Bel's Wood

In that wonderful spell of sunny weather we had in April 2025, I decided to once again sleep out at Bel’s Wood in my hammock. I have got out of the habit of sleeping up there and also my tarp got ripped in a storm last year so I needed to do some prep.  After a few practices with my much larger tarp which I had bought as a rain shelter and replacing some tent pegs I chose a date. A couple of friends joined me for supper around the fire which was a lovely  way of starting my mini adventure! I kept warm in front of the fire as it went dark and the temperature began to drop.  The bird life quietened down for the night with just a few owl squarks and barks from the foxes in the background. The sky was clear of cloud but full of moisture with poor ‘seeing’ for star gazing. With a bright  moon only the large constellations and planets were visible. I walked around in the evening by moonlight, no torch required. Moon above the dying camp fire Orion looking large and stan...

Having missed the slow unfold of Spring this year due to my fractured ankle, I have spent lots of time at Bel's Wood enjoying summer emerging. It has been windy but the storms have passed and there has been a good mix of rain and sunshine so that the beck has plenty of water. Flowers are out in abundance     Heath bedstraw Thistle with a white tailed bumblebee                                             The fox gloves are grand this year      Water forget-me-knot growing in a boggy area Buttercup       Dog rose.                           Water mint growing in the boggy areas          An abundance of honeysuckle with two different varieties Broom It's bracken time of year again and not having been up there as much as last...

I’ve been busy at the wood clearing up from Storm Arwen. I will leave trees in their fallen position and see if they continue to thrive - horizontal - which they seem to be able to do when the root plate is still in the ground. I'll monitor what grows or lives in the space left by the root plates which create new spaces for flora and fauna and can be a boon for biodiversity.  One lovely oak tree with a trunk the of 2m in circumference, which by my ready reckoner from the Woodland Trust dates from the second world war (80 years old), has fallen across a fence with my neighbour to the east. Happily this fence will be replaced with a deer fence later this year. For now I just need to cut the fallen branches so there is a space between our pieces of land which will enable the contractor to add the new fence. That isn’t immediately possible as there is a tangle of big and small branches entwined in branches of trees fallen on both sides of the fence. I have worked systematically (if ine...