A Writing Retreat in the Trees

The next morning, I wake to a heavy white mist filling the valley — the hill rises up behind like an island. I sip my coffee, watching the mist swirl. Geese fly, honking, overhead. I sense a shiver in the undergrowth and a pair of roe deer emerge from the edge of the trees, stepping gingerly out into the valley. Startled by the snap of a twig, they skitter away, white tails flashing.

Later, after a leisurely breakfast, I make my way to Madam’s Pond. The sun is warm on my shoulders as I climb backwards down the metal ladder, disturbing the cloud-mirror surface of the pond. My breath catches as I lower myself in — this chill water has yet to lose its winter bite — but I strike out and swim in slow, measured circles, steadying my breathing. The air is sweet with the scent of apple blossom, and busy with birdsong: robin, blackbird, wren.

I swim under the sky in this reed-edged pool, washing the dull tint of winter from my skin. All around me, the world is humming — the landscape is bursting into life — hedges foam with blackthorn, roadsides are dotted with celandines and clumps of milkmaid, woodlands are bright with bluebells. Everything is so, so, green.

Climbing back up the ladder, I shake my shoulders, watching water droplets fly into the morning air. I towel myself dry, pull on my clothes, and spread a blanket on the grass, stretching out for a moment in the sunshine. I think of my notebook and the tender green ideas now pressed like unfurling leaves between its pages. Bees buzz in the apple trees as I momentarily close my eyes.

I return home feeling revitalised and creatively renewed — perhaps I too have been rewilded. Now I am ready to sink into spring.

Laura Pashby is an author and photographer. Her book, Chasing Fog — described by the Times Literary Supplement as ‘beautiful and haunting’ — is a meditation on fog and mist, a love song to weather and nature’s power to transform. Chasing Fog begins with an exploration of the fog that cloaks the River Severn — the same morning mist that can be seen from the Rewild Things treehouses.

www.laurapashby.com