Past the stables and recent balsam clearance, and now I'm into Heath House Woods. Well, above it. The recent rain has freshened everything up, and this path cuts along the upper edge, bordered by young oaks, Sorbus, hawthorn, and other edge species. A first swig of Bowmore here (unashamedly inspired by Robert Macfarlane's whisky-fuelled strolls), whilst looking out above the woodland canopy of oaks that carpet the valley. It looks almost as though you could walk across to Heath House on top of these crowns.
Walk a bit further, and I come to a gated junction. To the left, back to Colne Valley. The cheers and shouts of a crowd as someone far away in Brazil scores, or doesn't score, reinforces the decision to turn right and head further into the woods. A little way in and a trail heads off steeply downhill, too tempting to ignore. Here, the oaks are contorted, squat and buckled, but no less lovely than those larger, open-grown trees you might see in a hedgerow.
A magpie flies through the canopy. One for sorrow. The grasses and brambles are laden with cuckoo spit, I don't know if I've ever seen more in one spot. Finally, another magpie joins the first. Two for joy - a far more optimistic prospect. A roaring in the distance sounds like a waterfall, although it is just as likely to be a mill or even some machinery somewhere. However, the babbling of a beck at the bottom of the slope is unmistakable, and so I head down. On the way, wonder about the wood's history. Planted, or a remnant of what used to be? Worked, and by whom, and why? And does that even matter, or should we just enjoy wondering in woods, rather than analyse them?
A tyre swing and further tyres making up stepping stones by no means detract from the strength of the oak on the opposite bank, which must have stood sentinel by the beck for a century at least. However, as well intentioned as the tyres may be, they still remind of the uncomfortable proximity of the town to the left. So across the burn a turn right, heading up past a decaying log. The tree must have fallen naturally, but the clean cuts and branch stubs show that at least once someone has been in here with a saw.
Following the beck upstream, it forks into two. Each of the gulleys along which it heads are lush and green; it might not be as vast, stirring, symbolic or emotive as the Amazon, but these oak woodlands are our temperate rainforests. And the lichens on branches, the fungi and ground fauna, the birds calling still demonstrate the diversity of these woods. A jay flits across the beck and alights on a branch, silhouetted and quieter than its rowdier, black and white cousins.
I cross back over the beck and head upwards, slipping on the wet mud, finally reaching a defined path cutting across perpendicular. A squat oak here offers two nice boughs for a seat and so I sit for a while, taking a few swigs and enjoying the sound of water, whilst admiring the fresh pink on newly flushed epicormic growths.
Further on, I come to a bridge crossed on a previous stroll, and realise that this path leads out, eventually, to the cows. So an about turn, and taking a left fork that eventually leads out to a more widely spaced area. I've been here before, taking a seat in an oak in the sun and whimsically fantasising about building a hut here, leaving civilisation as we know it to live in the woods. I had begun to plan it out - planting edible plants, thinking of water sources - a beautiful distraction from our everyday lives.
Back up to that gated junction, following the track out to find a large house and grounds. Someone with the money to buy a lovely patch of land, but without the sense to take only what they need from it. It's hard to ignore the urge to head back now, back into the woods. and so that's what I do; picking up that original path out. Halfway along, a small track leads down, again too intriguing not to followed. It ends up leading out to an oak begging to be climbed; dropping towards it, and it become apparent this is the top of my imagined woodland settlement. Oh, well. Climb the tree, a couple more swigs, listen to chaffinches piping alarm. Savour the greenery, the stillness, the simplicity. Then back out to the path, to someone's garden, and finally to tarmac once more.
