WRITING INSPIRED BY LANDSCAPE

  They've gone lovely to see them but boy can they talk At last peace and quiet time to myself just sit for a while... ah,  silence is... Music? What shall I choose? No, just sit Let it wash over. Enjoy Mmm. Things to do. Better make a list, Too much. Mind whirring - must prioritise. How to cope? doubts creep in, anxieties rise - seen it before. Breathe deep, count slow, stretch toes, feet, legs, follow through the whole body, keep focused, they said. Savour the moment, feels so... Was that the phone? Is that the time? That's it then - lost it. Maybe tomorrow. Paul Middleton

  Cole Farlow Sinuous strands weep to silent water below mirror of the sky Jaqui

  Photo credit: Vincent Van Zalinge The lone winter hare Crouches in the wet stubble White coat blends with falling snow   Irridescent fly Buzzes in my face right now I swat - say good-bye   Moon rising over Fen Cold glow in the western sky Dyes the grass silver Barbara Grafton

Photo credit: Jean Rees Lyons I had to write to tell you how, one day, making the usual journey home across Lock Ruel to Largs on the converted trawler, Heather, I noticed you standing in the landscape. You looked unreal against a backdrop of bracken and scrubland. Transfixed, holding my woolly, purple hat in place against the breeze chasing a squall against the side of the boat, I sensed the power of your outstretched limbs. I was lost to your knowingness of me. I disembarked and made my way to the bothie on the hillside but you were still with me, trapped by my imagination. Yet, on river banks, flood plains,   jungle paths, here, there you belong, stripped naked by history, wind and weather. Verb-green leavings drape your tangled, half-visible roots like dancers on a sprung forest floor. Living death defying life forever. When I imagine other trees, those seasoned adorners of hillside and valley I find it is you that I admire, praise, long to be with, to watch you shape...

  Cow parsley is good for nectar Come With Me to Look and See: A Guided Walk Around the Nature Reserve Reveals Red-Letter Day Finds During lockdown there may have been limits to our physical journeys, but in our minds we are only limited by the boundaries of our imaginations - so let me be your vicarious ears, eyes and other senses and come with me on a virtual guided walk around Madeleine’s Patch. The weather is warm and sunny with a mild breeze. Our starting point is Madeleine’s Patch HQ (MPHQ), where Madeleine and I lived for almost 40 years before her tragic demise. MPHQ is a mosaic of ornamental gardens, ponds, orchard, meadow and semi-mature hedges and trees that we planted in the early 1980s. This offers a wide range of habitats and niches for a myriad of plants and animals. Are you ready?   Then let’s get started. The first thing we notice is the air, heavy with the pungent peppery smell of rape blossom, which carries for miles. Bees love it an...

  Simone Chalkley: I don’t believe in heaven, but if I did I think it would look like this. When I stand on your shore, it’s as if time itself stands still but ages pass. I remain motionless, yet I’m moving. As your waves stroke my feet with your cool, bubbling liquid and you drag the sand from underneath me, I drift sideways. I feel a giddy swirl in my head. If I close my eyes, I almost topple, yet if I flick them open to regain my bearings, I haven’t moved anywhere at all. How do you do that? I love your trickery. At every beach, you sort sand from stone, small pebbles from large, stone from shell, smashing some but preserving others. I marvel at how you do this without eyes or hands. Plastic wasn’t part of your plan. I’m sorry. Some of   us are trying to resolve that. Each of your beaches differ, but your horizons look the same.  Nothing is like you, sea. The never-ending back and forth, to and fro, ebb and flow of waves gently lapping or wildly crashing. You...

  When I stand next to the Pacific Ocean, I feel as if I am in the presence of something ancient and indestructible, solid, yet forever moving and restless. It is rhythm. Endless, over and over. And the noise that soaks my ears and sizzles on my skin. The constant to and fro, the wet thud and crack of curling white foam as it slams on the shallows one more time. And as one cymbal crash of a wave fades into a shimmer and a fizz on the glistening agate sand, there is another waiting its turn to pulse and beat and slam. Bold, rippling white peaks thrust themselves up toward the sky and then down, fast and unforgiving, releasing cold, salty spray that spreads in the wind and lands on my face like a soft, moist caress. It’s one rare time that I feel no desire to be in the water; it’s enough to be with it but apart from it, only letting its essence touch me.   I wouldn’t survive long in the cold waves and the murky clouds of undercurrent tell me that the depths below are hungry ...