About 8 years ago, I was walking from my flat in Shepherd’s Bush to work and realised that it was late May and I hadn’t notice Spring. 3 years ago I walked in the bit of Epping Forest near work and there were about 3 species of grass, daisies, dandelions and 2 other flowers, in 2 miles. Oh a few trees, about 5 species. Even Horsenden Hill hasn't that much diversity, though Perivale Wood is better.
One of the best things about holidaying in the summer house here was the smell. You just have to be here, but the upper notes of the pines in the sunshine, the earth and the damp vegetation with the occasional doft of the wild flowers and fruits. It’s just unbelievable and I could have spent all my time just breathing... (Ed – errrh, is there something you should be telling us? Alien lifeform perhaps??).
London dulls things: you train yourself not to see, not to smell, not to notice anything but where the best restaurants and bars are, who is the next celebrity. You forget that in the winter, the only colours are black, gray and white, with splashes of diamond, gold and burgundy. There is no smell or sound in the forest when the temperature is -15C. Here, you are cut off, bundled up and turn in to yourself and your home, where the family and noise of the house make cooking smells the best and the colour comes from the lights in the windows, the curtains, the pictures and the people.
The wait for spring is palpable. As the snow melts, the landscape turns amber, brown, chestnut, russet, chocolate and tan. There are elusive wafts of damp earth and musk. Then a film of green. Suddenly the grass is out and the stars have fallen under the trees. The wood anemones dapple the ground under the deciduous trees and are everywhere. As the temperature rises the smell comes back, gradually, not to scare us and the birds start singing.
Then the full scale assault of late spring and early summer starts. Quite frankly, you need ear plugs for the bird song. The sun comes down in all the meadows as great drifts of dandelions fill the countryside. There is barely time to draw breath before the lupins start. A Monet painting is as nothing, a pale shadow of colour. Every one is a different colour and are framed by the Queen Anne’s Lace frothing all over the place. As for going for a walk! Every step is filled with pleasure, “oh look there’s some Lily of the Valley, and some blue things, and some more blue things and some other pink stuff.” How many grasses are there, for goodness sake! Not to mention sedges and other straggly things. Fields of sorrels turning every shade of red.
After that, things settle down in high summer. There are many more types of flower, but they are more restrained, less “look at me”, just so many of them and then again you can spend more time eating than walking. Blueberries, wild strawberries, wild raspberries and then the lingon (cowberry), though the last can only be eaten in jam stuff, to be fair. And the smell! Just totally and utterly gorgeous. The feeling of lying on a little beach with the whisper of the breeze in the birches, the scent of the pines and the lapping of the water, with a few birds chirping away and the sun on your skin –ahhhhh.
Then autumn. Mushrooms, earth, the smell of the burning wood, the feel of wool against the skin, the hunt and the golds and brunettes of the woods and fields bring you down the the glistening, soft whiteness of the first snow and shutdown.
Anyway, it’s not that you’re not going to notice! No chance of missing that lot. In fact, sometimes, because I hadn’t had any time away from London and work for about 2 years, I had to come in and bury my head under a quilt because it all was a bit too much for my poor senses.
To quote my friend BA “why do you want to come here, it’s just a load of trees”.....
