Swans on the River Dart at Totnes: one uses the rapids under the bridge to get up enough speed to take off. The sound of his wings sound like a special effect from an SF film: mechanical and metallic. Once he is airborne some other swans join him. There is more of the strange creaking noise, and
Stratford is a pre-apocalyptic, pre-Olympic wasteland. In the space of about a football pitch I counted 20 cranes. There are heaps of pale brown earth everywhere. Will these be podiums? Signs everywhere say you are now leaving the athletes' village. I've been pollinating my chilli plants
One of my most favourite people came to stay for the weekend and on Saturday we walked in South Kent for about 7 miles, enjoying the first properly warm sunshine of the year. There was a grass snake (Natrix natrix) also enjoying the sunshine, and we had to wait for a couple of seconds for it to m
Because of the volcanic ash, there are still no planes in the sky. It's the third day now. I have never seen a blue sky like this, completely unbroken by trails. It strikes me that this is what the sky must have been like for most of my ancestors. Perhaps this is what the sky will be like at the
On the new high speed train from Kent to London that many of my colleagues are calling the British Library Express. It makes me wonder if this new train service will lead to a cricket nickname, but the 'Southeastern Highspeed' doesn't sound as good as the 'Rawalpindi Express'. I've never actually
The earth is unusually brown. Not the red of Devon, or the chalk-white of Kent. From the train I see fields ploughed like well-used boxes of giants' make-up: chocolate brown; all smudged for smoky eyes. I am on my way to the Kings Lynn Fiction festival. When I arrive there is a bagpipe playi
