were needed that we are not alone in this sensation, you only have to go down to the entrance to the lake to find a new generation of children playing Pooh sticks over the small wooden bridge there.

Or snatch a glimpse through the trees of youngsters building a small den of the sort that Eeyore might well call home.

All of which makes it all the more pleasurable to be able to savour some of Pooh’s adventures – and his creator’s words of wisdom – via a daily Twitter feed.

Upbeat daily Tweets celebrate words written or inspired by the author and incorporate some of the exploits of Winnie the Pooh and his companions which generations of children have enjoyed.

Also included are quotes from Christopher Robin Milne, whose relationship with his father inspired the 2017 film Goodbye Christopher Robin.

The “real” stuffed toys owned by Christopher Robin may be a long way off – they have been on display in the New York public library since 1987 – but down among the trees it’s all too easy to hear the words of those childhood friends echoing among the autumn leaves, whether in search of a Heffalump, getting stuck in a rabbit hole or floating away on the string of a balloon.

It’s particularly easy to visualise those childhood friends at this time of the year, when the colours are so striking and the leaves are falling.

As C R Milne put it: “When a child plays with his bear the bear comes alive and there is at once a child-bear relationship. Then the child gets inside his bear and looks at it the other way round: that’s how BEAR feels about it… and sympathy is born.”

OCTOBER has arrived with a vengeance, Storm Alex wreaking havoc across the country and depositing a month’s worth of rain in some areas over the weekend.

Those venturing out during gaps in the deluge have seen something of a transformation, with the storms stripping leaves off trees and the autumn colours of browns, reds and golden yellows replacing the green of late summer.

While the shops already gearing up for Halloween, the woods are awash with fallen acorns and apples, lichens, mushrooms and toadstools.

Amid the dripping leaves of Burnham Beeches, it’s suddenly a strange new world of unusual textures, shadows and colours.

The ferns are turning brown, along with the trees, an early hint of the glories to come later in the month as the autumnal colour palette really begins to explode.

Down at the ponds the stunning colours of the mandarin ducks stand out against the muddy browns, greys and blacks of tree roots and rain-spattered water.

But it’s at ground level that the real stars of the show can be found, with a small cross-section of the country’s 15,000-odd species of fungi providing an intriguing range of shapes and colours among the soaking foliage.

Not that the uninitiated will want to get too close to some of these amazing-looking fungi: some of them are deadly and boast spine-tingling names like the destroying angel, funeral bell and death cap.

Fungi live everywhere and vary in size from the microscopic to the largest organisms on earth. But perhaps we are most intrigued not just by their beauty, but the deadly consequences of dabbling with the most poisonous of them.

We instantly recognise the familiar scarlet cap of the fly agaric toadstool, which both attracts and kills flies, or the Scarlet elf cups or fairies’ baths, which make a tiny puffing sound when they release their spores into the air.

But on decaying branches and in damp spots scattered around the woodland floor there are an array of others whose offputting appearance may only be matched by their sinister names, like jelly ear fungus, foul-smelling stinkhorns or toxic beechwood sickener.

Or what about the gruesome beefsteak fungus, which looks like a raw cut of meat and even oozes a blood-like substance when cut…or the brown roll-rim, a common birch woodland fungus that looks benign, but is deadly poisonous.

Not that it’s all about innocent-looking killers. As well as many fungi being edible, some have medicinal properties, like the candlesnuff fungus, which is both anti-viral and active against tumours, or other uses like the common inkcap, once a source of ink for important documents.

Lichens play an important role in the ecology of woodlands too, offering valuable microhabitats, shelter and food for various small invertebrates which in turn are prey for larger insects and birds.

They can also be hosts for other species of parasitic fungi, as well as providing other ecosystem services such as carbon cycling and water retention.

Most organisms lack the ability to digest wood and return the nutrients to the soil, but fungi figured out the secret a few hundred million years ago. A good thing too, or otherwise dead trees would just pile up everywhere.

But down here among the lichens and leaf debris, could you spot the difference between a prized chef’s ingredient like a chanterelle or charcoal burner, and a deathcap, which has been used as a murder weapon for millenia?

Notable alleged victims of death cap poisoning range from Charles VI, ruler of the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy, to the Roman Emperor Claudius.

Voltaire even wrote that a dish of mushrooms had changed the destiny of Europe, since the death of Charles VI led to the War of the Austrian Secession from 1740.

