October Apples

Swardeston, Norfolk, October 2016.

A Groping and Random Fashion: Ghosts in the Harford Hills

Easter Sunday morning skulking in the woods, and I came across the remains of a haphazard campsite / drug den. A thin plastic sheet erected from a few branches, blowing in the wind, put me in mind of a certain M R James bedsheet ghost: "... at once the spectator realised, with some horror and some relief, that it must be blind, for it seemed to feel about it with its muffled arms in a groping and random fashion..."

Woodland Skeletons: Foxley Woods

The remains of skeletal structures in Foxley Woods, Norfolk.

All Trees Hum: Trowse Woods

an early Sunday morning tramping through Trowse Woods, Norwich.

Lanterns of Old England

Lens-flaring it up in Trowse Woods.

Finding Beauty In Junk: Eagle Park, Norwich

Litter is a constant struggle in urban woodland or parkland. According to the local newspapers, a couple of months ago, local resident Sam Crouchman, fed up with the state of the nearby Eagle Park, turned community-minded litter-picking into an arts project. Rubbish found in the park was used as building materials for dens and small pieces of environment-based sculpture. A couple of pieces mentioned in the original Eastern Daily Press article - "a trio of fish dangling from a tree," "a wide-eyed owl perched on a branch" - I couldn't see, so either I didn't explore properly or they've been swiped. I'm kind of (pleasantly) surprised the pieces that do remain haven't been trashed (pun intended), actually, and it will be interesting to see how long these pieces last before they are broken down and simply become part of the polluted backdrop again, as opposed to standing apart from it.

Warnings to the Curious: In the Holkham - Wells Pinewoods

Woodland structures in the beachside pinewoods between Holkham and Wells Next the Sea. The reality is no doubt far from anything even remotely sinister, but the knowledge that these woods were used as a filming location for the 1972 BBC adaptation of M R James' 'A Warning to the Curious' does give them a nice creep factor. James' East Anglian ghost stories were written in the early twentieth century and several were adapted by the BBC in the 1970s as part of their 'Ghost Story for Christsmas' series. Often set in a thinly-disguised Suffolk and filmed in Norfolk, both the stories and the films offer peerless, quiet, chilling visions of the loneliness and forgotten folklore of the region.

The ghost stories of M R James are of increasing influence not only to me: my former housemate Will is now one of the hosts of the excellent MR James podcast, A Podcast to the Curious. For fans of James, weird fiction, or simply neat and intelligent podcasting, listening is strongly recommended.

http://www.mrjamespodcast.com/