Return to Wild Boar Wood

                               

Wild Boar Wood retained its winter nakedness as it awaited our arrival.

The trees stood skinny and diminished beneath a steel-grey sky, as if sleeping to escape their grief at our late-summer retreat to towns and houses.

The plants under our feet had at least prepared for our return, pushing up green leaves as they waited for the right moment to burst into braggardly bloom.

We pitched a tent and lit a fire, chopped vegetables and cooked food, ate our evening meal in darkness, and after a while retreated to bed to ready ourselves for the next day’s toil.

When I stepped out of the tent and into daylight I knew that the wood had awoken. I felt it cautiously welcome me as each day it filled out a little more, giving me gifts of leaves which unfurled and swelled with youthful grace, hiding patches of the suddenly blue sky and making frilled parasols above my head.

The bluebells began to bloom; a few more each day, until the ground was covered with swathes of a shade close to cobalt, with dots of gold in between, where the yellow archangels fought their way through the unndergrowth. Around the edges of these carpets were early flowering dog violets, much bigger and bolder than their later counterparts, and in the more boggy areas I found Coralroot – a rare plant only to be seen in the South-East of England – lording it over bright coloured celandine and subtle, dark, bugle. Bouquets of Goldilocks buttercups and nosegays of primroses were scattered about the woodland, and I nibbled on the sharp-flavoured leaves of wood sorrel. Those most beautiful of plants, wood anemones were present in abundance.

The brambles were growing fast, and the wild raspberries and redcurrants were preparing for a fat season. All around me birds sang and warbled. Squirrels ran up trees, and startled deer scattered. A grass snake slithered through the forest to escape human intrusion, and a fox hunted for meat to feed her young, which could be heard yapping nearby.

Spring had arrived at Wild Boar Wood.

Stormy Weather at Wild Boar Wood.

Five Photos. Five Stories. Day 4

Thank you Calen at Impromptu Promptlings for nominating me for this fun challenge. For anyone who hasn’t seen Calen’s lovely inspiring site, I recommend that you check it out now.

the 
   night 
      w h e n 
         with o u t 
            w a r n i n g, 
               t h e  s t o r m 
        crackled and
thundered all 
   around,  lighting 
       the sky with its white
          fury,  my  niece  and  I were 
             in different areas of the campsite. 
                We  ran  to  the  meadow  
                   and danced in the
             rain caking our legs
       with  mud,   laughing 
           because we had both 
               had the same idea. the  
                   next day the sun gave us
                       its usual golden 
                 smile as if nothing 
           had   happened, 
               and it set to 
                   work drying 
                       the  d a m p 
                          ground ready
                       to c h e e r
                    e v e r y  
                 d a m p-
              ene d 
           spir-
        it

© Jane Paterson Basil

The Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge rules require you to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or simply a short paragraph – it’s entirely up to you.

Then each day, nominate another blogger to carry on this challenge.

Accepting the challenge is entirely up to the person nominated, it is not a command. Today, I’m inviting Alien Aura to join the challenge.

New Beginnings – Wild Boar Wood.

Five Photos. Five Stories. Day 2

Thank you Calen at Impromptu Promptlings for nominating me for this fun challenge. For anyone who hasn’t seen Calen’s lovely inspiring site, I recommend that you check it out now.

.
            the first 
           rays of dawn
             seeping 
        through cream canvas
            caressing 
          my eyelids open
            gave a smile 
             to my lips
       I lay still and gazed
   at the dappled golden shadows
   painted onto the thin ceiling
  artwork supplied by kindly trees

  I listened to the tweeting birds
     singing of new beginnings

© Jane Paterson Basil

The Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge rules require you to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or simply a short paragraph – it’s entirely up to you.

Then each day, nominate another blogger to carry on this challenge.

Accepting the challenge is entirely up to the person nominated, it is not a command. Today, I’m inviting Lynn Love at Word Shamble to join the challenge.