Far, Far Away

After the birthday party I changed into running gear and left the village hall behind, back in the hamlet with the `swedish` houses and cluster of stone dwellings. I rose beyond the bare, broadleaf woodland  picking my way along the rutted drove road. I chugged past the log bothy and arrived, finally, up at the cheese well. Though the day had been sunny and warm I was now being assailed by nippy hail stones. Beyond a half-mile of bracing moorland I dived into yellows and blue-greens of countless spruce and pine and larch. After the long ascent it felt good to glide down, wrap the forest around me.

I thought about how to turn these sense-experiences of mine into sculpture.
In my home reside a number of odd wooden figures; some of these have birds perched atop their heads; as though both man and beast share souls.   They stand as testimony to an earlier, less busy phase of my life. 
As I ran down towards a stack of logs at the roadside, the air heavy with resin and engine oil, I thought on the seasoned hardwood I`d need to keep an eye out for. In our small, wooden house, shared with three growing kids, I wondered: where can I work ? How do I carve out the pockets of time ?
Suddenly to my right a valley swooped down and away south east. I stopped and watched green and brown trees rolling down its sides, following a burn`s course through Lewinshope, shaded by heavy, wet clouds.  Echoing birdsong seemed, to me, feather-light and hopeful; secluded in the glen. As I stood looking my eyes were drawn up and far beyond the immediate scene to quiet hills, picked out in bleached, pastel blue and yellow. Faded as if by time and bathed in warm sunlight. Silent ethereal hills and their sweet soundtrack.
Turning left and north I hit the trail again and was soon down amongst the shades, threading my way through stones and larch-needle carpets. I thought back to the luminous, nostalgia-feeling encounter above and was reminded of Caspar David Friedrich`s heavily symbolic paintings of trees and bleak lonely hillsides. His apparent need to contort landscape into the mind-shapes of religious dogma. I ran on.
Down where Glenmead burn joins the logging road home, I stopped and walked slowly, like a cat stalking prey. There ahead was a large bird with brilliant white markings in the top branches of a scot`s pine. I crept forward, staring at the perched figure, and, as I approached, its tail feathers dissolved into foil and the osprey became a silver bag fluttering in the wind.

Looking for Signs

One early February evening last year, G came to the house. Driving along the back road, he`d just seen an otter by the Stell burn. He saw it somewhere along the burn`s ditch-like meander from hill to river; near the Great Beech Tree where the mountain-bikers` steep descent ends.
A few weeks later, after a cold and wet drive home, following a fractious day at work, I was anticipating a cold, wet, forest run. Crossing the redbull carpark I stooped down where the Stell burn passed by and looked out for glimpses of otter. I only bothered a heron. As it cantankerously settled itself further upriver I climbed the push-up track. Up and up.
Finally, I levelled out at the logging road named Upper Plora Craig Road (on the map), or Top Campshiel Road (according to a sign). Or: Red Squirrel Road (according to me).
At this cold height the larch, pine and spruce were white with snow. Stopping I stretched, listening to ticking raindrops. Then the sun came out: a bright rainbow, and birdsong switched on ahead where warm light illuminated treetops. I searched along the canopy and studied russet cone-clusters but saw no squirrels.
Running on, northeast towards open, oddly radiant space, I came out above a white fog, filling the Tweed valley. Across from me, hills and trees shone greenly, dusted with fresh snowfall. Scots pine glowed translucent browns.
Turning back I cut down right, (shortcut through a firebreak), and came out on the lower road. I searched in vain, as I loped, for squirrel drays and pine cones gnawed to the core.

