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Sea Bass
At seven thirty this morning a sea bass arrived on the riverside. Its gills were gouged and it looks like he wriggled off someone’s line. A meal for the birds now.
Percolation
Leaks to the shell are a regular recurrence. Over the bed (recently stopped), through the closed doors and in through the timbers of the bow where it collects in the shower tray are regular aspects of daily life. In this process of natural percolation the wood surrenders its colour.
Afloat
Yet another storm from the south west appeared to be gathering from around eight this morning, but the Egg rides the waves well in its sheltered bay. High spring tides can almost clear the protecting embankment however (as can be seen from the layered flotsam close to its top) and the Egg is more exposed to wintry broadsides that etch its cedar walls.
Heat Waves
The heater is beginning to radiate warmth as it pinks and tinks with the expansion of the stainless steel. It gets very hot and the metal itself glows red in the dark, but its still only 9˚c inside the Egg and what burns to the touch barely registers beside the bed eight feet away.
It is still wonderful to just watch the flickering colours (the flames are hidden), in that pleasing empty headed way, that none the less always seems to let new thoughts spring to mind unbidden.
The heater burns charcoal, as well as drift wood when I can find (and dry) it. A single load will provide heat for around seven hours.
Shadow Play
Moonlight through the tangled thorny forest of the blackthorn egg, cast ghostly reminders of wildwood onto the planed and tamed timbers of the Exbury Egg in the early hours this morning.
Nest Egg
I placed an egg of woven blackthorn in the thicket from which its twigs and small branches originally came. It is held together with ties of twine and will soon be slowly absorbed into the dense new growth of Springtime. Its spiny exterior surface and hollowed core, offers natural protection to the small nesting birds which make their home here. I will document the changes as days pass into weeks, as part of a meditation on the nature of habitats and the important symbolism of the Egg.
The egg within the Egg
Photo: Nick Dawe
Mouldy Egg
photo: Nick Dawe
Mould is becoming a problem. The riverside location, almost daily heavy rain for a month and a lack of ventilation are all contributing to the creation of the humid conditions required. It crept up on me somewhat, by taking over two dark cupboards in the bow and also inhabiting the food cupboard.
All of my clothing has succumbed to green furry mould and I spent the morning cleaning it as best as I could. I moved my drawings out of the Egg before Christmas in anticipation of the problem as well as supplies of canvas, paper and books.
The rest of the day will be spent washing the walls and kitchen surfaces with a weak solution of bleach. Sharing ones home with spiders is one thing but near invisible spores quite another.
One of a packet of oatcakes in the food locker.
Mould beginning on the inner egg wall.
A Chilly Welcome
The welcome mat outside my door was frozen this morning, along with the drinking water supply (despite insulation added to the tap just after Christmas). The sun’s warmth soon began a general thaw, but my mood turned chilly again when I discovered most of the clothing in my dry locker had become a thriving home to green and black mould.
Gifts from Visitors (The Dodo Shell)
Whilst living alone for just over two years in a woodland cabin beside Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts in the 1840s, HD Thoreau always had three chairs ready for visiting friends. Callers to the Egg can’t be encouraged quite so much, since my own wilderness is a relatively small, protected wildlife sanctuary. However, it has felt right to welcome the occasional voyageur such as my long time supporter, the naturalist Ralfe Whistler. Inheriting his father’s box of dodo bones and shell led to a life long passion for this extinct creature* and I was greatly pleased when Ralfe, in turn, gifted me some small shell fragments as a reminder of his visit.
If the Exbury Egg symbolises fertility, birth and renewal, it is equally a reminder of our difficult relationship with nature and of the heavy footprints marking our path as we bestride the planet. Now hanging beside my bed, the dodo shell is an important reminder of human ignorance and indifference to the rest of existence except as some ‘thing’ to be made use of. After being first recorded on Mautitius in 1598, the dodo was extinct by 1681. Fiona Harvey’s story published in the Guardian last Summer raises questions about the threats to our own wild bird populations today…
Fiona Harvey, Environmental Correspondent, Page 14, The Guardian, Friday 23 August 2013.
- * Ralfe Whistler http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-24525693
The Exbury Egg 