Of course, Monday, even armed with that juicy bit of news, was not entirely easy. We had to discuss the implications and disseminate that news to those who needed to know, not least for our own working lives. And not everyone is equally affected. If you have to travel long distances there will be nowhere to stay overnight. For some lockdown becomes a personal choice or work plans change. For others it will make no difference. All these are understandable and reasonable considerations, but all have to be dealt with in a variety of ways with cancellations, postponements or simply reassurance. So, by the time dusk crept in soon after 4pm on Monday, I had had enough. I headed for the downs.
I take a certain masochistic delight heading out at this time, certain in the knowledge that it will be dark by the time I make it home. I also refuse to wear a coat despite the imminence of rain and the disappearing sun sucking what little heat there was from the fast ending day. For a change I set out through the neighbouring farmyard that takes you onto an arrow straight track, an ancient route that eventually connects to the Iron Age hill fort that dominates the landscape around these parts. It is usually rutted, a regular route for farm machinery but all of a sudden it has the appearance and feel of a regular Appian way. Instead of slipping and sliding in mud and puddles I am gliding along on a smooth, rolled surface of bright, white flints that light my path, catching as they do, the last rays of sun.
The track is now a mighty fine road, far too good for anything it will ever be used for but it has largely come about by accident. Nigel the farmer has a useful side-line in flints. Around here flints in ploughed fields are a perpetual nuisance. We are not talking here about small ones. These are the type that start at the size of rugby balls, often being two or three times bigger. They will snap even the most robust plough shear or seriously mince up the insides of a combine harvester. So, each seasonal ‘crop’ of flints that works itself to the surface is gathered up, with little apparent utility for the consequent pile of gatherings.
However, Nigel has found lucre in flints. He acts as an aggregator of flints gathered on farms in the area, creating a pile each year that is as large as a house. These he sifts, cleans of dirt and grades into giant aggregate bags which will be sold to a Dorset firm that makes pre-cast flint panels for the construction industry. Yes, I hate to break it to you but that pretty feature home on that new housing development you might have admired is not exactly all it seems, but it does at least bring some income to the rural economy. So, as you probably guessed the by-product of something that is already a by-product is thousands of tonnes of golf ball sized flints that are too small for use in the panels but do very nicely for farm tracks repairs.
Near the base of the Iron Age fort I turn for home; it is now technically dark but it doesn’t seem that way with the blue/grey sky turning the landscape an inky black and white, backlit by the rising moon. Ahead of me a barn owl lifts from the ground. It seems early for him or her to be out, but I guess it is dark enough to hunt already. I mark the spot along the hedge line, confident that I would find some left behind prey. It is always interesting to see what they eat, though it is mostly mice and baby rabbits. But this time no sign of a mangled corpse but rather a pile of tiny fruits, the autumn fall from a wild crab apple. Why not, I suppose?
But my snowy friend got me thinking and looking. There is an amazing feast along the hedgerows. The hawthorn, the hedge bush of choice which thrives on the thin soil that cloaks the chalk beneath, is thick with red berries. Sloes, with the most vicious of thorns so perfect for cattle proofing, are intermingled, the dusky blue berries as luscious looking as supermarket bought blueberries from other continents.
Rose hips, the final iteration of the Dog rose pink flower (so called as it was once considered a cure for a rabid dog bite) shine as if each has been buffed to perfection. I am told they have a sweet, syrupy taste but I’ve never felt the urge to try one; I’ll leave them for the birds who rely on the Vitamin C hit in the depths of winter.
On the ground there are beech nuts in profusion, the spiky cases cracking and shattering beneath my feet whereas the acorns, made of hardier stuff, just simply push down into the turf. Strangely, however hard I look is cannot see a single hazel nut. Maybe the squirrels have already done what squirrels do best. Somebody, or something, has certainly done for all the blackberries. A month ago, they provided a handy walk-by snack. Today there are none, the cups that held them now vacant spaces or the runts of the crop shrivelled to nothing. Mushrooms, or they could be toadstools I can rarely tell, are simply everywhere.
As I hit the ridge, vacate the shelter of the hedgerow and begin the downhill run to home the wind gets up. Maybe that coat thing was not such a good idea after all. Old lore has it that when berries are many in October, beware a hard winter. If that is true, I will need to dress better in the months to come.
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