Walknotes

  • 25 – 30 May 2026

    The coffin was light because she was old and somewhat diminished when she was placed inside. But the surface looked like metal and no matter what we said, he assumed it had a weight to it. In a break with protocol he climbed low on to the counter, squatted like an athlete doing deadlifts at the gym and lifted. Of course it was too hard and too fast and the unexpected lightness of it flipped him. 

    He travelled backwards to the floor in a motion that was both ungainly and unnecessary. The coffin fell too and we scrambled after it, trying to restore some dignity to the situation. We said nothing because there was nothing more to add at this point. Nothing we hadn’t said already.

    When he tried again, the hardest part was manoeuvring it into the lift. Not the weight of it this time, the angles—

    You can take death out of the day job but it takes longer to shift it from your dreams. 

    It’s hot in London and the suburbs. A city with limited aircon pushing hot air around hot rooms with weak electric fans. 

    Thursday: This afternoon a sudden rain cloud appeared and dispensed less water than you’d shake off after a shower. It didn’t stop us halting mid sentence and staring at the sky. “Do you want a hat then?” The man plucked a straw hat from the back seat of the car but his wife was already wearing a hat more appropriate for the rain. Perhaps the offer was meant for me but we all continued looking up as the rain petered out completely. 

    Last night I heard a ‘pfftd’ behind me. A definite hard stop to the sound. I turned to trace the origin and a large back beetle lay on the floor with its legs in the air. Its hard shell had landed with a micro-thump on the laminate floor. I took him outside in a glass, but not without wincing at its pincers. Wincers. I’m still not sure where it came from, but it looked like it fell out of the radiator. Is that a thing? I hope not.

    Friday sunrise: 4:51am

    Incremental change builds up to something when you stop looking – sunrise in the fours now. The wren is still singing outside the bedroom window. Every time I check the clock, it’s 5:19am. Every time.

    On the tube the ads are for deodorant, nicotine products or ways to make money. Like you’ll sweat from the stress of acquiring all that cash—but a little nictotine will help take the edge off.

    Saturday: Two dudes are vaping on the tube, all attitude, tattoos and facial piercings. One puts his head back and closes his eyes. The other grabs the shared bottle and swirls the liquid before taking a swig. It’s a pink Zinfandel.

    —

    “There are so many distractions and obstacles to prevent laying in the grass watching ants, bees, and clouds. Like anything worth doing, leisure takes work.” Tim

    I’ve been off this week. Mostly I’ve spent time at home, cleaning the house and waiting for workmen who say they’ll turn up at 9am but actually turn up at 5pm and only for 30 minutes. It’s nice that the house is clean but overall it’s been suboptimal.

    Yesterday I saw the Tracy Emin ‘A second life’ show at the Tate. It’s like a kick in the guts. It’s brilliant, but I’m not sure I’d say I enjoyed it. There’s more to say, but too much for here. There are some Giacometti sculptures in The Tanks too, which are beautifully lit.

    The wren is singing outside again. The first of the big poppies have popped and more are coming. Rain is supposed to be coming too – every day next week, according to the weather app. We’ll see.

    Also: ‘We mould trees to grow into the shape of chairs’. Extraordinary.

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  • 18 – 24 May 2026

    18 May

    “Fuck!” I make a run for the stile as the horses pound their way downhill. I was up with the singing wren at 5:19am and out in the sunshine later. There’s a smell of woodsmoke in the air and looking down from the top of the Silent Wood I can see why. The farmer is burning something at the edge of the field and a dense plume of smoke is rising and drifting on the breeze. 

    T was right. Someone has cut a route back into the wood. The usual route is still blocked off, although a new, much steeper entrance is slowly forming to the right of the original. Determined feet will find a way. 

    The bluebells have gone now and the stitchwort, but the cow parsley has taken over. Two young foxes race past and then stop in their tracks to stare. On the official path there’s a burnt out scooter standing in front of a wooden bench. I guess if you’re going to watch a stolen scooter burn, a decent seat is always a bonus. 

    20 May

    A woman stands next to me on the platform and faces the empty poster case on the wall. She fluffs her damp hair with one hand and holds a paper coffee cup in the other. Unselfconsciously she turns, checks her outfit from every angle and when the train comes, pushes in front to reach the door first. 

    On the underground I sit opposite a woman in heavy pink coat. She’s wearing dark sunglasses and holds on tightly to a pink suitcase, a Champney’s Health Spa bag threaded through the handles. The train is silent but for the hum of the fan and the beep of the door – and someone’s tinny headphones, of course.

