Category: winter stories
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The badgers of Nowhere Wood – a February story
There are badgers in Nowhere Wood. For the first time, we think. This is their February story. Imagine living in a dark world shaped by scent, vibration and touch — where wind carries stories and the air itself guides you back to the mouth of your sett. A world of kinship and inherited ground. Of…
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The wise birds of Nowhere Wood
After dark, we can hear the tawny owls that live in the old oak by the pond, calling to each other, “tu-wit, tu-woo”. In the woods and hedges around the hamlet of Nowhere, where the ancient oaks keep their own counsel and the paths disappear at dusk into darkness, there is an old tree with…
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The shortest day in Nowhere Wood
On the shortest day, 21st December 2025, under heavy skies, the light arrived reluctantly, like a visitor creeping late into a church service, hoping to be unnoticed. It arrived in Nowhere Wood as a diffused light, fading the dark into a gloomy, dignified grey. The leaf litter lay sodden and heavy, mud tugging at every…
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The spring…
This is the first part of a two-part story in the sustainable park series of stories. First comes the summer rain, after weeks of drought. Then the wet drizzly, misty days, then the powerful storm from the bay of Biscay, and gradually the water table rises from its summer low. The ancient spring fills and…
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…. and the pond
This is the second part of a two-part story in the sustainable park series. Every year, the flow of the spring is rather erratic. In some winters it barely registers above ground, in other years it can flood the walkways and paths around the park. To reduce the risk of flooding, the Friends of Trendlewood…
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Apples and the new year
Let’s travel back in time three hundred years or more, to the East End Farm, near the hamlet of Nowhere. East End farm has a few sheep and goats, some vegetables and several apple orchards. Tonight the orchards are surrounded by farm workers and villagers from Nowhere, all singing and banging pots and pans.…
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A tribute to fallen trees
The trees in Nowhere Wood are always there, going quietly through the motions of the seasons: noticed only when we stop to look and reflect. But we feel their presence strongly, just out of sight and mind. Until today, when their absence feels like the loss of dear friends. It only took a morning, and…
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The sustainable park (1)
This willow tree in the park is very old. Maybe a hundred years or so. Look how its bark is gnarled and twisted. It is a great friend of the park and is home to many different insects and birds. One year, a female mallard duck even made a nest on the flat top of…
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The secret of the winter flowers
It’s January 1st and the floor of the wood is covered with fresh new leaves, growing in dense patches. The first flowers are starting to open. Within a week, the air is scented with a sweet fragrance. This is the winter heliotrope, which is just as much at home in Nowhere as it is in…
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Early risers!
Every year, the snowdrop is the first plant to flower in Nowhere Wood. It is a symbol of the birth of Spring, bringing good cheer and hope at the end of a long winter. This is one reason why people plant snowdrops in their gardens. Snowdrops are tougher than they look: they can grow through…
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The Apple Tree Man of Nowhere
Once upon a time, there lived a young man called Henry Summers, who lived at the Farmhouse over at the East End, just below the quarry. He was a wise man, strong in the arm and of calm manner. He never beat his animals or his wife. The family farmed ten fields and had several…
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The singing trees
Winter has come to Nowhere Wood and ice has formed around the fallen trees in the pond. Everything shivers and wood is silent again. Squirrels search for food in the frozen mud, but everything else is waiting, biding its time. Silent, except for an ancient overgrown hedge formed from a row of old trees, bound together…
