Battlehill Woods by Annie Lamb

1. Place
Blue & yellow blue being forget-me-nots (?) *, yellow being broom which perfumes the place making me imagine it’s a scent of forget-me-nots.
The shade is deep. There are a couple of medium sized black slugs here at my feet making their way up or down grass stems. They seem busy (eating the grass, presumably).
The shade is cast by beeches that look young but probably aren’t. Also, there’s a rowan in blossom. And the sky is absolutely closed. Sounds: raindrops. This is the lip of the quarry – the A96 is at my back.
Atmosphere? Tense. Waiting.
Feeling, situation? A chance meeting – because of the path. Or – because both quarry & bungalows can be seen from above – witnessing something private.
* They were speedwells.

2. Place
A tumulus about six feet across that is many-humped and made out of an old stump with moss growing thickly over it. This is by the same path, on the edge of dark conifer woods where are coal tits. But on or beside the path are beeches and I just passed a whitebeam in flower.
The tumulus has ferns (perhaps male fern?) over it and they look rather antic, and on an open mossy surface is some of that yellow fungus that looks like cat sick (or calf skite or scrambled eggs – it is that yellow).
There’s a scar in the ground beside the mound, edging the path, full of beech leaves.
Atmosphere? Fairylike because it’s a world in miniature like a bottle-garden, evoking: feeling surprised that I don’t still love bottle-gardens (I used to go to sleep pretending I was a little salamander deep in the moss in winter).
Situation? Becoming a little salamander and creeping in.

3. Place
Glade where new oaks are planted – tree tubes. There’s a seat by the path.
Standing here one feels like a small person (a hobbit would be ± right) in the centre of a ring of great conversing trees. The trees across the path, above the seat, are tall spruces with pointy tops and graceful swooping (up-swept) lower branches just now tipped with edible-looking green. They bow or lean slightly over the hobbit and toward the tall beeches standing behind the new oak stand, and between is an open, grassy glade – very green – sort of Althing for Trees of different tribes coming in from different directions.
Atmosphere – Solemn. Serious – not ‘hobbitty’
Feeling – respectful
Situation: suppose if I wait a bit they’ll ask my opinion?