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tamaranthBlackheath is flat, high, open ground, just about the size of my personal space. On Friday night, half an hour after sunset, it's quieter than usual: they've closed Shooter’s Hill, the main road which runs across the Heath, and there's much less traffic noise than usual from the other criss-cross roads. The sky above is slightly hazy, but there are no clouds: the light is more like a summer's evening than April, there's a violet tint to it.
Westward, London's lights shimmer and glitter below me. The smog layer is quite distinct, though it's so early in the year, and it's tinted pink by sunset. At the zenith, a half-moon reclines, with a planet maybe ten or fifteen degrees west of it. I think of the image I've had all day, of the planets following the sun one by one like beads on a string. It's inaccurate and irresistable. I must be nearly on the Greenwich meridian - surely no more than a hundred yards from it, here among the tall old chestnut trees outside the brick walls of Greenwich Park - so I'm thinking imprecisely about astronomy within a stone's throw of the old Royal Observatory.
I'd be standing at the top of the scrubland above the stacked houses on Hyde Vale, rough grass falling away too steeply for building; but it's not so peaceful there. The change to British Summer Time, and the mild spring, have brought out groups of teenagers - too young to go to the pub, but convincing enough in the offie to buy a two-litre bottle of cider - and there's a clump of them just downslope from the path. I scowl, not that they can see me: but I've spotted another planet in the line, and am distracted by that.
Heading back, I loop past the Ranger's House, which is more like a country mansion than most old houses in London: I can see unlit chandeliers in the downstairs rooms. (When that house was built, Greenwich was a separate town, and highwaymen lay in wait up here among the trees).
On the approach to the house, I meet a fox.
I'm fond of foxes, especially urban ones. I like the half-cat-half-dog way they move. I like their fearlessness. This one runs a little way, then stops and turns to look at me. I stop walking and look back. We look at one another. Fox slips through the railings onto one of the fenced-off lawns, and looks at me again. What can I see at this point without moving my head? Smog, city lights, a planet, another, the moon, and Fox illuminated by streetlights along the road, and by the occasional headlights of cars coming up Croom's Hill, access only.
We stand and look at one another. I'm interacting with a wild animal, and I feel so connected.
I get out my camera, and while I'm looking down at my bag, Fox disappears. I wouldn't have thought there was anywhere to hide, but Fox has hidden.
I would like to freeze that memory - planets, twilight, fox - and lead my friends, one by one, to look at it. I thought the camera was the best I could do, but maybe this is better.
Westward, London's lights shimmer and glitter below me. The smog layer is quite distinct, though it's so early in the year, and it's tinted pink by sunset. At the zenith, a half-moon reclines, with a planet maybe ten or fifteen degrees west of it. I think of the image I've had all day, of the planets following the sun one by one like beads on a string. It's inaccurate and irresistable. I must be nearly on the Greenwich meridian - surely no more than a hundred yards from it, here among the tall old chestnut trees outside the brick walls of Greenwich Park - so I'm thinking imprecisely about astronomy within a stone's throw of the old Royal Observatory.
I'd be standing at the top of the scrubland above the stacked houses on Hyde Vale, rough grass falling away too steeply for building; but it's not so peaceful there. The change to British Summer Time, and the mild spring, have brought out groups of teenagers - too young to go to the pub, but convincing enough in the offie to buy a two-litre bottle of cider - and there's a clump of them just downslope from the path. I scowl, not that they can see me: but I've spotted another planet in the line, and am distracted by that.
Heading back, I loop past the Ranger's House, which is more like a country mansion than most old houses in London: I can see unlit chandeliers in the downstairs rooms. (When that house was built, Greenwich was a separate town, and highwaymen lay in wait up here among the trees).
On the approach to the house, I meet a fox.
I'm fond of foxes, especially urban ones. I like the half-cat-half-dog way they move. I like their fearlessness. This one runs a little way, then stops and turns to look at me. I stop walking and look back. We look at one another. Fox slips through the railings onto one of the fenced-off lawns, and looks at me again. What can I see at this point without moving my head? Smog, city lights, a planet, another, the moon, and Fox illuminated by streetlights along the road, and by the occasional headlights of cars coming up Croom's Hill, access only.
We stand and look at one another. I'm interacting with a wild animal, and I feel so connected.
I get out my camera, and while I'm looking down at my bag, Fox disappears. I wouldn't have thought there was anywhere to hide, but Fox has hidden.
I would like to freeze that memory - planets, twilight, fox - and lead my friends, one by one, to look at it. I thought the camera was the best I could do, but maybe this is better.
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This...
Date: Sunday, April 21st, 2002 04:35 pm (UTC)I know I love it every bit as much.
Love..
Foxes
Date: Tuesday, April 23rd, 2002 05:36 am (UTC)"Cheeky thing!" I thought. A fox that acted like that where I come from would have got itself shot in no time flat.
(People may not think of Barnsley as 'the country', but the bit where I lived - next door to a farm - was...)
Not keen on foxes.