If you go down to the woods today…
This coming week marks the tenth anniversary of me leaving my home town on a little island, just off the south coast of the UK. It also marks the seventh anniversary of me and my wife moving to our current residence on the outskirts of the M25… close enough to London town without actually having to live there, but with the benefit of it being a 10 minute drive (on a good day) to Heathrow Airport and about half an hour’s drive from BBC Television Centre – not that I have any need to go there anymore!
With the arrival of our children, we’ve come to accept the town as our home. Before, we weren’t shackled to any one place in the UK and we could move around at the drop of a hat, but now, that’s not the case and it kind of suits us. The one draw back in living here was that I missed the countryside, you know, green stuff; trees, grass, hills, rambling tracks and wild animals that on occasion you’d find the need to run away from.
Up until yesterday, we had to make do with Black Park which is just next door to Pinewood Studios and nice as it is, it just feels terribly artificial - but I have to admit that it looks great up on the old silver screen. Anyway, on a whim, we decided to check out the wooded area just up the road from us. We’d driven past it hundreds of times and I always used to regard it as nothing more than a copse – possibly only a handful of trees deep. What we ventured into early yesterday evening was jaw droppingly stunning.
It wasn’t a copse at all, it was a proper, full blown wood. In fact I’d goes as far as to say that it was akin to a forest and in the all too short 90 minutes that we spent in there, we’d barely scratched the surface of it. Why after all these years, is it only now that we stumble across it? Why couldn’t we have found this place six weeks ago during the hight of the summer? Oh well, we know of it now and can go back as much as we like.
There was one little drawback. A member of our clan wasn’t quite so impressed and wanted to go back home because not only was the place too scary, but there were too many things to get prickled on or stung by. Yes, our delicate wall flower was Mana – she’s a true, modern little city girl, only content when her nose is buried deep into a Nintendo DS or various other trappings of the modern world. Alex on the other hand couldn’t get enough of the place and was truly in his element getting his hands dirty and excitedly pointing out every single event of wildlife rustling in the overgrowth… mind you, he likes his modern technology too. I really should get a shot of him sat on the potty whilst playing the DS, he’s better at Super Mario Brothers than his Mother and is certainly far more expert at it than I – not that I’m into games of this nature at any rate or any computer games really now that I come to think of it.
Anyway, the point that I was trying to make is that we’ve sort of found a little replication of “home” that we can now go off to and explore whenever we see fit - regardless of whether our little wall flower wants to or not. She’ll learn to like it, I’m sure. She did have her moments yesterday though when she got fully immersed in the situation, so there’s hope for her yet.
Looking at that group photo at the top of the image montage, I’ve just noticed that I don’t half have a peculiar way of standing, it’s such a jaunty stance – why is that? It also illustrates perfectly well my limited wardrobe. Check out any other picture across this blog that features me and you’ll see how I’m always dressed in pretty much the same fashion. Now that is tragic.
In other news.
My mate Dematerialiser moved house recently and today is his birthday – so we wish him a very Happy Birthday.
That’s all for now, I think.
I too am from the woods. Even thought most of the area around us is farmland, our area is wooded because of the terrain being rougher and a couple of creeks running through. Here is it on Google Maps.
https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=2829+North+Ellory+Road,+Peoria,+IL&aq=1&oq=2829+N+Ellory+Rd&sll=39.739318,-89.266507&sspn=9.642726,14.040527&vpsrc=6&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=2829+N+Ellory+Rd,+Peoria,+Illinois+61604&ll=40.722803,-89.691482&spn=0.003283,0.003428&t=h&z=18
But now I live 45 minutes SE on I-74 in SW Bloomington, IL. However, it’s still a bit woodsy since we are surrounded by 3 parks and a cemetery. There is a park across the street. There’s another one up the street from that. The 3rd park is to our west, and the cemetery is to our north.
https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=101+Fox+Hill+Circle,+Bloomington,+IL&aq=0&oq=101+Fox+Hill+C&sll=40.722803,-89.691482&sspn=0.003283,0.003428&vpsrc=6&t=h&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=101+Fox+Hill+Cir,+Bloomington,+Illinois+61701&ll=40.463715,-89.006188&spn=0.004661,0.006856&z=17&iwloc=A
Well, to use a rather apt old turn of phrase, but what a lovely area your “neck of the woods” is – beautiful in fact!
That’s just the sort of place I’d like to ramble around if I ever managed to go back to the States, this time for a holiday, rather than on the back of business travel.
I’ve recently spoken to Doctor Jon about just this. I don’t want to do the tourist thing on such a visit, I’d like to see the real America – where folk actually live, not the naff tourist holes like Disney World and such-like…
That said, the kids will no doubt want to go there, so I’d just have to resist the mammoth temptation to punch Mickey Mouse in the nuts if I saw him.
Stick to the Midwest in the summertime. Chicago will be enough for you.
For a very brief moment there, I thought it was the old track behind our old house. I bet you’ll be going there quite often.