    It’s my last day in this office now and we go for lunch by the river, all of us delighted to find a place so nice and so unexpected. All we knew to date was the route from the station, which goes past a bar that looks like a strip club.

    I get the loveliest leaving card with such thoughtful messages. It’s been a weird work year and these mean a lot. 

    In the evening I head to Interesting. It’s as good as ever – friendly and lives up to its name. And there’s such an appetite for it: nice people talking enthusiastically, being nice to each other. 

    21 May

    Last day in this job. I start early because there are things I want to finish off. I say goodbye to various team members and I’m grateful for the things they tell me. A call I think will be about copy for a website is actually a goodbye chat. I’ll miss these people. It’s been almost 4 years, but it’s time for something new. The company that hired me was bought a while back and as you’d expect, the company I’ve been working for since is not the one I joined. Different ways of working and different priorities. It’s as it should be – things change and rightly so.

    So first a short break, and then something new.

    24 May

    A full day gardening in the sudden heatwave. There’s a blister on my finger now that’s so disgusting I want to show you. The skin has ripped off and the edges are caked with dirt which I can’t remove because it’s got under the skin. But it’s so disgusting I won’t actually show you. 

    Never mind that, anyway. More important news: I’ve just found out that friends have opened a bookshop in Derbyshire, called Brown Onion Books  and it looks lovely. They are the best of people – so if you’re nearby, you should go. I know you’ll love it.

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  • 8 – 16 May 2026

    Catching up.

    Spring is a good time to go to Greece because all the wildflowers are out. The glossy blood-red poppies, chamomile daisies, lantana and rock roses, small purple scabious, tall wild mallow. They’re all over the archaeological sites and knee deep under the silver-green olive trees. 

    The ice saints are in the news at home. Saints days in May acting as reminders that there may yet be a frost. Don’t plant your seedlings out too soon.

    —/

    We visited Rhamnous, not far from Marathon, known for its sanctuary of Nemesis. You can walk around the outlines of two temples and through the remains of the fortified city. From a distance the fortress looks like a tiny, parched Machu Picchu, but the first sanctuary here was built in the 6th century BCE, and Machu Picchu is just a baby, built in 15th century CE.

    Apparently, the cult of Nemesis formally came to an end on the orders of the Eastern Roman emperor Arcadius. In 382 CE, he ordered the destruction of any surviving polytheist temples in the countryside. But the joke’s on him: the sanctuary of Nemesis and the fortress were never entirely buried and have stayed visible throughout the ages. 

    Nemesis is the goddess of retribution for excessive pride or hubris. Her mother Nyx is the personification of night and the offspring of Chaos. Nemesis has a long list of siblings who, when they’re all in attendance, must make for quite the family gathering:

    Timelines in Greece are so immense they’re hard to grasp. We visited the Marathon tumuli, the resting places of the Athenians and the Plataeans who fell in battle in 490 BCE. And an early Helladic burial cemetery further up the road: stone-lined chambers cut into the dry earth, graves and their goods preserved by man and nature for thousands of years. It’s hard to imagine anything we’re building today could survive so long. Although, perhaps we should pray for it. Any god will do.

    —/

    At Eretria we walked through scrubby fields to see the remaining ruins of a city. Temples, a house with a mosaic floor, an amphitheatre hiding in the dry grass.

    We took a walk through the town to see more, and then along the coast to a small island attached by a walkway. There are ruins here too, although these are modern. Concrete buildings ripped apart, kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms exposed. There’s some good graffiti (and a lot of bad graffiti) but unlike the ancient ruins these remains make you feel like scrubbing your skin clean. 

    —/

    At Karystos, the early evening sky blends into the sea and swallows the horizon. A cruise ship floats in endless blue which could be cloud or water. 

    The orange blossom is out and the smell fills the air – one of my favourite things about Greece, actually. Until I came here I’d always assumed that orange blossom in perfume would make it smell zesty. It’s nothing like it. 

    In the early morning, as the sun comes up, the chatter of sparrows in the trees penetrates the double glazing. It’s so loud and so intense. In the end I get up and go outside to look through gritty eyes, but there’s nothing to be seen. Just the low blue glow of first light, the trees and the enormous sound.

