Sitting on top of Y Graig, a wooded bluff near Cross Ash in Monmouthshire.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 an absolute blue: the temperature must be 70 degrees F 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 pouring in slow-motion, convoluting and searching.
1.30pm.
I have just watched a small 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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