Sit spot. Further to my last entry I've been thinking about other places where I make a point of sitting or standing to look at the view and contemplate life in general. Another would be the pillbox on the edge of Swyre in Dorset looking towards West Bexington and the Chesel Beach. The roof makes an excellent vantage point.

 We holidayed near here when I was a child and I return to this spot whenever I visit this stretch of the coast. I suppose a convenient resting place with a vista makes an ideal sit spot. Then again it could be somewhere more secluded or anywhere where it's pleasant to pass the time and observe nature.

 Them thar hills. When I'm in my home town of Hitchin I generally make a point of walking over Windmill Hill to take in the view across the rooftops to the hills beyond. Hitchin is situated in a broad, low valley one side of which is formed by the edge of the Chilterns escarpment. This section is generally referred to as the 'Chilterns extension' but is part and parcel of that bulge of chalk that rises through a swathe of Southern England.

 The vista is always the same but always different. The novelty of being somewhere new can be interesting and exciting. Nonetheless there is value in seeing a familiar place change with the seasons, the weather and indeed with one's own moods. I don't meditate or practice 'mindfulness' but returning to a particular place is I suppose a form of mindful meditation.

 Permaculture uses the concept of a 'sit spot' to observe nature. Thinking about it I have a number of sit spots where I pause on various paths and places I return to. In London for example it is the park on the brow of Telegraph Hill at the top of my road. Not that one has to sit but just to be there is the thing.    

 Many of the trees are bare now but there is still plenty of autumn colour. We had good leaf growth this year due to a damp spring and July was rainy keeping the ground moist (unlike last year's prolonged heatwave). The autumnal months have been rather warm and wet extending the growing season. 

 The accumulation of sugars in leaves (through the action of chlorophyll/photosynthesis) is absorbed by the tree as winter dormancy approaches. Thus we have spectacular displays of those fiery reds and blazing yellows which turn to mottled browns as they fade. Even more so this year with the weather we've had.

 Thinking back on that walk over the Pegsdon Hills in September [see last entry] I was reminded of a couple of snaps that I meant to post at the time.

 These days the hills are managed for nature conservation and the grass is grazed by sheep with that in mind. Once the sheep would have been there for purely agricultural reasons. There is a photograph in Hitchin museum taken in the nineteenth century on these same hills. It shows a shepherd with his flock and he seems as remote to our time and place as discovering a lost tribe in the Amazon.

 As L.P. Hartley once put it "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there". A noticeable trend in conservation management is to connect with the past by reintroducing historic breeds of livestock. I approached the hills through Hoo Bit nature reserve and the black sheep of the family were milling around:

 Now the nights have drawn in I find myself thinking of some of the walks I did on those long summer days. A particular locale comes to mind on my familiar stomping ground the Pegsdon Hills.

 One day in August I approached them via a slightly different route than usual which took me through the Hoo Bit nature reserve. The path opens out onto a wonderfully shimmering expanse of grassland which felt like some remote steppe or tundra.

 In fact this area is nestled between the folds of the Chilterns in Hertfordshire and the flatness of Bedfordshire. The lie of the land makes it feel removed from both. Here I felt separate from the crowds and hubbub of town and city. 

 I returned one early evening in September. The sun was low, ebbing towards twilight. The landscape seemed ethereal, otherworldly. I must return to the same spot if we have a cold winter to see it dusted with frost or covered in snow.   

 

Autumn has not yet given way to winter.

 The Mahonia x media cultivars have names like 'Winter Sunshine' with flowers (and bees) at the tail end of the year. Tough shrubs which cross the wild species M. lomariifolia and M. japonica.