    There’s a Red Castle above Karystos, reached via steep roads that lead past streams and small waterfalls. The castle is a ruin, but still a marvel. We stand in the burning sun while JM takes a work call and I watch a bright yellow butterfly float on the breeze. Everywhere is quiet. 

    The remaining stone walls here are epic, with sheer drops to the valleys below. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like to build this place or to live here.

    —/

    We take the early ferry from Marmari, arriving at the small port as the sun is rising. On the hill above, wind turbines spin slowly against a pink sky. Three people and a goose stand in line at the ticket office. As we depart only the goose remains.

    In Athens we meet a friend before a gig. He walks with us to the venue and drops us off like a parent dropping off kids at a party. The gig is good – furious and melancholy almost in equal measure. We’ve seen other gigs here, including the Cancer Bats maybe 10 years ago now. It’s hard not to look at the stage without picturing it: people hurtling onto the stage from the left, diving into the crowd before barrelling around and doing the whole thing again. Round and round, frantic, exhausting, exuberant.

    —/

    We visit another friend who lives not two minutes from our old apartment. I didn’t know her until I quit working in Greece but if absolutely everything was different maybe we’d have become friends and neighbours in Athens instead. Later we meet old friends for dinner. One last opportunity to confirm how much I miss everyone.

    Back at the apartment there’s a gentle hum of traffic and the bark of neighbourhood dogs bounces from block to block. We count six stars overhead and watch huge shadows flit across the buildings opposite.

    —/

    Message from GB: “It’s raining!” I tell him not to worry, we’re leaving as I type. But it’s nice to know that some things don’t change.

    —/

    Strange week coming up. Final week in this job before I move on.  I’ve already unsubscribed from Google alerts. No more news about death, funerals, crematoriums or cemeteries.

    Oh! And I finally finished Reamde. It would make a good film. It’s absolutely not a science fiction novel, FYI. But it is long.

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  • 27 April – 1 May 2026

    Monday

    Sunrise: 5:40am

    Pay last weekend’s sunshine tax with a litter pick. A row of stationary cars builds steadily beside me as they wait for temporary traffic lights to change. I feel self conscious. Am I weird? This is weird.

    I hold up cans and let them drain before crushing them underfoot. Pick them up with the coffee cups and crisp packets, cartons and wrappers. Stuff them in the bag and shuffle on. Someone winds down a window and says thank you. The sunshine is blinding.

    Tuesday 

    Sunrise: 5:38am

    Eurasian wrens may be small but they can really sing. There’s been one outside the bedroom window for the last few days and it starts around 5am. If it turns out it’s using a tiny loudhailer I would not be surprised. 

    On the way to the station I see FMP, standing in the central reservation of a dual carriageway. She’s got a coffee cup in hand and a smile on her face. When the traffic stops she ambles over. I tell her it’s been so long I was thinking of texting – have I even seen her this year? (No). Ask if she’s changed jobs. She tells me she’s been looking for me too, asks if I’m still litter picking. She’s been getting the bus to work and our paths just never cross these days. But she’s good! It’s good to see her. I miss our regular chats. T, too.

    In town, the ailing trees on Gracechurch are in leaf again, water bags at their bases. Maybe I should rename them? When I first saw the trees they were tied up like hostages, their roots bound. Then they were penned in for a while behind red plastic traffic barriers before being thrust between the paving slabs. It’s not like trees move around, but these have somehow never stopped being held captive.

    Wednesday 

    Sunrise: 5:36am

    A crow picks at a cardboard sandwich wrapper in a bus shelter. The wrapper is triangular and the same size as he is. He pecks it, lifts it, shakes it for a crumb.

    In the early evening a waxing gibbous moon shines in a summer blue sky. Later, when the sky is dark, the moon looks full – but it’ll be another two days yet.

    Thursday 

    Sunrise: 5:34am

    Podcast Man is leaving the wood as I arrive. He flashes a wide smile as he says hello. We’re known knowns now, and this is nice. I raise my face up to the treetops and the bright blue sky.

    The bluebells are still blanketing the wood, but the wood anemones have finished now. Dandelions are everywhere, catching the sun, waiting for the breeze. In the field the cows are lying down. Folklore calls this a foretelling of rain, but fact calls that a lie. The cows themselves look unimpressed with the day—as if it’s simply indifference that’s keeping them horizontal.

    In the evening the moon is electric-bright in an empty sky.