The Woodland Trust does offer a handy guide to some of the most common fungi and lichens, coupled with some fascinating legends and facts – but even professionals can get things wrong, it seems: the distinguished German mycologist Julius Schaeffer died in 1944 after eating a succession of dishes containing brown roll-rim mushrooms.

In the ancient woodlands managed by the City of London Corporation, fungi have a vital role to play in the delicate balance of biodiversity, and in sites like Epping Forest commercial pickers – who can face prosecution – have been stripping the forest of wild mushrooms, depriving insects and animals of a valuable food source and threatening rare species.

Much maligned and mistrusted, toadstools and mushrooms are associated with ancient taboos, death and decomposition, but they have magical associations too and are nature’s natural recyclers, playing a vital role in the ecology of natural habitats like Burnham Beeches.

Down in the woods, hundreds of them are hard at work breaking down decaying organic matter and providing food for squirrels, deer and insects. It’s wonderful to see the fascinating shapes, forms and colours the fungi world has to offer – and yes, of course we want to leave them there for the next visitor to enjoy.

BACK in March I posted a blog about the possibility that the pandemic might just encourage us to rethink our relationship with the natural world and our place in it.

Written just days before the lockdown, it was a plea of hope that our experience of coping with the virus and its horrors might just provide some sort of global opportunity for humanity to reset its values.

Later posts considered the impact of the UK lockdown and the opportunities it offered to reconnect with the natural world.

It was by no means a lone voice, of course. Numerous leaders and pundits have put forward blueprints for how we can rebuild in the wake of the pandemic, and the Pope has been dedicating his Wednesday general audiences on how the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity can help heal the world. 

But have we really forgotten the potential lessons we learned from lockdown so very quickly?

We always knew the importance of the economic imperative and getting people back to work as far as possible. Yet in Warwickshire this week we are seeing ancient oaks being pulled down as HS2 construction work continues at an eventual cost already estimated at more than £70bn.

Every week when we walk among the centuries-old trees at Burnham Beeches we marvel at the age and beauty of these giants, which have witnessed so much history.

The devastation across the Chilterns which has reduced local residents to tears is just one symptom of the race to resume all the things we were doing before the whole crazy coronavirus scare began.

Five months on, do we really need a new railway at this moment in time? A third runway at Heathrow? An Oxford-Cambridge expressway? Surely there might be less damaging job-creation schemes that might protect what little we have left of our countryside before it gets buried in concrete and litter?

The March post suggested: “How we cope with and survive from the current crisis is in our hands. It will undoubtedly mean looking at the world in a different way – and changing how we live our lives.”

I’m not sure that’s happening. The race seems to be on to declare that it’s “business as usual”. But it’s no longer business as usual. And it would be good to see more of our political and business leaders taking account of the new reality before it’s too late.

IT’S BEEN a month of making new acquaintances, small and large – from huge British white cattle at Burnham Beeches to tiny beetles, from inquisitive piglets to baby coots, goats, ducks and squirrels.

The largest livestock wandering our local commons are the cattle released each year to graze the vegetation at Black Park, Stoke Common, Burnham Beeches and Langley Park.

Perhaps the most intimidating, size-wise, are the British White Catttle at Burnham Beeches, although they seem docile enough when lying down or thoughtfully munching their way through the local vegetation.

The modern day breed of cattle can claim direct links with the ancient indigenous wild white cattle of Great Britain, notably from the park at Whalley Abbey in Lancashire, and have become regular visitors in recent years as grazing has become increasingly seen as a way of creating diverse habitats in such ancient landscapes.

Once such woodlands would have been grazed by red deer, aurochs, wild boar and beavers. As humans increased their influence on the countryside they seriously reduced the numbers of wild herbivores, but introduced their own grazing pressures in the form of domestic livestock such as pigs, goats, sheep and cattle.

Overstocking of woodland grazers can cause a loss of plant and animal species and prevent natural regeneration, but balanced regimes with appropriate grazing pressure can increase habitat diversity, support important wildlife populations and encourage natural regeneration. A lack of grazing often allows more aggressive plants to outcompete and dominate sites, one reason why the past decade has seen the wider use of grazing cattle across the UK.

The livestock’s dung decomposes quickly as there are many insects and fungi which have evolved to feed on it, making it an important part of the ecosystem.

Bugs and beetles, moths and butterflies are just as important to the local ecosystem but a lot harder to photograph. Thankfully local forums like the Wild Cookham and Chesham Wildlife facebook groups are awash with experts good at spotting, capturing and chronicling their movements, or pulling together useful photo montages of which species to spot – and when.

