A Greenway and Blue Ribbons

Our March walk for our Light Walks project took us to Finedon.

Half the group were late arriving, so meanwhile we wandered around the church. There are a number of rabbit holes in the green next to the church, we watched a while to spot them! Someone noticed birds flying in and out of a broken air vent making a nest.

Some of the headstones are fascinating and beautiful. To think people had been there for nearly 300 years!

Ornamental hedges spied over the Churchyard wall

Strange holes, like small explosions in the ironstone

Once the whole group had arrived we set off up the road from the church, carrying our bags of seed bombs.

We soon came across a likely place - a patch of land next to the road where a building had stood and had been torn down, leaving bricks, debris and weeds. 

We launched our seed bombs here - made from wildflower seeds, clay and compost, we hoped there would be enough rain to get them rooting here over the next few weeks.

The strange round tower, now attached to a house. We all speculated on what it could have been. A flour storage tower? Part of a castle? No, an ice house!

Walking along the road towards an enticing woodland. The shadows already getting long.

We met this lovely walker who had been exploring these paths and fields since childhood, remembering the ice tower when it was just part of the field and not incorporated in a house on an estate. 

She was delighted that we were coming to discover a place so dear and so familiar to her and her faithful companion. She told us about the wild flowers and the former profusion of snowdrops, bluebells and violas "There aren't so many now as when I was a girl."

 

Following desire lines by the edge of the field...

  

... then suddenly descending down steps into a deep greenway - a line, previously a rail line, now a long straight walk dug deep into the earth, cool with steep slopes either side, now reclaimed by the trees. As water gathers in greenways, it etches them still deeper into the ground over time.

Under an ivy-clad branch - natural or man-made archway we wondered?

March blossom illuminated by the spring sunlight.

Sleepers, hinting at the greenway's previous function.

The greenway gradually rose again until we were walking level with the fields once again. Across a small bridge, and back into dense woodland.

We came to a clearing, a single, slim tree standing in the middle on its own, naked and not yet awakening for spring.

We suggested tree dressing to celebrate this tree, an old pagan tradition to celebrate trees. 

Jo had a bag of bright blue ribbon, and so we began...

 

John's ingenious use of feathers as stakes to hold the ribbons in place.

We enjoyed lying down, looking up

We lay underneath our creation and looked up at the sky. Branches and ribbons mingled.

We enjoyed being inside, looking out

John looked so at home there we thought he might stay all night!

We would have liked to have left our tree dressed

It was intriguing to catch sight of the bright blue flashes through a multitude of branches. But we had seen a sign on an information board - no structures could be left in the woods - would it be wrong to leave it for others to find?

Would the ribbons cause damage to the tree?

We decided it would be far more appropriate to unpeg the ribbons

and unwrap the tree

rewind the beautiful blue strands.

Tempting as it was to leave one streamer

or a clue that we had been there

 we decided to leave no trace other than these pictures.