    Friday

    Sunrise: 5:32am

    Plant out more seedlings. You can almost see the ghost pumpkin seedlings growing as you watch. I’ve given one away. I’m already worried about whether there’s enough water in the world to keep them going. 

    Full moon, some cloud: gothic sky.

    Other things

    – I’m still reading Reamde. I think I might always be reading Reamde now? We’ll see.

    – I read this from Over to Candleford. It sounds like the description of Hobbits and Hobbiton from the film version of Lord of the Rings:

    “Nothing of outside importance ever happened there and their lives were as unlike as possible the modern conception of country life, for Lark Rise was neither a little hotbed of vice nor a garden of all the Arcadian virtues. But the lives of all human beings, however narrow, have room for complications for themselves and entertainment for the onlooker, and many a satisfying little drama was played out on that ten-foot stage.”

    – I’ve read a few good takes on AI and documentation recently. That AI over writes, and that the value was always in the thinking about it, not the writing of it. Of course people are using AI to summarise the excess anyway. Busy busy busy work, why are we here at all. Never mind the embedded mistakes which will end up becoming fact. 

    – RW was asked, maybe 50+ years ago, to measure the sharp tip of a razor blade. The company couldn’t work out why they couldn’t make an even sharper one. He did, and found a 15 year old mistake in their data. Everything had been based on it. In the end though, it didn’t matter. Market research asked people what they wanted: a sharper blade or a gold one. They just wanted gold. 

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  • 20 – 24 April 2026

    Monday

    Sunrise: 5:54am

    “Morning!” Podcast man is smiling. He and his dog are early, much further down the street than usual. The sun is up and the air is already lilac scented. In the wood the bluebells are a blue haze and around the edges the stitchwort is out. Dandelion clocks are ticking – some slower than others, fluff weighed down with frost. In the grass, low spider webs have caught the dew. On the path by the side of the fields early cow parsley is coming now and the deadnettles are spreading, both white and pink.

    But it’s not all bucolic delights. On the backroads someone has dumped a huge builder’s bag of waste – the kind it usually takes a small crane to lift. Large pieces of broken furniture sprawl across the road, surrounded by ripped McDonalds wrappers (last night’s feast for foxes).

    Later the sky is massive on the way to band practice. Yellow sunlight bleeds through bruise-coloured clouds. On the way home there’s a thin sliver of a silver moon.

    Tuesday

    Sunrise: 5:52am

    “Alright!”
    “Alright!”
    “How’s it going?!”

    I saw T climbing over the stile in the field. It’s been so long I wasn’t sure it was him. I’m on the way back from a ‘run’ so he wasn’t sure it was me. “What you doin’—running backwards are ya? Pfft!” I tell him if he never sees me running again he’s not allowed to mention it. And that ‘running’ is a loose term anyway, at this speed

    “What’s going on with the wood?”
    “Dunno but someone’s taken a chainsaw to it up there.” He nods. “You can get in that way now.”
    “But you can’t get in there…” I point.

    My run (such as it was) was thwarted. The gap I snuck through at the weekend has already been closed off, so you can’t get inside. And it’s beautiful in there at the moment too.

    T tells me the gossip he’s heard. An angry farmer who’s been refused permission for something is taking it out on everyone. Or the farmer is changing the way he uses the land or… or… But I don’t think the farmer owns this wood anyway, so who knows. 

    While we chat I watch the horses gallop down the hill and silently will them to move on. On Sunday they’d gathered right by the stile and there was no way out but through. I stood with three dog walkers and waited. When it was time to move I let them go first.

    Wednesday

    Sunrise: 5:50am

    Out before the official sunrise. A dusty morning. From the train a blanket of mist covers the south London rooftops and everything looks like a memory.

    In the evening we go to the Royal Festival Hall for Forged in Sound: Heavy Metal Orchestrated. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop wishing the boxes would detach themselves and float to the centre like the seats in the Galactic Senate chamber in Star Wars. 

    On the way home the moon is a little bigger tonight and Jupiter shines beneath it. There’s a meteor shower somewhere up there too, but it’s censored by the city lights.

    Thursday

    Sunrise: 5:48am

    Triumph of a morning. Breakfast and a walk with MS. Why didn’t we do this before? 

    Later I attempt another run. I manage to break into the Silent Wood again for the bluebells and the stitchwort. When I exit via the official path I see a man sitting on the pavement leaning back and another lying on their side in the long grass, a motorbike propped up against a railing. 