One of the smallest but most colourful discoveries in a Chalfont meadow was the red-headed cardinal beetle, a bright red beetle with black legs and knobbly antennae found in woodland, hedgerows, parks and gardens over summer.

But this glorious meadow was alive with insects, from crickets to marbled white butterflies: it’s just tricky to capture them on camera when they move so quickly.

Thankfully the experts in the Wild Cookham facebook group are able to come up with much better images of some of the butterflies I have failed to capture, like the marbled white, comma, red admiral and holly blue, along with an excellent guide to about three dozen of the most common local species; Butterfly Conservation also have a useful identification guide.

Apart from the insects, this is also the season for baby animals in all shapes and sizes. Living near water, we have several families of ducks among our regular visitors, although seeing the little family line dwindle as the weeks go past and local predators get to work can be a little disheartening, reminding us of our very special rescue duckling a couple of years ago.

Watching a family of young thrushes showering and playing in the birdbath was an unexpected delight, a reminder of just how many visitors dropped in during the dark weeks of lockdown to make our lives a little cheerier – from a flustered pheasant and partridge to tits, robins and blackbirds, dunnocks, magpies and goldfinches.

We were remiss in keeping a proper lockdown diary, but one weekly photographic record that is a regular source of delight is the photo-newsletter issued by the “Moorhens” from their base near Milton Keynes.

A couple of years ago we posted the story of the Battells’ transformation of a couple of acres of cow pasture into an impressive nature reserve and their weekly newsletter continues to chronicle the exploits of a vast array of bird, animal and insect visitors, from courting pigeons to hungry foxes and naughty young squirrels. Contact their Moorhens through their home page to sign up.

The local farm shops have had new arrivals too, from piglets at Sandy Lane Farm to newborn goats at the Crazy Bear Farm Shop at Stadhampton.

Baby coots, ducklings and goslings have been vying for visitors’ attention at Black Park, and similar scenes have been repeated in ponds and rivers across the Chilterns.

From bats and barn owls to moorhens and muntjacs, after those long weeks when the main highlights were the daily visitors on the bird feeders, it’s a delight to be out and about again, lucky to be alive and blessed to be able to enjoy the amazing flora and fauna on our doorstep.

IT’S hard to believe we are already more than halfway through August, but the sudden splash of colour from the hibiscus hedges at our front door are the most vivid reminder of the changing months.

We’ve enjoyed the fabulous summer displays from the roses, fuchsia and buddleia in our tiny back garden, and now it’s the turn of the front to have a final spectacular flourish.

Lammas Day (August 1) is past – traditionally the day when the first wheat from the harvest is made into a loaf to be the bread consecrated with the wine at a thanksgiving mass.

Lammas comes from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning loaf mass and has been celebrated for thousands of years, marking a bittersweet month of feasting and abundance, a time when growth is slowing and the darker days of winter and reflection are beckoning.

These are the dog days of summer, when the gardens and roadsides are full of goodies, fields are full of grain, and harvest is approaching.

In ancient times it was a time to celebrate the great Celtic sun king Lugh and reflect on the upcoming abundance of the fall months – the season when the first grains are ready to be harvested and threshed, when the apples and grapes are ripe for the plucking, and we are grateful for the food we have on our tables.

August is a traditionally a month of feasting and celebrations – of market fairs, games and bonfire celebrations, circle dances and community gatherings, as well as being seen as an auspicious month for weddings.

There are many customs throughout Europe around the cutting of the grain or corn.

The first sheaf – which guarantees the seed and symbolises continuity and rebirth – would often be ceremonially cut at dawn, winnowed, ground and baked into the harvest bread which was then shared by the community in thanks. The first barley stalks would be made into the first beer of the season.

The last sheaf was also ceremonially cut, often made into a ‘corn dolly’, carried to the village with festivity and was central to the harvest supper: a corn maiden after a good harvest or a hag or crone after a bad one.

Old Lammas Day on August 12 apparently also marked the day when the lord of the manor would allow commoners to graze the medieval flood plain meadows until Candlemas at the beginning of February.

Locally, the blackberrying has been in full spate and the visitors from earlier in the year – Fez the wandering pheasant and Snoot the sneezing hedgehog – have been replaced by the delightful ducklings, swarms of cheerful tits and agile squirrels.

It’s a reminder that it’s almost two years since we moved to Wooburn Green, and of what a delight that time has been, with the cooing of the pigeons and whistling of the red kite in the nearby Cedar of Lebanon a constant backdrop to life at “Bear Cottage”.

