Across a field and through a hedge

I'm in a fair bit of pain today due to some heavy duty dental work. I can't talk at the moment, although some who know me might say that's not too bad a thing. Unfortunately I can still type. I once read a medieval description of dental pain where it is described as a large worm burrowing around inside your gums and teeth and this is exactly how it can feel sometimes. I can't remember who said the thing about us coming into the world crying and covered in blood and very often leaving in this state too. We all get pain at some time, we have that in common.

There is much ugliness in the world, there is a lot of ugliness here and I think that this country has exported much that is ugly and destructive. I could show you the photos of how ugly this country can be as I have plenty, but there is also much to find that is beautiful here. Strangely I find most of it is the stuff that mankind has not got hold of and mucked around with.

When I was quite young I had a year in a classroom almost within reach of the woods and trees that I grew up with and loved so much. The woods were just outside the classroom and behind a fence. One of the oak trees had grown up over the fence nearby and I would spend plenty of time gazing at it. I would observe it catching the morning sunlight in the spring when all the leaves were fresh, like they are here now. I was captivated by this beautiful sight, so simple yet holding so much magic and promise. I always wanted to be able to get out of the classroom and get into the woods, a feeling of freedom and wanting to escape that has never left me. Usually as soon as I got out of school I would be in the woods being filled with wonder by things, like the first time I encountered a giant rhododendron towering over me in full flower.

There was the tricky nature of finding beauty in the industrial landscape across the water from where I lived, which was a huge oil refinery and power station. You may remember the beginning of Bladerunner, it was that sort of a thing. When sat on the beach at night there was the spectacle of this infernal city, flames of gas flares, smoking chimneys and much banging and blast. It was obviously horrible and destructively polluting but it was also somehow beautiful as well, a bit like sitting on a beach observing a vision of hell from a distance, lighting the clouds up and reflected in the sea. What is this captivating ugliness?

I consider myself very fortunate to have had the time to spend exploring the woods. I am constantly surprised where my small curiosity has lead me. I sit on a fallen tree in a place already largely a secret and see a small gap that I hadn't noticed before. This turns out to be a tiny path which leads to other beautiful hidden places, and again the site suddenly increases in unimagined size. The location where these photos were taken has some nice and unusual plant species and is a place to tread very lightly.

I see destruction of nature going on around the world and I think it is intentional. For a long time I thought that these things happened because of an uncaring attitude and incompetence but I don't think it is incompetence anymore, I think it has been intentional all along.