    “Are you ok? Do you—“ 
    “—The ambulance is coming. It’s ok.”

    I wasn’t expecting that.

    “You sure, can I—“
    “Nothing you can do. It’s on the way.”

    There’s no blood that I can see. The man on his side has a phone to his ear and his head face-down. I can’t tell what’s happened but gawping won’t help. So I ask again, walk on, look back, walk on. I’m halfway across the field when I hear the siren. 

    Other things

    • Seeds are magic – and the little cupcake terrariums seem to be working
    • Spring is a good month in the garden isn’t it? Just look at it. It doesn’t even look real.

    Via Devin Kelly’s newsletter:

    Hung With Snow

    Housman was right:

    your life is short.
    To miss even this springtime
    would be an error.

    from Work & Days (Red Hen Press, 2016)

    And: The loveliest of trees – A. E Housman

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  • 13 – 17 April 2026

    Monday

    Sunrise: 6:09am

    5°C and sunny. Shadows form blue pools in the park and the frost glints in the sun.
    What is the weather doing? Answer: whatever it wants.
    I try a walk through a different neighbourhood and all the trees here are pink. School kids meet at garden gates and cars swing out of driveways.

    Tuesday 

    Sunrise: 6:06am

    4°C, another frost. In the carpark a low mist hovers in the sun like a shimmering ghost. This carpark is potholed and I do everything I can to avoid it, but it’s never looked so inviting as I drag myself into the gym. 

    In the evening JM and I walk to the wood together. It’s overcast now and white blossom looks bright against a grubby grey sky. “What did it say?” His Apple watch, stuffed up a sleeve, announces that we’ve walked a kilometre to get to the wood. The wood is in shadow and we head up a steep bank for the best of the bluebells. I point out the wood anemones too – and a deep wide hole. Maybe an old bomb crater or the remains of a denehole from years ago. 

    “What’s that?” He points to a tree. That, I tell him, is a deflated silver balloon. It’s where helium balloons end up when you let go, either accidentally or on purpose. I’ve picked a few up from the fields before, but I can’t reach that one.

    Wednesday 

    Sunrise: 6:04am

    13°C. Out before 6am and it’s hard to believe it was ever dark at this hour. I wait on the platform later and listen to the wrens sing at Streatham Hill Station. They must be in the chestnut trees. Due to a quirk of the landscape, the top of these huge trees sit almost level with the traffic on the banking above.

    Later, on the train back into town, everyone’s gardens look majestic in the early evening sun: a lone sheet flapping on a line, netless goalposts, garden sheds, abandoned trampolines. Glorious, the lot of them. On a park bench a couple sit together and watch the sun as it dips behind the rooftops.

    Thursday 

    Sunrise: 6:02am

    The app says rain in 13 minutes – it will last for 22 minutes. As I walk up the hill, damp settles like a sea mist on my skin and the fields to the right are shrouded in grey. In the wood the goosegrass is lively now, falling over herb robert and nettles. Fresh ferns are slowly unfurling. In the damp, everything smells green. 

    When the rain comes it settles in silver globules on my jacket. I pat myself down as I go, creating tiny showers of my own. Hood up, hood down, I hunt for the best of the lords and ladies. Finally find a good ‘un just before I leave. A tree trunk looks pleased on my behalf.

    Friday

    Sunrise: 6am

    Here we are again, sunrise at 6am on the nose. These weeks are all upside down and I don’t walk until the evening but it’s beautiful. On the path of permamud the sun lights up a glut of lilies – some with dark spadix and others light. In the wood, tree-filtered sun kisses the bluebells and shades of deep blue and green zing together.

    We head back past a fresh-ploughed field and the lines converge like a textbook exercise in perspective. It’s 16°C and I’m too hot in a hoodie. Better weather is coming. Or not.

    Other things

    • There’s no rhythm to these weeks – in some ways I like it, but it’s terrible for writing. It also won’t last forever. Change is coming.
    • I panicked-planted seeds this week. Months ago, when the office was still open, they ordered cupcakes to celebrate a new launch. Every single cake came individually encased in plastic. But the cases were like tiny terrariums, so I saved a few and bought them home for planting seeds. We’ll see if they work. Stave off landfill for a few weeks at least.
    • I went to the optician last week. My contact lenses are now so powerful I can probably identify individual rocks on the moon but find it hard to see my fingers.
    • I waited so long at the opticians that I started to read the posters. One was for an expensive eye scan and the designer clearly needed three points to make the poster work. One point was something about the enhanced angle of the scan, I can’t remember the second, and the third said that the scan was non-invasive and painless. But all I could think was – wait what?! It could be painful?
    • Here, eat this. It’s not poisonous.
    • I keep forgetting about this painting, The Village Boys, and then seeing it in my photos. I came across it in the Lucian Freud exhibition at the NPG. The caption next to the painting said “Freud later described the boys as “very weedy, nasty but strange””. I think we can tell.
    • Edited to add: “Sometimes my mind lands on an awful thought: the screen is now reality and the physical world exists only to serve its needs.” Noon Radio.

