Working with, or around the weather, is critical with so much work to be done outside. Checking weather via the BBC, the Meteorological Office, or even the French Metéo app, offers good clues about what’s ahead, allowing for rough plans to be made, or helping decide what clothing to don, at least. Any weather good for working outdoors cannot be ignored. In the constant struggle of Human vs Nature, relying wholly on meteorological computer modelling would be a mistake.
Up here, toward the top of the southern escarpment, the view across the Levels toward Glastonbury Tor, can be reassuring. The low-lying ground between the old abbey tower on the tor and the permaculture garden draws in plenty of the poor weather. Clouds heavy with rain seem to slide downhill into the broad, shallow valley. They billow along beneath, or at least adjacent to here, dowsing the cattle, sheep and itinerants who camp around ‘Avalon’, as some regulars at the inn call Glastonbury.
The rain can pour over The Levels, while work proceeds here undisturbed. Today was a good example.
A quick job of tidying both sides of a track on the west side of the land, was followed by gathering the debris, then a brisk visit to the far north of Wild Lea to tackle encroaching wild growth from an adjoining narrow strip of woodland. The wind was cold and increasingly gusty, the sky from the south-west darkening, yet the forecast rain was taking its time to arrive.
Using a petrol driven hedge-cutter, spring rake and a tarpaulin, three of us were able to clear a long stretch of the hayfield’s border. Clumps of the brush we cleared, the long grasses particularly, were used to mulch some of the trees planted in Wild Lea during the last five years. The bulk of cuttings were dragged on the tarp a couple of hundred yards to the pile of detritus from the day’s first task. It will all be burned at some point.
Wild Lea is a little drab in February. It is mown for hay in the late summer, after it has given its all to wild flowers, hand sown there for the benefit of butterflies, moths, bees and other pollinators. After the pandemic, local villagers joined together to help plant more than a thousand new trees at the top end of Wild Lea. The trees are beginning to flourish, having been nurtured through at least one potentially suffocatingly hot, dry summer.
It was a great to see how well they are doing. Nearly every one of the trees is indigenous to, or very long-established in Britain. The noticeable exception is a Japanese Cherry, which has been the first to blossom. Its electric-raspberry coloured flowers captured my immediate attention when I scanned the plantation.
A hawthorn circle was planted by school friends of the young girl, now approaching adulthood, who lives here. With grandmothers, mothers and sisters, blood relations or not, the circle celebrates womankind, motherhood, sisterhood and feminine spirituality. The meetings held within this hawthorn circle draw on positive and powerful beliefs some associate with witchery, but these ideas are both as old as the hills and as contemporary and vital as Me Too, the unending battle for equal rights and the struggle to end violence against women, for example. It is more complex than that, but it is worth noting the inter-generational connections that the women here value, particularly love and respect for the post-menopausal years, as well as the magic and responsibility of the child-bearing age.
There has been a slightly larger circle of sapling Hornbeams planted too. Whether this is designated as a masculine space isn’t clear, although the chosen tree species suggests it. This circle would certainly be a good place for men to gather around a fire, play music, sing songs and share stories too, or possibly just enjoy some P & Q.
Wild Lea is the largest part of the community’s land. It would be ideal terrain for a cricket field. There is some public pathway connected to it. As mentioned, local folk are becoming involved in cultivating and maintaining this plot. A work party of neighbours is assembling this coming Sunday morning to carry on some of the work we started today. I’m not going anywhere that day, so might wander along, with whatever clothing the weather dictates. The forecast at the moment is for a dry day, with the temperature likely to be around 14C.
Today, lunch was taken later than normal, because we wanted to finish what we had started. We had two stripling hazel trees to cut free from a daunting tangle of brambles, before we could stop to eat.
The weather and light were increasingly unsuitable for remaining in the field, which meant indoor work would be the focus later.
One egg, one mug of strong white flour and one mug of milk, when mixed up makes enough batter for two thick pancakes. Seville Orange and cider marmalade, a knob of butter and a banana dressed the first, then just butter and marmalade for the second.
There was just enough time for a cuppa and to wash up, before heading back to work.
My afternoon was spent as a carpenter’s assistant. Hardly strenuous. Warm and dry.
We knocked-off when all the wood for architrave for skirting boards and window frames were satisfactorily shaped. We were finished a bit early, but with the satisfaction of a job completed and well done.
Hours at work are irrelevant to me when the day’s tasks are done. Time is short. One life, you can’t take any money with you, credit or debit. You get your allotted span, then lights out. You only live on in memories of the living, blah, blah, blah.
It’s just gone half-five and there it is still light outside, albeit a darker hue of today’s grey light. The rain is splattering on the roof of my wood cabin and the prospect of walking to the inn for Steak / Burger Night is unappetising.
Unfortunately, I had to pre-order by Monday and now have to put on waterproofs and get down there. It is about a mile away and I will have to clamber over a digger and tractor that are parked right across the lane at night to protect road works. It is as if pedestrians don’t exist out here. The pub carpark is often full here. Draw your own conclusions about public transport and community policing.
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CLP 18/02/2026
Journey of Words 