Signs and wonders. Portents and omens. A stroll alongside an outdated canalway can stretch the creativeness simply as successfully as it might probably the hamstrings. I discover myself studying the land such as you may learn a palm or tea leaves, in search of indicators of what’s to return.

It’s been greater than 150 years since this part of the West Deane Method was a part of the Grand Western Canal, however as we speak, after all of the current rain, it feels just like the ghost of the canal is rising up once more. Shifting seasons, record-breaking wetness, unseasonal heat – climate is now not a easy reality however a collection of signs, clues to the trigger, signposts to the long run.

A lapwing. ‘Freshly useless and ideal, its crest curled up like a single brushstroke of ink.’ {Photograph}: Anita Roy

Trudging alongside within the mud and drizzle, I’m discovering it onerous to shake the gloom, however my coronary heart lifts on the sight of the canal financial institution appliquéd with primroses, pale pink woman’s smock, and a sprinkling of higher stitchwort – every of its 5 petals so deeply lobed that they appear to be pairs of white embroidery stitches facet by facet. The title is linked to the plant’s skill to ease the “sew” you get within the facet while you’ve been operating too onerous, a ache regarded as brought on by the satan pricking you with a needle.

The hills listed below are largely arable and pasture, luscious inexperienced within the spring rain, with sq. frames of hedging. The air zizzes with the overhead pylons, however down at my stage it’s filled with birds. Tits and finches frantically sprint about with that crazed single-mindedness they appear to have presently of yr, and I can’t shake off a petulant chiffchaff, simply happening and on about the identical factor.

I’m stopped in my tracks by one thing mendacity by the trail. Darkish emerald sheen, as nonetheless as a stone. It’s a lapwing. Freshly useless and ideal, its crest curled up like a single brushstroke of ink. I search for, stupidly, as if the sky nonetheless held its falling path. I’ve by no means seen a lapwing in these components. A standard chook of my childhood, its numbers have halved up to now 25 years. It’s so stunning shut up that it appears virtually mythic – a customer from one other realm. I choose it up, its physique not but inflexible, and lay it fastidiously within the hedgerow, in among the many stitchwort, on the facet of the gods.



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