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  • 31 March, 8 – 10 April

    Tuesday 31 March 

    Sunrise: 6:38am

    “I think I love angels now. Maybe I believe in them, because of something I’ll tell you later.” This is from Devin Kelly’s newsletter about poetry. Something about it reads like dialogue from a novel. Feels like a book in waiting. 

    As the train pulls into Southall, a woman leans against the sign for the Elizabeth line, and talks on the phone. Her top is the same purple as the lines on the sign, a perfect match. Thick cloud sits like a lid on the world and the sun beams beneath it. As we travel to the left, a plane heading to the right appears stationary. I feel the eyes of the passenger in the next seat watching me as I watch the world, and I keep the book I’m reading closed, a finger holding my place. It’s a book about death and I don’t want to let the death out. 

    Today in the corporate office I saw two coffins, moved there from the old office when it closed. This office is featureless, bland, and for a moment, seeing the coffins leaning against the wall felt like coming across old friends. 

    Wednesday 8 April

    Sunrise: 6:18am

    Perfect spring morning. Out in the civil twilight to an orange horizon. The park is in shadow, one dog-walker skirting around the edge. 

    At Crystal Palace the waning gibbous moon is behind me and I turn to look, to squint at the part in shadow. The news reader said the astronauts are on the way back from the dark side of the moon. There’s a temporary ceasefire in Iran, following Trump’s claim that “a whole civilisation will die tonight”. You don’t have to travel far to reach the dark side of the earth.

    Thursday 9 April

    Sunrise: 6:17am

    It’s a model morning at the wood – textbook spring, a classic of the genre. Inside the wood it’s fresh. Outside it’s already 12 degrees and rising and by the roadside, the trees are heavy with pink blossom.

    I chose this route for the pharmacy at the end, and I’m late. But I take a walk through the wood and check for bluebells. Wood anemones are everywhere now, and the first of the bluebells are out, shafts of sunlight stream through the trees. The paths are strewn with petals—look up! Way up there, trees are in bloom. You’d never know it, but for this fallen white confetti.

    As I choose my path out I spot it: the tall spathe of a Lords-and-ladies lily. I take a detour to hunt for more, and there’s a few. Lords and ladies’ hats – tall gnome hats – popping out of the undergrowth.

    Friday 10 April

    Sunrise: 6:15am (rather punctual)

    Green Alkanet Alley is in blue bloom. Thick stems and leaves squeeze the nettles into tight spots. Across the neighbourhood, gardens are getting in on the blue action. Good gardener or bad, everyone’s got bluebells coming up.

    The city is quiet on the way in and noisy on the way out, daylight in both directions. It’s a little late when I leave this office, but the sun won’t set for a while yet. On the city-side of London Bridge the bus doors open to the peal of church bells and it’s joyous. Also a surprise; I didn’t know these buses had such good sound proofing. With a hiss and a clunk the doors seal us in again and we press on, heading quietly into the weekend.

    Other things

    • The season of disappointing bluebell photos is upon us. Greetings to all who celebrate. Unless you have the time and the kit, I swear bluebell photos never look as good as they should.
    • The wood anemones are fantastic though.
    • Bone ash apartments – “The Chinese government is set to ban people from storing the cremated remains of their loved ones in empty apartments instead of paying for expensive cemetery plots.” The cost of renting in the UK makes this article even more extraordinary.
    • This is such a soothing Instagram account: Until.found0 (he has already found one diamond, incidentally. If we’re all in the gutter, perhaps we should stop looking at the stars?)
    • I had more links to put here but I lost them. I took a Walknotes break as I caught some lurgy. All but a cough remains.
    • The date/title on this page is so awkward. Apologies.