Birdsong

I am fond of the Elibank and Traquair forest. It does not, though, grow Douglas Firs. At Glentress they rise tall and tower over you on the car ascent to the Buzzards Nest. They have more of a canopy, the trunk`s bark is gnarled and furrowed. Their loftiness, like Giacometti figures, reaches the heavens and inhabits both earth and air.
Leaving my son with his pack of young mountain-bikers I jaunted  way up to the radio mast and beyond to the northern boundary fence. I beheld receding squares and rectangles of spruce plantation and at their edge a mutely waving windfarm.
Running again I followed the boundary trail and dropped onto "Shane McGowan", a winding, stoney mountain-bike path. Then onto "Leithen Door" and the anticipated shelter: a simple, rough wooden, semi-circular bench under a wooden roof. Facing south. Nestling amongst the trees. Like a Japanese temple along a pilgrimage route.
I sat quietly, sheltered from cold, strong winds. Respite for body and ears. I was also reminded of a bus shelter displaced from bus routes, far removed from accessible roads, engendering in me the sit-down-and-wait impulse. Looking around  I tried to align myself with the contemplative trees; to still myself. But my eyes were darting, looking for red squirrels now.
Enjoying being surrounded yet keen to move again through the green-ness I ran down to where the forest road swept  clockwise around a vast wooded ampitheatre. Last summer, at dusk, I encountered this place for the first time. Plaintive bird songs echoed and flitted across the valley`s sides, like messages. Full of delicate life and hope, it seemed to me. I closed my eyes and let sound describe the view.
This place is called Horsburgh Glen on the maps; a name that evokes nothing of its essence.
Leaving that place I ran on, forgiving the spruce plantations their geometry because framed amongst them slept translucent larches. Pink in this light. Also the firebreaks here wavered down rather than slashing straightly through the Sitka spruce.
Choosing two smooth running stones I continued up and over, into the main glen and back to our rendezvous.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral ?

Having run the logging roads leading from Plora wood on the back road, way up to the top track  skirting Plora Craig, I felt ready to enjoy the "fruits of my labour". 

The high road was on a level and with fine views. After a moment`s stretch  I set off south east towards the Clattering path, (clackety boots on the clattering path).  I stopped and stared at a small bird, busy in high spruce branches, jabbing at a cone, its jerky movement punctuated by short calls. Black and white head, yellow breast, slate blue back: a blue tit, I think.
I wanted the purge and cleanse of a long run. I also wanted to stand and look; name the world I saw.
This is an emerging impulse; not to "own" but to claim relationship with things, through naming them: Down in the glen we have no street lighting  (and barely a road).  On clear winter evenings I`ll go out the front or back door and I`ll call the stars by name, (the few I know). Above the dark south eastern woods - Castor and Pollux, the twins in Gemini where meteor showers flare in mid December; transcending the forest`s southern gateway bright Sirius and the Orion constellation ; Betelgeuse and Rigus;   west of south flickers Aldebaran by the eye of Taurus. Turning north, above the river I`ll find and name the Great Bear and Cassiopeia, dancing agelessly around the faint, pivotal, pole star.
Recommencing my run, following the slow curve south, I suddenly cried out in pain. My right calf muscle had seized. I could not run. I rested and massaged and slapped the back of my leg. I hobbled to a stretch where a cold sun shone by the road`s edge. Despondent, still limping painfully, I decided to make my way home. The larches on my left were dark shapes in the low sunlight.
My eye was drawn fifty yards beyond to a cluster of cones in high larch branches. I hobbled  quietly now towards the dark mass, soon realising I was seeing a squirrel. Might it be red ? In that glare, I couldn`t tell and it was still too far away to be sure. I drew closer, staring upwards. A light frame, large, tufty, triangular ears. Moving under the tree I saw red in the shape; not the red/brown of larch tops but intrinsic to the animal. 
Sensing me it began to retreat, agile and quick, along and down. The tree canopy a road network. Down towards Armour Burn and Cadon Bank where I`ve seen only greys . But I`d seen it and named my first red squirrel in this forest.


                      

Fox and Hare

Same route today but this time, emerging from Taniel Wood, I stopped at a fast flowing burn to stretch and drink from cupped hands amongst the bracken and stones. I stood up from the fresh water break and felt dizzy, energy sapped, vision wavering. I stumbled on upwards along the wide, open, curving forest road. At the elbow I stopped again, shaky. I looked down to my side, (Traquair House a tiny white smudge in the distance): in the foreground floated a purple/orange haze of young larch trees and, hemmed in, old stumps poking through; remnants from the last tree harvest; and a tall thin pine trunk, left as a lookout for predatory birds. Once or twice I`ve seen buzzards launch out from this platform, like hang gliders.
As the path rose I tried to coax energy back to my body. I knew it would return so, while waiting, stumbled up a new path that rose through a fire break; might this be a new route to the upper road -  up by Kite wood and, eventually, opening out to the north ? My impulse to explore these forested hills is, in part, driven by a wish to connect these paths, make sense of them, like circuits in the brain. But no upper road. Disappointed I stood looking back at the western sky: black branches against light blues and pinks, dusk falling.

