I have just come back from my walk up the forest path. Already before 5pm on this January afternoon the frost is reasserting its grip, and lacing the seed heads of the hogweed. I walk there every day now for my exercise but usually earlier. Where has this day gone? I think it started for me with the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020, this slowing down, this redrawing of the boundaries. I was almost old then, and now, having survived, am much older. Getting out requires more determination but the first breath of cool wind on my face means the world to me.
I look among the stubble of oats and barley, that are now planted on the in-bye fields, for Bramblings among the Chaffinches. Of course, it meant getting rid of the sheep, or most of them at least. Sometimes I miss the lambs and their gambolling but now they are confined to higher pastures, and with fewer of them, the cleughs are filling with low bushes of wild birch, eared willow and juniper. In the valley bottom there are flower meadows and boggy bits full of rushes, marsh marigolds and even some globe flower.
They began to fell the commercial timber of the forest in 2021. What a desert of destruction that was, but some of it at least is being replanted by the Borders Forest Trust with alder, rowan and birch. Even on this January day I can look forward to June when the shrivelled hips will have long been replaced by the shy blooms of briar roses among ladies bedstraw, foxgloves and fairy flax – if you look closely. I watch this future growing and imagine the insects, moths and butterflies, the lichen and fungi, yes, and even the children who will come here.
There was a special light today. After the clear sunny sky, came the cold steely blue holding a balance between night and day and the first stars began to glisten. Have we learned anything, do you think, since that terrible time when so many things were taken away? Have we learned to humble ourselves, and accept that we are not in control? My mind is wandering again and you must wonder what this story is all about! So, I am gradually climbing and I come into the darker, deeper forest. I myself seem to make the most sound and I try to step quietly because of the hush, when I hear a branch move, the whispered breaking of a soft tread. I look for – a roe deer, or maybe a pine marten – and then unmoving I see it. ‘The Wizard of the Forest’ with its tufted ears, white beard and eyes the colour of sand, the black tip of its tail, it’s coat so soft, so wild, I look at the Lynx and he looks at me. I see him and he sees me. We meet. That’s it, the future.