At times the path descends so that we are part of the clifftops, down in the dampening green of ivy and harts-tongue fern and dog’s mercury. Stunted sessile oaks writhe for light as they stretch seawards and sunwards. From this the path at times rises upwards and out into the open, as if drawing breath. Fields and the dregs of summer in washed-out cornflowers. Swallows: skimming the ground and then out beyond the clifftops, heedless of what we regard as empty space.  High ove

Photo by William Vessey It is winter, and the land is stretched taut as though turned by a screw. In the fields above the village the...

Whether he was South African or English, I don’t know. But he and his family had spent some time there. I knew this because of the...

The mist was thick enough to get lost in, without really having to try. Coming down the sodden hillside, I caught sight of white chalk amongst green grass and thought it was a path. It was certainly wide enough to be one. Another few steps forward – hair dripping, glasses rain-speckled – and I realised that it wasn’t a path at all, but a defined outline cut into the hill. My boots were just a few short paces away from an enormous horse’s head. A strip of chalk five paces wide

If pressed to do so, I would call myself a writer. However, over the last year, I’ve spent almost as much time working in a clothes shop...

A selection of some poems written over the course of this year. I hadn't written much poetry before this year, so any thoughts and...

A guest star on the blog this week as my friend Alby writes about an eventful journey from England to Italy made all the more rewarding...

We use Google Maps all the time. Does this matter? Yes. Last month I moved to Bristol. Within the city I found myself seeking out the...

And why cricket shouldn’t ignore Just Stop Oil. Just one over was bowled at Lord’s before Just Stop Oil showed themselves. It felt almost...

We heard the skylarks long before we saw them. We had been walking all morning, through woodland then up onto a rise that ran like a...

It was drizzling when I got off the Tube, and I didn’t have a coat. I turned up my jacket collar and hoped for the best. As I walked...

Today, the simple right to wild camp beneath the stars on Dartmoor in Devon was taken away. Why is this significant? Because it was the...

Worth Forest in Sussex is old. Veteran oaks and beeches line its rides like sentinels. The traces of Iron Age paths can still be seen,...

On Saturday I was fortunate enough to see writer Robert Macfarlane and singer Johnny Flynn’s Lost in the Cedar Wood live show. It is...