Eastville Park Sloe Gin

Wild Cherry Plum

Colston Road Cave Text

Big bluebottles skim my head,
speeding like noisy motorbikes
through hot residential streets

100 children scream, shout, laugh, chatter, fight, play, run, clap
500 yards away

red knees, blue shiny shorts and rubber pads jog along the shadow

a cabbage white changes direction
1, 2, 3 times

sticky leaves shimmer and wiggle

a pink scooter, no brakes and bunches

yellow mustard, bright, vivid, hot

Elderflowers nod and wink - a glimmer of gold

breeze blocks and barbed wire

a rucksack full of garden tools

silhouettes of trees move like water on the battleship grey tarmac
dry flattened grass lies motionless at the edge of the path - its shape mirroring the tidal pattern of eroded soil

Leaves and Wind continue to perform their well rehearsed collaboration, a lifetime long creative partnership -
an infinite improvisation - the soundscape composed for here
I realise my breath now matches the calm rhythm of this composition.

Purifying Cleavers Tonic

To sit and do nothing is to know where you are

An abundance of plants to identify, some remain without a name that I can give them.
Many man made objects, no longer in their intended use - lie around creating a collage of archeology.
The repetitive cheep of a small common bird imitating the exotic call of the cicada.
A crow yelps and pigeons flap their wings like a clap that punctuates the air.
A spring blackbird harmoniously sings, a wood pigeon cuts through with its distinctive mantra.

My thoughts drift to my domestic practicalities, completely transported to future conversations and mental to do lists.

Brought back here by the rattle shake of the magpie and I refocus on what's before me,
the bleached wood of old buddleia roots and stems stretch out across the hardcore - dug out, hacked down, and abandoned into this wasteland.
More than enough wood to fuel a week of rocket stove cooking.

Adelade Place

Absorbing the warm sun as I sit in this walled garden,

Peaceful and content to be still with millions of organisms' activity around me,

In a secluded corner of this plot I am free to be alone with what is here,

No one notices me, no one is overseeing, no one is watching my inactivity,

No one judges my desire to rest here in this deserted space,

I am free to be amongst the rubbish and the weeds, undisturbed,

I watch unused waste uselessly waiting to be used,

I breath with the weeds which continue to live and grow,

I sit in the presence of this moment.

Viaduct Walk

This video is an experiment. This post was intended just as a sound recording but as there is only the option for video or pictures I decided to put some images with the recording to make a video. The pictures are not of me walking on the Royate Hill viaduct as on the sound but are pictures of me walking on the Bristol - Bath Railway path last summer. So this is just a starting point like everything on this blog - an idea for me to develop.

Wasteland

Digging, crumbling, red rich earth.
Elastic leaves of vibrant green abundance.
Self-determined self-disciplined roots, white tubers - casting out bendy lasoos- laying claim to the soil, making home in this moist loam.
And in exchange for a place to stay - a gift of nitrogen is generously given.
My energy moves in - displacing these weeds - an action of effort, forcing diaspora of the ruderal.
They will return, I will return, we will make this play again. We will collaborate in a new action, and remembering our favourite motifs perform 'Weeding' again.

Soundmap

This is a soundmap of where I was sitting on a bench on the Bristol to Bath Railway Path overlooking Royate Hill Allotments.

I wrote down the sounds I could hear and mapped their distance in relation to me.

It was impossible to note down all the sounds particularly all the birds singing - there were just so many overlapping one another. I haven't managed to record in words and letters an accurate description of the bird song. There wasn't enough space on my page to map all the bicycle sounds and spoken words I heard passing just beside me.

But what this map does show is the density of movement and sound from both human and non-human activity in the area I chose to sit.

A Walk/ A Collection/ An Exploration

Enjoy....
http://www.killercoke.org/crimes.htm
http://www.indiaresource.org/campaigns/coke/2008/kaladeraunethical.html


Cleavers/Sticky Willy/GooseGrass/PurifyingTonic




Jack-By-The-Hedge/GarlicMustard




BristolOnions/Chives




Cellandine/AnAlternativeToPreparationH(apparently)




Ivy/WatercolourPaintsExperiment




HazelCatkin

Royate Hill Alder

Dark smooth pathways - a layer of stone specks.
Deep cracks - sharp edges - rough gashes - a worn dent - rounded edges,
intersected by hairlines of bright green.
A fold like kneaded dough - pressed through by a limb - regular tiny drill holes.
A moist sticky cake mixture - set solid in an instant - as the cool breeze blew it cold.
Shapes of land masses, coastlines as they appear on an aerial view.
Strips of moulded clay manipulated and placed.
Raw wounds expose pink tissue - allowing the passing of time to scab over.
An irregular corrugated surface - interconnecting routes and dead ends.

Breath

Bleached by the sun this grass stands golden
This curled blade responds to the rhythm of the air
A deep breath in as the wind flows across its body
Passive as it listens to the hundreds of birds sharing their invented sounds
Active as it draws its form in drifts and swails
And as a collective these grass leaves and stalks create a choreography of 'rest, encounter, respond' with the air and birds as collaborators.

Edge

My body sits. My skin prickles across my spine. Like my hackles are up.
Alert and attentive to the wind.
Occasionally someone cycles past.

There are hundreds of varieties of Oak trees.
This one has copper leaves attached to its branches all the way through January it seems.
Noisy as they rush about on their axis like plastic wrappers in a whirlwind on the pavement.
A man in a flat cap inspects his allotment.

This place is on the edge, away form the houses and roads.
Edge means something different to me than to Someone.
To Someone, edge means somewhere to leave unwanted plastic, to scatter strips of rubber, away from their house, away from their road.
This edge, to me, is somewhere away from houses and roads - to walk in quiet thoughts.
This edge, to me, is quiet.
Even though it is school break time. A playground filled with shrieks and screams and laughter from small voices.
It is quiet.
Even though on the roads that border this edge, heavy vehicles roar and vibrate metallic tones.
Here, it is me and the wind.
Here, my body sits still.

Here, a man in a flat cap shows me how his dog likes to run.
The same man who said: "cheer up it might never happen".
The same man I smiled at with a smile that said: "I'm not sad, I'm thinking quietly - it might never happen if we hope, if we love, if we wonder, if we smile"
The dog lies down and waits as the man in the flat cap walks a hundred yards, he calls his dog. The dog runs for a couple of yards, straight to a wonderful smell. The man tells me the dog is not very good today.

Like the bird caught in a cage to sing for her captor, an Elder has hooked a white plastic bag to dance in circles. Pirouette after pirouette.

A grey pigeon watches seated on a weighted branch.

The wind blows. It is quiet here. On the edge.