My daily blog is suspended for a very short time while I focus on other aspects of the project. Normal service will however, soon be resumed.
Author Archives for Eggman
Snake in the Grass
The sloughed off skin of a grass snake lay next to some old corrugated iron, which the snake itself uses for shelter. It’s been seen there many times over the years according to Nick, my guide and walking companion. Though ‘Natrix Natrix’, was not at home and possibly skulking in the long grass nearby, a resident slow worm posed for a picture before defying its name and very quickly sliding from view.
Etch a Sketch
A high spring tide washed over the sea purslane last night, carrying away dead leaves and laying their pale ochre, khaki and wan russet tints over deeper notes of mud. A discord of florescent yellow (N 50˚47.151′ W 001˚ 24.478′), turned out to be a small hand held drawing tool, which still functioned when tested.
Blackberry Way
Hundreds of thousands of blackberries are beginning to ripen along the path below the Egg Gateway. Evidence on the gatepost shows birds to be already feasting and I made my own modest collection for breakfast tomorrow.
Canada Geese
Around one hundred and fifty Canada geese arrived yesterday in the early evening, appearing from the direction of the Isle of Wight. They were letting everything and everyone know they were coming with that raucous, noisy honking that ripples too and fro throughout the flying flock. Two small resident groups already here, frequent a pond on farmland adjoining Exbury Gardens and it is beginning to feel like the start of a Canada goose convention. I watched a pair of shell (shocked) ducks seemingly retreating out of their way.
These naturalised Canadians first settled in England in the 17th Century when they were introduced as attractions in the gardens of country estates and perhaps our local flocks still have some distant race memory of ornamental forebears on the Exbury Estate? I shall have to ask if any were ever kept hereabouts.
Everyday Events (Sunset)
The sun set toward Beaulieu in beguiling fashion yesterday evening as I recorded the event to test the GoPro camera’s capacity for time lapse photography from a bright to no light situation. I will need use a different camera to shoot the night sky. The sun goes down every day in greater or lesser glory, but what is really happening in the air it shines through and on land and water here in my parish below?
Everyday Actions (Shaving)
After a few days growth a hairy face literally becomes an irritation and action is needed. Yesterday morning I used the reverse camera on my phone as a shaving mirror to explore elements of this everyday ritual. The bristles were long, the blade less than sharp, the water cold and the sink tiny. More elegance might be possible on future mornings but yesterday this is how it was. To day I noted how the same cycle has begun to turn again…
Home (360˚circuit)
Inside, the space is filling up with various pieces of kit and equipment as well as collections of different ‘finds’ gathered from around the parish. The interior has to function as a work, living and sleeping area simultaneously and it is evident that better and more efficient storage needs devising. These 29 seconds remember an hour of my life yesterday morning.
Red and Yellow
The red of the sea beet is in a fight for light with surrounding grasses and the pale yellow of the more plentiful sea purslane is an easily dismissed fuzz of brownish yellow. Relatively dull to the naked eye, they have a haunting and memorable presence under my microscope’s lens.
A Measured View
The land is relatively vast in proportion to capacity for observation and reflection, so I am considering different means to focus my looking. Borrowing the principle of the planning grid from archaeology which is employed to trace layers in the land peeled back in time, I will observe the present surface and its future changes.
A square metre is just one stride out of thousands made in a single day and so different locations along the littoral must be strategically chosen. It feels like a good way to begin contemplation of whatever washes up, lives and dies, or erodes within such tiny windows onto the world.
This window is at N59˚47.129′ & W001˚24.453′ and my Garmin cannot quantify if it is at three or one foot above mean sea level. The ‘spirit’ level is of as much interest to me.
The Exbury Egg 