My Arvon Week: Daphne Pleace

I consider myself to be quite well-travelled in the UK – always finding new places and new ways to write about the natural world – but have never spent time in the Shropshire Hills, so a week of nature-writing with Patrick Barkham and Miriam Darlington at the Arvon Foundation’s The Hurst should prove to be exciting. Patrick and Miriam are two of my favourite authors currently writing about British nature and environmental issues; and the landscape – always a significant element in nature writing – is edgeland territory: the border of Wales and England.

The week is indeed exciting. We engage in plenty of that classic nature writing activity I enjoy so much: going out in the field, then coming back to craft an experiential piece. The grounds of The Hurst (once the home of the playwright John Osborne) are over 26 acres, much of it woodland, allowed for the most part to do its own thing, so lots of rampant bramble and ferns and complicated rhododendron ‘dens’. Who doesn’t love a nature den? Plenty of native trees too though and it’s a joy to hear so many summer migrant birds, to find (and smell!) fox scat, and to see dozens of wild raspberry bushes, arching stems afire with tiny red fruits. Wandering alone, and ‘wild nibbling’ as I love to do, I eat several. Later, out with Patrick and the group, he encourages us to smell and taste them as part of a piece we might write focusing on a sensory exploration of the natural world. Both writing exercise and raspberries are delicious.

At one point early in the week, Patrick – referring to Miriam’s second book Owl Sense, and to her luck seeing a barn owl on her first morning’s walk – calls her an Owl Whisperer. And indeed she must be, for most of us see or hear both tawny and barn owls several times. No respecters of their nomenclature, a tawny family are in residence in one of the old barns, and the barn owls are breeding in The Hurst’s 19th century dovecote. On another of our outdoor expeditions, led by Miriam, a few of us clamber into the ruined dovecote and find a small mountain of barn owl pellets. I pick one up, smell it – old felt – crumble it between my fingers and there, among the myriad scraps of bone, I find a perfect tiny skull. 

Beyond The Hurst’s spring-fed sawmill pond, we visit a circle of Coast Redwoods: related to the Giant Sequoia, not native here but introduced to Britain in the mid 19th century and now common in some large private estates and formal gardens. Because of how the climate crisis is affecting California’s native Sequoias, those planted here are doing better. Someone in our group remembers as a child calling them ‘punch trees’. She thinks this is because their bark is so thick and soft (more felt!) you can punch them with impunity. A little light googling reveals this to be the case, though one Reddit contributor suggests that rather than punching the tree, you ask it “why am I such an arsehole?”. Fair enough.

Spending some time on another writing exercise at the beautiful alder tree surrounded pond, we’re instructed to be still, be silent, and notice what we notice. What draws our attention? Mine is taken initially by a coot family single-filing across the water’s surface, and then by what lies beneath. By movements sudden and sinuous. Roots, newts, coots; all moving in their own mysterious ways. Whirligig beetles too who definitely win the coolest mover competition. 

During this wonderful week – so different for me than my usual lone wanderings – I appreciated the emphasis on community: on writing together; discussing our work together; eating together. Socialising too, if we wished, but with no pressure to do so. No pressure to do anything at all in fact: as a facilitator myself I appreciated Miriam and Patrick’s gentle invitations both to write, and to share that writing when – if – we wished to. All in all, a nature-rich, community-rich, restorative, and rewarding time.

Daphne