This was wonderful, thank you. It's the first piece of yours I've read since having been in England myself, and I feel the difference in the ways in which I am able to understand and imagine what you describe.
There is so much gorgeous detail in here I’m going to read it again. How beautiful that you have a family coppice. I love the picture by Luke and the others of your family and you as May Queen.
I have never tasted the sap either. I do love Birch. I will look at them in a whole new way now.
Thanks for sharing so much knowledge here. It’s lovely.
Thank you Margaret. The sap just tastes like very good mineral water with a hint of sweetness, but it does boil down to a syrup in the same way that maple sap does. When I see birch trees on tv now, I get the same feeling as though I've spotted a person I know in the background or a place I'm familiar with. They feel imbued with a new sense of both familiarity and specialness.
Wow. The birch sap (I've heard it glugging, with my ear to a trunk, in spring but never tapped or tasted it); the fear that the sap-like energy that rises in me each spring is not going to grow into something good but something terrible and traumatic; the obsessive artistic studies of the same thing to learn more about it and the "crop rotation" into other creative experiments when writing is too hard. There's a lot I identify with in this. But mostly I'm blown away by your knowledge. Beautiful.
Thank you so much Lyndsay. I never thought to put my ear to the trunk and listen, but now I am very excited to do that next month. The obsessive nature that has me drawing and painting the same thing day after day also lends itself to my research, so it ended up being really hard not to include every bit of knowledge I'd uncovered about birches. I had to rein myself in a lot.
There are dead birches in our little coppice, Sarah. Covered in fungus. I occasionally hear a woodpecker. And we have red squirrels for the first time.
This is fascinating. What a blend of natural and family history. Amazing how significant that little patch of woodland has been.
What is the Tutankhamen reference?! Have you already written about it? Very intriguing.
Wow, you're so lucky to have red squirrels! I've still never seen one. I suspect that every little patch of land can be mined for stories and significance, I feel so grateful to have a connection with that particular patch though.
The Tutankhamun thing is that my great-great grandad Will was a jeweller and he had some connection to the people who looted Tutankhamun's tomb. They asked him to restring a bunch of beads and he kept a few for himself and gave them to my gran as a bracelet when she was a little girl. He died stepping out of a train carriage on the wrong side and being hit by an oncoming train, and though I think it was suicide his family were convinced it was the curse. My great granny Ena threw away the bracelet he had given my gran. I haven't written about it before, but reading both you and Margaret writing about your grandparents inspired me to write more about mine (and great and great-great).
Love the birch observations...and the idea of "crop rotation" for creative block. Thank you for this post!
I love the idea of collecting sap while harvesting wild garlic. Thank you for a fine read
This was wonderful, thank you. It's the first piece of yours I've read since having been in England myself, and I feel the difference in the ways in which I am able to understand and imagine what you describe.
Thank you Rosie. I loved reading about your time here so much. If you ever come back and it's late summer or autumn you should come mushroom hunting.
There's a strong possibility I'll be back next Autumn. I would love that!
There is so much gorgeous detail in here I’m going to read it again. How beautiful that you have a family coppice. I love the picture by Luke and the others of your family and you as May Queen.
I have never tasted the sap either. I do love Birch. I will look at them in a whole new way now.
Thanks for sharing so much knowledge here. It’s lovely.
Thank you Margaret. The sap just tastes like very good mineral water with a hint of sweetness, but it does boil down to a syrup in the same way that maple sap does. When I see birch trees on tv now, I get the same feeling as though I've spotted a person I know in the background or a place I'm familiar with. They feel imbued with a new sense of both familiarity and specialness.
Wow. The birch sap (I've heard it glugging, with my ear to a trunk, in spring but never tapped or tasted it); the fear that the sap-like energy that rises in me each spring is not going to grow into something good but something terrible and traumatic; the obsessive artistic studies of the same thing to learn more about it and the "crop rotation" into other creative experiments when writing is too hard. There's a lot I identify with in this. But mostly I'm blown away by your knowledge. Beautiful.
Thank you so much Lyndsay. I never thought to put my ear to the trunk and listen, but now I am very excited to do that next month. The obsessive nature that has me drawing and painting the same thing day after day also lends itself to my research, so it ended up being really hard not to include every bit of knowledge I'd uncovered about birches. I had to rein myself in a lot.
I hope this spring is easy on you.
There are dead birches in our little coppice, Sarah. Covered in fungus. I occasionally hear a woodpecker. And we have red squirrels for the first time.
This is fascinating. What a blend of natural and family history. Amazing how significant that little patch of woodland has been.
What is the Tutankhamen reference?! Have you already written about it? Very intriguing.
Wow, you're so lucky to have red squirrels! I've still never seen one. I suspect that every little patch of land can be mined for stories and significance, I feel so grateful to have a connection with that particular patch though.
The Tutankhamun thing is that my great-great grandad Will was a jeweller and he had some connection to the people who looted Tutankhamun's tomb. They asked him to restring a bunch of beads and he kept a few for himself and gave them to my gran as a bracelet when she was a little girl. He died stepping out of a train carriage on the wrong side and being hit by an oncoming train, and though I think it was suicide his family were convinced it was the curse. My great granny Ena threw away the bracelet he had given my gran. I haven't written about it before, but reading both you and Margaret writing about your grandparents inspired me to write more about mine (and great and great-great).
That’s so interesting, Sarah. How people latch onto a story of fate when something happens that they can’t process.
The Isle of Wight is a red squirrel haven, but this is the first time they’ve reached our little patch. (I’ve lived here 26 years.)