Nature: accepting the dark and the light
And the joy of discovering new places
Dear friend, hello! It’s been an age, how are you keeping? Although I’ve always described this letter as “irregular”, I am very grateful for you still being here. Having started numerous letters since I last wrote, every.single.time something has stopped me completing. Personal circumstances, family issues, have kept me preoccupied. I am grateful everyday for the two friends who helped me when I really needed it. Parenting is hard! Whatever I thought I knew, I didn’t. But now I do - a little. And I’m learning all the time.
The summer term was fragmented due to all this change. I taught ALOT of classes, oh, how I love to teach classes and share the world of paper flower making with others. I spent a lot of time driving from one side of the Peninsula to the other, especially when one of my children moved school and I embarked on two school runs a day, not a long term solution but a necessity to get started. The choices feel difficult on an ethical and intellectual level but emotionally there doesn’t seem to be a choice: drive (or not) = attendance (or not). It’s also curtailed my ability to walk regularly - but my goodness has it made the walks I have taken sweeter. And… it’s taken me on a new path, down to the beach.
The walks I have taken have been so rich - I have hungered for greenery. Walks which generally last no more than fifty minutes have eaten up hours of my time - meandering, greeting old friends I haven’t caught up with for weeks or months. Not everyone has good news. Oh, hello Goat’s Beard aka Jack (who-goes-to-bed-at-noon), how tall you are, how magnificent your stately purple spears! How golden your flower head, how delicate your silky parachutes! Counting the bright yellow flowers as I walk down the path, I notice that several of the buds appear to have large bites taken out of them. The further I walk the more damaged buds appear, they look blackened, charred. After some speculation that they are being eaten by small mammals, my research now tells me they have been attached by Microbotryum tragopogonis-pratensis, a smut fungus. Does anyone reading know if there is somewhere I should report this to? I understand that Microbytum is a successful fungus which has developed many specialisms. This one only attacks Goat’s Beard. We are living on an age of great appreciation for and greater knowledge and understanding of fungi, however there is always a dark side and I wish it hadn’t attacked my friends (yes, I am anthropomorphising, but I love them). Sadly this may mean the end of Tragopogon Pratensis on the Tip Path for the foreseeable future. Nature is brilliant and magical, but it can also be cruel.
Despite everything, walking reminds me how good it feels to be surrounded by grasses, hedges, trees and plants. Being in nature forces me into the moment. There is so much to stop and examine, using my close focus binoculars to dive deep into the centre of the flowers or climb right to the top of the tallest grasses. I loose track of time. Mine has been so precious of late I have started to turn left when I leave the house, towards the beach instead of towards the fields. I live in a small seaside town and our beach has been the centre of a ridiculous amount of controversy for the past five years. In 2019 the council sprayed the beach with glyphosate and killed everything that grew. Having lived here for 26 years, I often found the beach to be a strangely lifeless place, apart from migration season when it becomes a resting place for thousands of birds. Close to the promenade a small strip of dry sand led onto a vast expanse of dirty, oily sand which typically looked dry and approachable but cracked underfoot causing you to slip in the black gunk hidden underneath the surface crust. Local uproar - including my daughter’s petition which gained many signatures and a response from the council - lead to a decision to stop. Simply to stop spraying, and stop raking the beach, and let nature take its course. And now look.
Brimming with life, and fought over incessantly by the Rakers v the Wilders, subject to scrutiny locally, regionally and nationally, the beach is now a glorious salt marsh environment, rich in diverse plant life including many endangered species, home to flocks of feeding linnets and other songbirds, buzzing with bees - the most insects I have seen this year have been on the beach. To read more about the controversy and see how the beach has developed from humble beginnings see this 2021 article by The Post. This is a multifaceted situation and underpinning it lies nature. Whatever people decide to do, nature will have its way. The sands shift, the wind blows and everything will change. This beach is the microcosm reflecting the macrocosm … I hope that our beach in Hoylake will be left in peace, to develop as a beautiful beach adjacent dune system, or salt marsh, or whatever it becomes, because living harmoniously with nature strikes me as the only sensible and positive outcome.
And there I will leave it for now, thank you as always for being here and reading, I never know how it will end, but I’m glad I ended up on the beach.
With love as always, Ling
PS ….in other news - the campaign to get the Oxford English Dictionary to change its definition of nature has been successful! Previously nature was defined as everything living apart from humans and their creations. The new definition recognises that WE ARE NATURE. Win!
PAPER BOTANY: AUTUMN 2024 CLASSES AND EVENTS
Courses for autumn are now scheduled and live on paperbydragonfly.com, running throughout November. This autumn we are going to visit the cutting garden to make a selection of stunning blooms. In the bleakest month of the year give yourself something to look forward to and learn how to recreate nature’s beauty using nothing more than paper, wire and glue. Limited spaces are available on these day classes, book early to secure your spot! A deposit of £25 is taken on booking and the balance payable on the day. See website for full details.
Come October, I will be bringing my Ghost Flowers, Plant Dyed Paper Flowers and ThePaperWildflower Craft Kits to The Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair at Victoria Baths in Manchester. This is a unique opportunity to purchase my art. The Fair is on between 17-20 October, please head over to their website for full details and to book your tickets. A beautifully curated fair featuring makers from across northern Britain working in a wide range of disciplines, there will be fabulous Christmas shopping for discerning gifters!
Nature is so resilient! It's great to see the saltmarsh reappear like that, and I'd be pretty sure that the Goat's Beard will recover from the fungus infestation,
Wow, that took me down a rabbithole! I was gobsmacked to read that the beach had been sprayed; what a thing to do. (I found your link took me to The Post’s home page but I searched and found the article here https://www.livpost.co.uk/p/the-bitter-fight-over-a-wirral-beach).
It’s good to hear from you Lynn. I’m glad your friends have been there for you, and hope life settles down. I think I would probably keep turning left too: the sound of the sea and the distant horizon.