Clive Wilkinson, of Rothbury, continues his occasional series of musings on country life…
Our late-lamented friend and neighbour, John Wallace, used to come into our house and make straight for the sitting room window. He would stand and look for a few moments and then say, in his lovely lilting Irish brogue, ‘That’s a wonderful tree.’ And we would stand beside him and share that special moment.
Patrick Norris, of Footsteps guided walks based in Northumberland, sent us this magnificent photograph of The Erratic alongside a poem he has written. As an introduction, he writes:
The Erratic in question sits high on Bewick Moor deep in rural Northumberland. It is listed on the British Geological Survey website and their literature preceding the internet. In a curious twist, the moor is mis-named in the listing as Berwick Moor, rather than Bewick Moor. The photograph that accompanies the listing on the BGS website was taken in 1925 and nothing much has changed. The poem reflects on the landscape and that we are just passing through, the erratic though has sat in the same place for about 10,000 years and watched us pass by.
Clive Wilkinson, of Rothbury, muses on the life and times of an avian pal and the lessons to be learned for our own country lives…
There’s a pheasant that lives somewhere in the tangled hedge of ash, blackthorn and hawthorn, elder and bramble that marks the northern boundary to the field next door. We call him Charlie. He was there when we moved in, but as that was twenty-four years ago, and we don’t think pheasants live that long, we think it must be a dynasty, and he must be Charles XXIV.