Where the Wildwoods are

Instead of getting out into the fresh air, I've been reading about getting out into the fresh air. The book currently at the top of the stack is 'Wildwood' by Roger Deakin. It's a collection of eloquent and passionate essays about trees and forests. I'm only about a third of the way through so far, but am thoroughly enjoying it.

'Wildwood' is a memoir and a study in both social and natural history. Although the emphasis is on Britain, there are also essays on continental Europe and Australia. (I haven't got to those yet.) An early chapter on moth-hunting in Essex is enchanting. In a few pages, we read about moth biology, their vernacular names (most dating from the 1600s), Vladimir Nabokov as writer and Harvard lepidopterist, and the world's largest moth trap.

The first moth to fly in after I arrived was a sturdy little creature with dark-brown striated forewings. It settled on the sheet, quivering all over the way moths do, and Philip said 'uncertain'. Joe wrote a note in his book, and I assumed they weren't sure what it was, until they explained this actually was its name: the uncertain, a member of the Noctuidae, like its relation, the anomalous. I asked Joe which moth he dreamt of seeing one fine night, and he chose the alchymist, a woodland denizen that feeds on oak and elm … Just then there was a sudden flurry of arrivals: a common wainscot, several green carpets, a straw underwing, and two or three scorched carpets … As our nocturnal callers arrived, the lepidopterists announced them like major-domos at a ball: 'Large yellow underwing, iron prominent, lesser cream wave, brimstone moth, lime-speck pug.'

In another chapter, Deakin talks about the importance of willows in the British landscape, how they are cultivated and processed, which varieties are best for which use (baskets, eel-traps, the frame of a guardsman's bearskin), and how to make a cricket bat — from planting the tree (a variety of white willow that originated in Suffolk around 1870) to polishing the bat's blade with a horse's shinbone. It's more than a craft; it's an art.

I haven't got as far as the Aussie chapters, but I've had a peek at them. (I couldn't resist.) Deakin writes about travelling around the Macdonnell Ranges with Ramona Koval and ethnobotanist Peter Latz; gathering bush plums near Utopia in Central Australia; exploring the Whipstick Mallee with artist John Wolseley; and roaming the Pillaga Scrub with Eric Rolls.

But the journey to Australia passes tales of the Green Man and wood henges (circles of wooden posts), interviews with sculptors and archaeologists, and journeys through French chestnut groves and Ukrainian beech forests. I'm looking forward to the voyage.

Recommended.

I iz bak

Signed the contract of sale on my home this morning. I can't help thinking I should feel elated but I'm just exhausted. There's a 10 week settlement, during which time will either pass like a glacier or a pyroclastic flow. Still, there's plenty to do between now and then, so it's not as if I'm going to be sitting at home twiddling my thumbs.

The book goes to the printer tomorrow. I'm looking forward to getting an advance copy, so I can see the elements assembled into a real volume. That should be out in June, so expect details closer to the release date. Because the publisher's blurb refers to me as an 'inveterate blogger', I'd better live up to that description. (At least, I think that's what it says. Maybe it's 'invertebrate blogger'. I should check.)

I'll probably head up to North Queensland for a couple of weeks after Easter. Cyclone Ellie thwarted plans to visit earlier in the year. Apart from sussing out the real estate market, I'd like to sort out some potential study sites. I put a shedload of research on hold when I moved from Townsville to Melbourne, so it's time to get back into it. The Chillagoe project is well underway but there's plenty more to do. I'm looking forward to it.

More soon …

Drowning in work

No, I haven't been aestivating. Although, given the extraordinarily high temperatures and low (i.e. absent) rainfall over the past few weeks, that wouldn't have been such a bad idea. But instead of withdrawing into my shell and sealing up the doorway, I've been doing almost terminally dull, brain-killing, imagination-crushing, enthusiasm-destroying work-related stuff. And yes, it's getting worse. No one thought it could, but they were wrong. Oh so very wrong. But enough of that.

The block next door is no longer empty. Concreters poured the slab yesterday and the ground floor frame went up today. My office now looks onto the timber skeleton of a garage. When the second storey goes on, my view of the sky will be completely blocked.

'It's not very big,' the builder had assured me when I'd asked him about the size of the house.

Well, it's got four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a double garage. Surely that's big enough for a 10 x 30 m block? Mutter, mutter.

Anyway, that will all become irrelevant soon. I had an appointment with a real estate agent this morning. My house is going on the market within a fortnight. So now all I have to do is make the interior presentable (the real estate people are taking care of the outside) and then keep it presentable while potential buyers traipse through. Yes, yes, of course that's what you do when you sell a house but it means that my home is no longer my sanctuary.

(I know I'm being unreasonable, but this is only the second home I've owned. The first one went on the market after I'd moved 3,000 km away, so I didn't have to deal with buyers.) (And why did you give the word 'sanctuary' a Quasimodo-ish inflection when you read it?)

The question you may be asking at this stage — if you haven't already wandered off to find something less terminally dull, brain-killing, imagination-crushing and enthusiasm-destroying to read — is what on earth is my next step?

No idea.

I'm sure something will come to me.