a reservoir

Here is where I escape to sit, and find solitude, stillness, and often silence. A pair of herons circle low, a moorhen squawks from the reeds. Pike patrol these waters, and a family of reed warblers return each April to nest in the phragmites. In summer, the pond is carpeted with waterlilies, and the surrounding bank is tunnelled by badgers.


I came here on a clear day of warm sunshine in mid-March when the trees were full of chaffinches chortling, great tits calling and a wren singing. A pheasant croaked from the fields beyond. The weeping willow was cloaked in a film of gold, a young ash tree stark against the evening sky.

Not in the midst of life's tumult nor in the world of pleasure's round does God show himself, but in the inspiration of nature: grace, light as a breath of fresh air in a still small voice.
Saint Jerome