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  • 23 – 27 March 2026

    Monday

    Sunrise: 5:56am

    Sunrise before 6am! Today the weak sun shines like a torch through gauze. There’s a low mist at the Iron Age earthworks, and I reach for some deep connection to the past—some whisper from the ancients. But this was never my past and it’s Monday morning and all I can hear is the traffic. Podcast Man smiles and says hello. 

    Last year’s bracken and beech leaves are a crispy autumn orange, the gorse is blooming yellow. On the path down to the wood the primroses are out.

    “Morning! You been for a run?”
    She says “I hate Mondays”, and stops to catch her breath.
    I say “I didn’t wanna come out for a walk and now I don’t wanna go home.”
    This always happens. 
    “Stay out!” she says.

    Tuesday

    Sunrise: 5:53am

    London Bridge is a different place after rush hour. Today, in the grey gloom, it’s full of tourists taking disappointing shots of Tower Bridge and each other. 

    A man in a bright green hoodie asks “Do you like music?” and I mutter “No” and carry on walking, before laughing and turning around. “Who doesn’t like music?” He laughs too, “See! That’s the hook! Do you know who I am?” I tell him I don’t, and sadly I never will, because I need to go to a meeting. Obviously I spend the rest of the day wondering who he was and what his music was like.

    Wednesday 

    Sunrise: 5:51am

    Hail! 

    Thursday 

    Sunrise: 5:49am

    It’s 3°C and sunny. The sound of sky larks on social media pulls me out to the fields to hear them for myself. Firm ground and wet grass cleans the worst of the mud from my boots. 

    Something has happened at the Silent Wood. The entrance is blocked now by lopped trunks and branches, piled higher than my head and several metres wide. A proper barrier. I walk around the edge of the wood to the field and climb in through a small gap in the hedgerow, make my way down a short, steep bank. 

    Inside things are as odd as ever. What happens here when no one is looking? There are endless fallen trunks and boughs, leaning, stretching, caught or cradled in other’s branches. So few uprights and so many diagonals. It’s quiet of course, watching as usual. 

    Towards the end of the route a huge branch has partially ripped from an old trunk. It reaches across the path and extends deep into the undergrowth. It was high enough when it fell to create space to duck underneath, but today it’s pointless. The usual route out of the wood is blocked too. I pretend it doesn’t matter and carry on walking, assuming I’ll find another way out but there isn’t one. So I retrace my steps almost all of the way until I see a tiny gap and scramble out.

    It looks like the wood doesn’t want anyone in it, and people don’t want you in it either. I’ll see if I can find out what’s going on.

    Other things

    • The red bleeding hearts are out, the white ones are a long way behind. The leaves are back on the roses.
    • It’s a year to the day since D died. I would like to not remember it. I think I would prefer to remember people’s birthdays.
    • Don’t Mix Up Artifacts With Processes is a good article on using AI. 
    • I had a moment this week where Claude wrote something that sounded really nice, but actually meant nothing at all. Made me think of the Naomi Alderman piece from a while ago. 
    • Still reading Reamde. This sentence made me laugh out loud. It’s basically Mornington Crescent: “I forgot about the Frond of Peace loophole”, said Corvallis, crestfallen.
    • Bought a copy of One Tree Hill to Peckham Rye Common. Only had a quick look but I like it so far. Even just the fact it exists is nice.

    I looked up Lords and Ladies (a kind of wild lily) again, because the leaves are everywhere now. 

    Leaves and spathes wither by mid-summer, but the spadix remains….

    Spathes and spadix. Excellent words – it reads like the start of folk tale.

    Also, “What does lords-and-ladies look like?” Is such an awkward question. Reminds me of someone reading a GDS sticker on my laptop that said “What is the user need?”, and being baffled by the grammar. What is clocks?

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  • 16 – 20 March 2026

    Monday

    Sunrise: 6:12am

    A practical dawn: no delight, no drama. Light before 6am, enough to be able to cross the room without your hands outstretched. I’m here for the early train. On the platform a lone magpie flies ahead. I tell myself to stop – you can’t live your life ruled by birds and superstition. One for sorrow / one for a bird minding its own business  / and perhaps you should do the same.

    Three stops in and two men board the train. They talk in hushed tones and one has a voice like a thin layer of gravel shaken rhythmically in a tin. It’s soporific. My eyes prickle and smart. At every stop, the number of waiting passengers on the platform increases. The train is too hot.

    From behind closed eyelids I try to think myself awake. The woman next to me is reading a book I’ve read before. I open my eyes to sneak a look at where she is in the story but the book is face down on her lap and she is sleeping too.

