Writing is difficult, and something that I would like to feel more comfortable doing. In much the same way that constraints ease the process of making pictures, I have been trying out working under time conditions to help focus and practice writing. Below is a 20 minute exercise from the allotment, with illustrations made in the studio in response. I might set myself a small goal of sharing these here each month. Thanks for reading.
It’s Monday 6th January. Overnight, more snow has fallen, adding to the flurries from yesterday. It’s wet, dripping from the gutters, greying at the edges of the path, compressing to thick slabs of ice. The next few nights are predicted to be anywhere between -2℃ and -6℃. Experience tells me that the frost pocket of the allotment is likely to be much colder than that. Resting at the bottom of a gentle slope, the rest of the site at one end and the flowing beck in Cat Lane Woods at the other. This is where the cold rests. We work to a schedule of being roughly 2 weeks behind the ‘top’ of the site. Using the delayed daffodil bloom as a marker. Today, the sun barely peaks through the branched silhouettes of nearby trees at 1pm. It’ll skip along the hedgerow and be gone by 3.
I arrive at the plot welcomed by a couple of inches of snow. Untouched besides from the gentle greeting of squirrel, fox and blackbird impression. And, were they deer tracks? Some prints follow the hidden shape of beds and borders, but most dance around, uninterested in the shape that we overlaid in their space. Across borders and boundaries, of rotting wooden edges and woodchipped paths. Little glimpses of the beds are visible, a corner poking out of the snow, the undulations of manure spread on the beds in December, canes and other upright structures that were never cleared away.
The kale and sprout plantings have been mostly flattened by the snow. Weighed down to the earth by the accumulation. Brown stems of echinops, golden oats and a few remaining foxgloves somehow manage to display red, silver, brown and black all at once. At the base, new shoots that were visible a couple of days ago are buried, waiting for their moment. Green slithers of snowdrops poke their way out of the blanket like a morning stretch. Lingering a while longer are the other bulbs; crocuses, then daffodils, alliums, camassia, maybe even some tulips that haven’t been sniffed out by the badgers yet.
Gooseberry branches cradle delicate bundles of ice. Caught in the dense branches like a game of Kerplunk. At some point today, enough of the snow will melt for the clumps to slip through the gaps and slump to the ground. Small mounds already sit at the base of the shrubs.
I clear a small amount of snow from where I believe the dahlias are planted. They were mulched well in the autumn so the tubers should be protected from the depth of frost, but just to be sure I add a layer of cardboard to the top of the earth, hopefully giving a little more comfort (even just for ourselves) against the cold temperatures.
My own footprints have now joined, and erased a lot of, those that invited me in when I arrived. I notice my own tracks moving back and forward along the paths, heavy, forgetful, clumsy compared with the singular path made by other creatures that come through here. Skipping lightly over the surface, moving with purpose. The snow-covered ground is a good reminder of the soles that occupy the allotment space. Each making their own impression.
Fingers crossed for your Dahlias. Lovely stuff x
I love this writing. The memory and aptness of the kerplunk game (is that still around?) and the arbitrary square marked on the land.