In Pursuit of Spring
This journey was inspired by a book written by Edward Thomas, in which he travelled from London to the Quantock Hills in March 1913. In his book, every now and then, he converses with another presence - some say it is his shadow self.
Quite fancifully, I like to think that through some strange algorithm of time and intention - because I too struck out, in a far more modest way, to pursue spring - that his shadow self might have been me. Time travelling back to consult him on his findings. To compare notes across a century.
Today our paths crossed for the first time as I drove up the steep, tree-shrouded lanes of the Quantocks and onto the heights overlooking the Bristol Channel and Wales beyond.
I sensed him in the blossoming trees, in the daffodils at the verge, in the damp sheen of the tarmac.
I sensed him in the ruddy puddles, the call of the chaffinch, the caw of the rook.
And a few miles from the heart of the Quantocks, I sensed him most at Crowcombe.
On his journey, Thomas carried a camera. He took a photograph of Crowcombe along a lane with the church tower rising in the distance. When I parked up, I first tried to find that same spot - but the road was too dangerous to walk.
Maybe he’s not here to guide me after all, I thought.
The disappointment eased as I walked into the centre of the village and saw the church just as the sun broke from behind the clouds.
If it had snowed all the way down from Scotland, I would still have found spring inside this church - for the bench ends are alive with the most delicious foliate carving - green men, mythical creatures, birds and other animals.
The light across the floor and along the arcade and pews was so compelling that I took out my sketchbook and watercolours.
This was not the usual sketch - but a kind of mark-making thumbed by the soul of things - light and colour and form from the felt sense and not through the eyes.
After I finished, I laid the painting on the pew to dry and walked the church again.
Later, driving out of Crowcombe towards Cornwall, I realised that I had left my sketchbook behind with the foliate bench ends fanning it dry. I turned the van around and travelled back along the lane - and there it was - the very view Thomas had photographed - the church tower rising in the distance just as it had for him.
He hadn’t let me down after all.
Only weeks after Christmas, I found evidence of spring at Crowcombe - daffodils swaying at the roadside and blossom along the hedgerow. I was reminded that the season does not wait for perfect conditions before it begins its work. Even in the chill that clings to lanes and walls, something is already pressing upward beneath what appears dormant.
And perhaps that is what I had been seeking - a kind of reassurance that renewal doesn’t require the absence of winter - that growth can gather strength beneath fatigue and doubt until it reveals itself without fanfare.
In Crowcombe the landscape did not feel empty of those who had passed this way before - their words and footsteps seemed to have left a trace in the way the lane bends and the tower rises - shaping how I saw and what I noticed. It felt less like coincidence than companionship that I rediscovered the same framed view - a reminder that what stirred him can still stir us - and that the impulse to seek spring is shared across time.
Driving on towards Cornwall, with the tower receding in the mirror, I realised that spring is not something to be chased along a map - it is something that gathers in us as much as in hedgerow and branch - present even in the most wintry of conditions - waiting for recognition.
Weather: 14 degrees celsius. Sunny intervals.
Observations: Saw some cherry blossom in Cornwall. Also some trees have the first leaf shoots - that bright green haze. Chaffinch, robin, greenfinch, goldfinch, dunnock, wren, sparrow, coal tit, great tit, blue tit, rook, jackdaw, blackcap, collared dove, blackbird.
Total Miles Travelled: 1600 miles
"That aura, those echoes-the muted light is transporting. What a space to feel rooted in history. I'd love to make that journey myself; you've stirred the opera lover and architectural dreamer in me."
@sonatasips via X
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