online: 7 april 2003

7 april 2003 sun and wind and visibility


18:23: Evening - alone in bright sun and cold north wind - few people about. Two geese honk occasionally on pond 2. Just eaten some poppy seed cake at the place of a memorable picnic in 1973 - thirty years ago! - after Edwin Schlossberg had enabled us, in his special way, to perform and film the simultaneous motions of sun, earth and moon. It's still a vivid memory and I still have the videotapes and films (Sony half inch and super eight).

Oh the air feels so fresh in my nostrils and so cold on my writing hand (the hand holding the computer is gloved).

And the scene by this pond!: 'Celtic twilight', so evocative of the West - and spring sunlight, reflected so brightly by the rippling water... This is a moment of moments.

Most of the day I've been fighting fatigue but here this evening I'm in paradise again. And alive to it.

As I walked across that picnic place of thirty years ago I came across mole hills where I'd not seen them before. How do moles travel to a new colony - over the ground or under? (their colonies are a long distance apart)... I am surprised that I've never seen a mole in the act of building a mole hill.

Parliament Hill - I walked up here despite the cold wind for the sky looked so inviting. Unprecedented visibility this evening - I can see far into Kent, to the hills beyond the hills of Blackheath and Greenwich - is it the downs I can see? I turn right round to see the whole of the cloudless sky, pinkish misty grey at the horizon and pale blue above - for once it really does resemble an inverted bowl!

On the way back I notice that pond 3 is about fifteen centimetres higher than usual and the water is not moving in the overflow. I phoned the keeper and he was glad to be informed.

19:06 In the train. I didn't stay long - only just enough to climb Parliament Hill (sometimes called Kite Hill) to see the astonishing view today - and to walk back through a wooded valley that is out of the wind.




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© 2003 john chris jones

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