Blowing Away the Cobwebs - Wellbeing Walk 2 - North

Turning North. Armed with our seed bombs, seeking a neglected placewhere we could throw our seeds and hope for the best! We were encouraged as one of the bombs had already developed tiny shoots...

We met at the station as usual, great to have two new people join us!

Cutting around The White Hart, we crossed the stream over the footbridge and walked across an open green space with many benches and sheltered seating, all looking rather unused.  A predictable shopping trolley in the stream.

Along up Rockingham Road, but then turning off the main road and down some steps which could so easily be missed, leading from the main road down beside the railway track.  Here our adventure really began...

Walking with the rail track to our left and an industrial estate to our right, but then there is a gap in the fence... we followed the desire-line worn by the feet of others.

The path took us into a wild space, grasses growing all around us, a burnt tree, wild flowers.  Ferns unfurling.



Following this path it began to get more and more overgrown until we were enclosed in a wooded area.  Everywhere new trees beginning to grow, tiny oak trees below our knees, willows that had self seeded.  We talked about how nature moves in and makes its own any spaces that humans leave.

Further on it became apparent that this path had been created with walkers in mind, there was a distinct line surfaced with gravel, now overgrown. Here and there we came across picnic benches in the undergrowth. There was evidence of human use here, somebody had made a fire and drink cans were strewn about. Further on a picnic bench actually had a tree growing through the middle of it!





Deeper and deeper in we went.  It was a windy day, and the silver birch trees swayed above us, their leaves sparkling silver as the wind flipped them over.  Somebody said the sound of the trees swaying were like the sound of the seashore, gently shooshing.

Across the rail tracks someone’s makeshift kite had crash landed.


Up a hill, we suddenly burst back out into an open ground, high up with an amazing view taking in a wide area of the north end of Corby - the Weetabix factory, a footbridge that led to the lakes where we had picnicked for our last walk, and the cream coloured towers of the Flour Mills gleaming in the sunlight like a castle on the horizon.
Below us, down the steep bank, and beyond high wire fences, was the neglected area we sought!  Broken up hard core, bricks, and cracked concrete lay about across a huge wide area, but creating its own pattern across the cracks were wild flowers and grasses.  We spotted aquilegia and budleia growing.  Somebody said "they seek out the cracks and there they grow."  A motto for life.



Carole had a short video on her phone of our friend Maureen, who knew this place from her childhood.  She talked about how it was once where the rail carriages were left and that there is a tunnel somewhere.
We decided this was a good place to launch our seed bombs.  The round ones made high arcs and exploded on the concrete below.  The flat ones flew like frisbies, one of us even managed to curve a bend in the trajectory of his throw!
We picnicked here, admiring our gardening work and shouting to each other to be heard above the wind, before walking back to base.
Continuing our theme of the wind, we made windmills and put words and drawings in them inspired by the day.

"Let The Wind Blow"

 "The wind in my face helps me breathe"

"blow wind blow and we shall have snow"

"Blowing away the cobwebs"

...and drawings of the sun, flowers, the weather:

We will seek a place to plant our windmills, like flags claiming our land, in our next walk, which will take place in mid June.

On my way home, it began to rain... a perfect end to the day, I imagined our little scattered seeds seeking out the cracks, lapping up the rain and beginning to release their energy into new life....

Growing from a gutter - the persistence of nature