Reviving now I jogged down again through long, pale grasses and green, green mosses. Then, glancing right, 50 metres away, a Roe deer, dark russet bodied, bounding into cover, thick white rump accentuating its hop. So they`re still here ! Hidden in the quiet places.
Finding the lower forest road once more I replayed the encounter: how long ? one second, two ?
Larch needles muffled my steps as I wound down, the sun`s light now a memory.
Then, before gliding down the steep tracks above the back road, I saw a fox or a hare racing across my path. I stopped and it stopped - both sizing up the other - then it dashed upwards: a large buck hare ! Maybe the "fox" I`d seen last summer...

Larch Ascending

On a friday, after work, I drove to the mountainbikers` carpark by Cadonbank wood. It was drizzly and windy and preparations were underway for a downhill competition at the weekend.
There is a good short run up and along the forest road skirting Taniel Hill. The route rises and dips amongst pine and bare larch and then veers round, describing a slow S and up a long right to join the drovers` road just above a log bothy.
At this exposed site the strong winds have broken many tree limbs and uprooted larch saplings. For them; dormant through winter, death would have been unknowing, I ruminated.
I turned and ran back down, winter darkness falling. Enveloped in the woods again I enjoyed padding on a carpet  of larch needles. The only wildlife (apart from an exploding, startled grouse) were the birds: their songs points of sound, nicking the air above me.
As I run I try to identify the trees: sitka spruce ? Norwegian..something ? Is that sapling a spruce or a pine (good to know, come Christmas) ? I`ve been like a child in the woods or an abstract artist; open to the shapes, colours and sounds but unable to name what I`ve experienced. Not a natural naturalist.
Again no deer, despite dusk rising. The trail steepens. Months before,  last summer , a fox ran ahead of me and I`ve glimpsed roe deer here. 

Interloper

I`m always looking for new routes to interesting places, chief among these being the high moorland pass along which the drovers` road travels. Since  last week`s gloomy encounter down at Elibank castle I was glad of the chance to explore an unknown-to-me path to the Minchmoor`s airy heights
Leaving our house, I took a left turn up into the forest, following the Bold burn logging road a mile or so until it turned sharply right and upwards. Soon after, climbing an abrupt left, I ran southwards again, up and up. Two mountainbikers (rare in this neck of the woods) whizzed down past me. We waved hello.  Minchmoor burn came to greet me as I pulled upwards to the crest.
I`m often looking out for deer. Usually I glimpse them crossing the forest road far in front. If I look into the deep green forest glades to left and right I never see them. My clackety running shoes, smell and general noisiness (down or upwind ) puts paid to that. In "The Wild Places" Robert MacFarlane describes  climbing high into "his" tree and, after sitting there quietly for a long time, the birds returned to it and he could observe them, be a part of them. Perhaps if I stop moving and instead sit on a cut tree bole, quietly absorbing the colours, smells, sounds surrounding me, these elusive deer will, in time, appear..but during January, resting too long on a cold stump is chilling...
I sometimes lie awake just before the break of dawn and imagine that to run in the forest now will be to merge with, rather than intrude upon, the shy wild creatures: the roe deer, badgers, foxes, as light slowly grows and birdsong fills the spaces. 
I don`t so much feel kinship with the deer of these hills and quiet, wooded tracks, but the silence and listening quality of their habitat draws me deeply; the great surging breath an acre of scots pine takes, trees as impassive as Easter Island statues.
Climbing out from the forest I reach the drovers` road , jostled by wind and light.

Back Road

Recently I had to leave my lemon-of-a-car at the local town garage as the disc brakes were grinding alarmingly. There being half an hour`s worth of light left, I walked home along the back road. 
The moon, already well risen and floating above Cadon Bank, was almost gibbous, and its yellow glow hovered above and between the high tree tops as I walked east. To my right the forest hills, to my left, fields stretching out to the Tweed, the greying single-track road the borderland. I saw and named the birch wood, the cluster of ash trees, the long, clean-limbed beech wood, the tightly packed and musty spruce plantation.

I hoped to catch a glimpse of a badger. My first and only sighting had been a few years ago, on my first long, exploratory run, far along the logging roads, high in the hills. Somewhere around Plora Craig I`d startled  one, about 15 feet away and I gather there is a Set in the hills of which this creature must have been a member.
But this day I saw no animals, just old trees in the ancient Plora woodland: mature trees standing amongst their dead and transforming parents, saplings shooting upwards in the moonshadow.
As I walked, the beginnings of the Great Bear emerged through the darkening sky, and I decided that a bright red point wasn`t Mars, being too far north and unmoving.
Finally, approaching our wooden hamlet, a soft owl hooted to my right and, walking up to the  " forest gateway" and home, the moon rose above it all.