Tuesday April 11 1995 12.30pm. I’m sitting on top of the Graig. The sun is beating down. Ravens are calling and a kestrel glides over. The woods are greening up quickly now, and today will bring them on wonderfully. The dry cart road shimmers in the heat and the little quarry that I am sitting in echoes with the chiff-chaff’s slippery call. The sky is absolutely blue and the temperature must be 70 degrees Fahrenheit here, out of the high mountain breeze. There is plenty of noise: bird song, insects buzzing – but it is silent. Silent with no man-made noise. It is glorious. The fresh woods in the early morning beat with a timeless drum. I am glad to be alive, just to soak in the being of a wood. No experience comes close to this communion of silence. It must be a near ecstatic feeling. Richard Jefferies knew it, and he let his soul range to the skies. You can touch the soul of some woods. It feels like a thin skein of mist, like milk in a slo-mo, convoluting and searching.
I’ve just watched a herd of seven red deer feeding on the high meadow near an abandoned bulldozer. They were uncertain and eventually moved into the hanging wood. I followed them and they charged off down the slope, then doubled back towards the old farm.
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