Everyday Actions (Sleep)

By eleven the moon was sufficiently high for its cool beams to wash through my circular skylight and to transit across the bed. As the night progressed I was bathed in, and scanned by, its glow as I slept.

As the days have got shorter, I have been sleeping a lot longer. The lack of light entails cooking in the embers of the day at around 3.45, being in bed by 4.30 and then sleeping until dawn. I normally have about six hours sleep and I have been averaging thirteen hours for the last two weeks each night in the Egg. I feel finely tuned in to the circadian rhythms of moon and its tides, the shortening day and to the wider weekly, seasonal and annual rhythms of this particular place.

Redbreast

A pair of robins are following me all the time around the Bofors Gun emplacement. As I fuss about rearranging bags of charcoal, bottles of paraffin and meths stored there, they pick up the insects and seeds unwittingly disturbed and dislodged. It’s an unusual symbiotic relationship where the redbreast gives us huge pleasure and we in turn help enrich its diet. I am sure it would not take long for them to feed from my hand.

What a poorer place it would be without these commonplace creatures that are such a feature of the ordinary culture of our isles. It was magical at seven o’clock this morning, to sit with a cup of tea in the thicket, listening to all the calls and songs.

Night of the Full moon

Night of the full moon, Sunday 17th November, looking toward the Isle of Wight. 100% cloud.

Night Vision

At 23.15 orion lay to the south and the plough to the north east. The moon cast a silvery light through air and water from the western sky. Its cool shimmering, interrupted by the sodium glow from the Isle of Wight and a tiny LED brightness from a WIFI transmitter, sending this message out to the world.

First Frost

Leaves and grasses were firmer underfoot as I ventured out into the first frost of the year this morning. While the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’* is with us still, it heralds the Winter that is not many more weeks away.

Outer Bank at 7.30am looking toward the Egg. Mists rising

* ‘To Autumn’, John Keats, 1819

Requiem for a Wren

During the build up to the invasion of Normandy in 1944, Nevil Shute spent a lot of time on and around the Beaulieu River at Exbury and the opening chapters of his book ‘Requiem for a Wren’ are based on this experience. Janet Prentice in Requiem is credited with shooting down a Junkers Ju 188 E-1 that in reality was brought down by gunners firing from the bofors gun position which still stands beside the Egg. The aircraft came down in the grounds of Exbury House (HMS Mastadon) and Shute was one of the first people on the scene. Many details of his experience of the house and its gardens as well as this Beadle’s watery parish are woven into the soul of the book.

‘Time is like a river of passing events, and its current is strong; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away’ Marcus Aurelius

Three Wrens in an LCVP on the Beaulieu River. Janet Prentice in Requiem often travels in these craft. The LCVP carried one vehicle or 36 men and were fast. The crew was a Wren Petty Officer Coxswain and 2 Wrens.
http://www.nevilshute.org/PhotoLine/PLD-1941-1950/pl-1941-1950-02.php

Swing

Walking along the high water line toward the wooded edge of Exbury Gardens, I discovered the seat of a child’s swing which may have been strung from the overhanging bough of one of the many twisted oaks there ( N 50˙47.327′ W 001˙ 24.385′). Once driven by youthful energy out over the water and up toward the sky, it is now pulled back and forth by the tides. A small hardwood platform to contemplate the adventures of childhood unknown.

From Leaf Mould

A Trip to the Outer Bank No.1 Tamarisk

I visited the outer bank on Thursday and was impressed by the Tamarisk trees. Their tiny leaves are folded close to the stem as can be seen in my microscope photograph. I will look forward to enjoying a much wider perspective in springtime when their tiny pink flowers will be framed and enhanced by the colour and light of the dawn sky.

They were probably planted to enhance the stability of the Outer Bank when the enclosed waters inside its sluice gates (removed) were used for concentrating sea salt for collection along toothed channels that can still be observed. It’s possible these trees or their forebears have been here since the late eighteenth century. They love being close to the sea and enjoy these salty soils.

Exbury Egg Conserves No.4: Rosehip Syrup

I began to make rose hip syrup on October 4th (see earlier blog post), but decided instead to make the pulped hips into an ink for drawing. So last Sunday I spent a whole day making syrup using hips from another bush growing from the disused WW2 bofors gun emplacement beside the Egg. I used a recipe issued by the Ministry of Food in 1944.

Work commenced gathering hips from 09.00 until 13.00. These were washed and from 13.30 to 15.00 all were topped and tailed. From 15.00 – 17.00 the jars were sterilised and the hips boiled and strained, before reducing six pints of fluid to to just under one pint. Eight hours of work, half a pint of paraffin in the stove and two pounds of hips produced just one and a half jars of syrup. It makes one think carefully about our relationship with the land, the flora it sustains and my own regular profligacy with the jam spoon.

The Exbury Egg

Stephen Turner's Exbury Egg is addressing the meaning of place at a time of great environmental change. In the guise of The Beaulieu Beadle, he will work on, in and around the Egg for twelve months from July 15th 2013 – July 14th 2014.

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