makingholidays by Simon Aulman
Last Friday we walked along the water's edge all around Thorney Island - that hot day, the last or first or both of summer. And once we passed thru the razor-wired electric voice-controlled gate and entered the MOD land we left everyone else behind - it was the first time this year that we've been able to get away from crowds. Our homes are too empty. But outside is too full.
And on MOD land nature is allowed to be herself and she is so much happier (and "nature-al"/natural) than when some other official government body takes control and does so in the name of helping nature. I saw more butterflies on Friday than I've seen in all other other days of the year put together. Every direction except out over the water there'd be a marbled white in view - I've never seen so many for so long over such a big area.
The fields and thickets and the air above them and the water around it were all full of beauty - and above it all were/are the ever increasing number of vapour trails - marking the return of air travel. Oh well. We had the volcano, and we've had the pandemic, as Earth gave herself a holiday from us for a while. But now it's all back to normal. It's not just the noise in the air or the pollution, or even the prospect of friends wittering on forever about their boring holidays - probably no more boring then me wittering on about our day on Thorney Island.
It's the end of a strange and strangely beautiful moment of difference, and now the return of much-the-same.
Never mind. The Red Arrows flew overhead too - on their way to bomb Glorious Goodwood or whatever they were up to. I've never gone to an event where the Red Arrows were due to fly overhead - I've only ever seen them when I've been somewhere else, doing something else, something to one side, and they've always been a surprise - and like the whole of last Friday, good and bad, it was all rather moving.
(made today, this is mixed/original/shortened/lengthened version of part/all of "Quiet Meadow" by Katharine Eastman, photo last Friday over Thorney Island, by Vanessa Oliver)
hand-knitted