yin and yang
16/07/08
Life's full of contrasts. Laughter and sorrow,
sunshine and showers, chalk and cheese, labour and
tory (OK, not so different these days), right and
wrong - you get the picture. On Friday the Nadder was
up 2' and coloured like chocolate, we'd had a months
rainfall in one day and fishing looked like a pipe
dream. By Sunday the river had dropped and cleared
down considerably then Monday came creeping round
like an unwanted neighbour but brought with it the
first decently warm day in what feels like an age.
Sneaking off in the early evening I spent the evening slowly working my way through the shadows on the Nadder. A stealthy trawl through an overgrown chessboard, light, dark, light, dark - If I'd been on a train or in the car it'd have been one of those days where you can shut your eyes and feel the flashing of the light through your closed eyelids. My photographers instinct half took over, the fishing was fairly slow going anyway, but it's hard to capture the extremes of light and dark that a couple of feet can make. Perhaps a reason that photography, while great, can never replace the painters brush as a medium for conveying emotion and a sense of place...
In my last post I referred to that american site celebrating the wild, which set me to thinking, wild? What does wild mean to me? Instantly pictures of patagonia, montana, the alps, kamchatka and yeovil on a saturday night leap into my mind. Half remembered episodes of nature programmes on TV, pages of dog eared magazines in dentists surgery waiting rooms - all equally unattainable (although in the case of Yeovil, just simply undesirable) and hazy images. But does the wild have to be that remote? I say no, any corner of any town, village or city can hold wild surprises.
Taking the Nadder as it winds it's way unnoticed through Wilton as an example if you look closely enough you can find the signs of the wilderness, perhaps only on a small scale, but touches of the wild remain.
I mentioned the Giant Hogweed a little while ago so decided to introduce Luke to the Wilton Triffids. I'm not sure he's sleeping soundly since, the sounds of plants tapping at his windows are keeping him awake at night.
~ malcolm
Sneaking off in the early evening I spent the evening slowly working my way through the shadows on the Nadder. A stealthy trawl through an overgrown chessboard, light, dark, light, dark - If I'd been on a train or in the car it'd have been one of those days where you can shut your eyes and feel the flashing of the light through your closed eyelids. My photographers instinct half took over, the fishing was fairly slow going anyway, but it's hard to capture the extremes of light and dark that a couple of feet can make. Perhaps a reason that photography, while great, can never replace the painters brush as a medium for conveying emotion and a sense of place...
In my last post I referred to that american site celebrating the wild, which set me to thinking, wild? What does wild mean to me? Instantly pictures of patagonia, montana, the alps, kamchatka and yeovil on a saturday night leap into my mind. Half remembered episodes of nature programmes on TV, pages of dog eared magazines in dentists surgery waiting rooms - all equally unattainable (although in the case of Yeovil, just simply undesirable) and hazy images. But does the wild have to be that remote? I say no, any corner of any town, village or city can hold wild surprises.
Taking the Nadder as it winds it's way unnoticed through Wilton as an example if you look closely enough you can find the signs of the wilderness, perhaps only on a small scale, but touches of the wild remain.
I mentioned the Giant Hogweed a little while ago so decided to introduce Luke to the Wilton Triffids. I'm not sure he's sleeping soundly since, the sounds of plants tapping at his windows are keeping him awake at night.
~ malcolm
return to the outdoors?
02/07/08
I booted up the old mac this evening to find a
surprise, an email from a PR company pointing me
towards a new website and asking me to take a look
and see if it was worth letting you guys know about
it.
I'm torn, on one hand it's actually supporting an amazing cause and although american based it seems to do great things and be entirely worthy of all of our support. On the flipside it's a pr company being paid well for the efforts of others and other peoples sites. Is it a blanket email to anyone google finds with the words outdoors or fishing or has someone actually read my ramblings and decided that I'm worth contacting? While I continue to ponder that question I thought what the hell, I'll do more than link the site Return To The Outdoors, I'll also embed the video from their front page. It's an interview with a serious icon and someone who I can look at as one of my inspirations. Environmentalist and author Yvon Chouinard, founder of Chouinard Equipment, Patagonia and One Percent for the Planet, and it's well worth a listen. Yvon, in the extremely unlikely event that you ever get to hear of my little corner of the web I'll extend the offer of some chalkstream fishing any time you're in the UK, it'd be an honour to meet you.
~ malcolm
I'm torn, on one hand it's actually supporting an amazing cause and although american based it seems to do great things and be entirely worthy of all of our support. On the flipside it's a pr company being paid well for the efforts of others and other peoples sites. Is it a blanket email to anyone google finds with the words outdoors or fishing or has someone actually read my ramblings and decided that I'm worth contacting? While I continue to ponder that question I thought what the hell, I'll do more than link the site Return To The Outdoors, I'll also embed the video from their front page. It's an interview with a serious icon and someone who I can look at as one of my inspirations. Environmentalist and author Yvon Chouinard, founder of Chouinard Equipment, Patagonia and One Percent for the Planet, and it's well worth a listen. Yvon, in the extremely unlikely event that you ever get to hear of my little corner of the web I'll extend the offer of some chalkstream fishing any time you're in the UK, it'd be an honour to meet you.
~ malcolm