    On the next train we travel from underground to overground. Two school kids swing around a pole to make themselves dizzy before they let go and fall away. This is a newish train on a newish line. Outside there is nothing to see but car parks, cables and construction sites. For now we could be on any train outside any city in Europe.

    Tuesday

    Sunrise: 6:09am

    Litter picking is a good thing to do when you can’t sleep. Constructive, fresh air, some exercise – if a little slow. Clears a busy head as you dodge the traffic, and negotiate things too heavy for the picker.

    Wednesday

    Sunrise: 6:07am

    Up before the civil twilight. The sky outside is a clear gradient, broken only by three slowly moving contrails. This is the kind of morning I’ve waited for all winter, but it’s been hidden by rain or thick cloud. Now you have to get up at 5am to see it. The birds are loud, sharing big neighbourhood news. 

    Today’s train is an hour earlier than Monday’s and I get the pick of the seats because I’m early for it. As I board, a lone wren sings for the sun.

    I’m settled in my seat when a man stops short, startled to see a passenger in his spot. He skips a beat, smiles, says ‘Morning’ and takes another seat. I’m close to asking if he wants this one instead, but he pulls out a phone and stares at it intently. 

    It’s 6:23am when the sun breaks the horizon and floods the train. It catches the passenger opposite and she closes her eyes against it, lifts her face and soaks it all in.

    At London Bridge station someone is playing an organ. The music swells and fills the arches. In the small Hamley’s store the illuminated signs spelling TOYS are flickering on and off and just for a second, everything feels liminal.

    Thursday 

    Sunrise: 6:05am

    Last night’s clear skies offered nothing but the sparse stars of the city suburbs. Now, without the blanket of cloud to protect us, there’s a frost. But it’s a majestic morning: a low mist, a white sun rising. On every call today people will talk about the weather. ‘Look outside!’ Someone will turn their laptop to the light.

    Friday

    Sunrise: 6:02am

    Work on my day off for peace of mind, and regret it by late afternoon. So I take myself to the woods as an act of defiance. With every step, busy squirrels fuss and scatter. In between the bluebell leaves there are wood anemones. Tiny violets hunker down, close to the mud. It’s cold but the sun is shining and all the blossom is out.

    Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6am.

    Other things

    “This was a long chisel that I had for short time. Now it’s a short chisel that I’ve had for a long time”. Terry Facey, talking to the V&A about the tools he uses to make miniature furniture.

    I’m still reading Reamde, as my travel book. I’ve never felt so much like I’m leaving characters in suspended animation every time I stop reading. I can feel them just hanging mid-step, waiting.

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  • 9 – 13 March 2026

    Radio edit: there’s a bit of a switcheroo this week and next, as I’m working in different offices or none. You can skip this, if you like, it’s definitely habit, not inspiration.

    Monday

    “This is her third war”, says the radio presenter, before cutting to an interview with a nurse in Iran. “It’s not as busy”, she says, “people are not injured, they are dead.”

    Tuesday

    Magnolia branches are weighed down with waxy pale pink flowers. Things I’ve learned from the internet this week:

    • You can eat magnolia flowers and they taste like ginger
    • You can pick camellia leaves from the most sheltered part of the bush, wash and dry them, and grind them to powder for ‘rustic’ matcha tea. 

    Wednesday

    Twilight can take you by surprise. I don’t see it often as I’m usually working, but I snuck out today and was on the train by 6:15pm. Trees stand black against a dimming sky, electric lights shine against the orange-blue gradient and it’s beautiful. Today we had sunshine, and even now the sky is clear. In the UK it feels like we’re all still counting the number of sunny days on our fingers this year. 

    Thursday

    First walk of the week. On the way to the wood everyone’s grape hyacinths are out and there’s a bright cluster of daffodils at the base of a cherry tree. Their heads bob and sway like enthusiastic fans waiting for the tree to bloom.

    The wood anemones are finally here. More a small mat than a carpet, their white flowers are bent to the ground. Elsewhere, mushrooms have burst from the damp and settled on fallen tree trunks. The bluebells are coming.

    Friday

    The train smells of sweat and tarmac. On the way back I fall asleep between two stations and the next stop is mine. I wake in a panic to find my body is already at the door, pounding a button to no effect. Wrong side of the train. Good effort though, and with enough time for body and mind to exit the correct side of the train together.

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