That slight chill in the evening air is also a reminder of the bittersweet aspects of August that former generations will have sensed – the imminent end of the harvest, the picking of the fruit and berries and the promise of darker winter nights to come.

AFTER the snow, the fog – a murky, swirling affair worthy of a night on the Kent marshes or a Whitechapel back street.

But aside from conjuring up images of Magwitch and London pea-soupers, this latest twist in the February weather story also manages to banish the hard crusting of ice and snow that has been resolutely frosting the local landscape.

And as the fog subsides, to be replaced by a steady drizzle, that’s great news for all those early flowers tempted into bloom by the mild January air and buried by last week’s wintry downfall.

Candlemas day is past and the snowdrops are out, but the chill in the air still makes it feel as if spring is a long way off.

Nonetheless there’s a definite sense of anticipation in the air as the natural world starts to sense warmer times to come, and the bare branches and withered vegetation provide a drab backdrop against which to watch the countryside starting to stir.

Certainly there’s a jauntiness to the dawn chorus this morning and the bare branches of the laburnum outside our bedroom window make it easier to spot the miniature army of blue tits, coal tits and long-tailed tits which have been frequenting our bird feeders.

The variety here is a little less dramatic than the visitors chronicled in this week’s newsletter from The Moorhens – alias Roy and Marie Battell, whose small nature reserve near Milton Keynes has been frequented by badgers, muntjac deer, red foxes and partridges, along with pheasants and woodpeckers.

But there have been a few less familiar visitors to our patch too, with one stray pheasant, a lone goldfinch and a cheeky lesser spotted woodpecker popping in for a quick bite.

Not that these colourful guests have displaced the regulars in our affections. As well as the robins, blackbirds, magpies and dunnocks, one of our firm favourites remains the baby moorhen who has become a regular saunter round the feeders looking for scraps the smaller birds have dropped on the ground –  and whose distinctive tracks in the snow were a dead giveaway of her movements last week too.

IT’S rhododendron time again at Langley Park, which means a spectacular fireworks display of colour in the Temple Gardens.

From here you can look out over the park towards Windsor Castle – but not before spending a little time wandering along the pathways enjoying the dazzling range of different colours and blooms.

In mid- to late May it’s a genuinely spectacular sight, and if you arrive early enough in the morning or on a weekday, you may have those winding paths pretty much to yourself, apart from the odd jogger or dog walker.

Reds, pinks, whites, yellows – each time you turn a corner there’s a bush of a different hue or blooms in new dramatic shapes. See the link above for more details about the park, and the council website for opening times and parking charges.

NOW that the Thames Path has finally dried out, it’s the perfect place for an evening stroll – especially with so many feathered families out and about on the water.

On the section from Bourne End to Marlow, the ducks and geese are out in force alongside the walkers, sailors and rowers.

The hawthorn blossoms are in full bloom, the goslings are learning to swim and, a couple of fields away, the baby bunnies are out playing too as dusk falls.

Popular circular walking routes here include riverside sections of the Thames between Cookham, Bourne End and Marlow, with the option of letting the train take the strain if you fancy a jar or two in one of the welcoming hostelries along the way, or a restaurant meal in Marlow or Cookham.

The branch line to Marlow is a single-track seven-mile line via Bourne End to Maidenhead, and very picturesque it is too. Passenger services are operated by the Great Western Railway using two-coach diesel multiple unit trains, normally every half hour, but hourly after 9pm.

Back in steam days the train used to be known as The Marlow Donkey, normally taking the form of a one-coach train powered by a small pannier tank. Although the exact derivation of the term is unclear, a pub near the station in Marlow is named after it.

It’s great to see tiny sailing boats out on the Black Park lake – and other marvellous scale models like this little rowing boat.

The figures look so lifelike it’s sometimes hard to believe you are looking at models, unless there are a couple of ducks around to help put everything in perspective…

The park is home to the Black Park Model Boat Club, a friendly, non-competitive club which is open to new members at any time and covers all aspects of model boating from yachts to scale models.

The club uses the lake at Black Park on Thursday afternoons from 12pm and Sunday mornings. The park itself is signposted from the A412 between Slough and Iver Heath and  has toilets and cafés.

Once a year there is a whole-day regatta at the lake where other clubs are invited and money raised for a local charity.

For more information turn up at the lakeside on sailing days and ask for Frank or Alan, or e-mail the secretary at: secretary@blackparkmodelboatclub.org.uk