ashlyme

Beltane came in bright at first, then put on a cap of cloud. I went back to sign on then back to my parents'. I had the plan to walk to Catney via the fields next to the canal. There's a little more woodland there than I remembered, but wire fences stopped me getting into a stand of silver birch. That field had been treasure-dug by moles; near the bank I found what could have been badger setts or foxholes (or both? I don't think Reynard's averse to using other beasties' burrows). It came on to rain; you could hear it in the leaves more than feel it. I sheltered in a little bower of leaning trees and ivy I'd had the odd winy picnic in in my babby-Goth days. I rolled and smoked a cigarette and sent a few texts to

cybermule . A robin was piping in front of me. I'd already told H I hoped to see a jay on the walk - they're not very rare, but too shy to easily spot. I sat there long enough to see one! I wasn't sure at first, but I saw her hopping between the trees above my head: you couldn't mistake that clay-pink breast, the azure bar on the wing. I was ecstatic.

After a while I pushed on through the trees. Seeing a gap in the fence and a whole tract of bluebells beyond, thought I'd explore. I'm not sure still if that was quite wise, that maybe I should have scrambled down to the cut and walked down to the Boat for a lunchtime pint as my usual routine is. What I found there was a memorial tree, or rather a sapling. I wasn't sure what I was looking at at first. A young tree among the bluebells, hung with tealight holders, old bouquet wrappers on the ground, a plastic wheelbarrow on its side. There was still a card on one of the wrappers and it read something like this (I read it in a Black Country accent): RIP BIG TOMMY SID, YOU WAS BRILLIANT, FROM CHRISTIAN & THE BOYS. I stood there long enough to feel I might be trespassing - not in any conventional sense. I went to go, not in a mad rush, and then it soon became clear I couldn't see the way out. I was lost, which seems daft when you're less than a mile from home, but I was a little spooked and well, anxiety disorders. The trees I'd eyemarked on the way in weren't there. And one swathe of bluebells looks much like another. As did the fields beyond the gateless fence. My mobile had run out of juice. I wasn't stuck in there much more than ten, fifteen minutes, but I tripped over brambles, my own bootlaces. Turned the air bluer than the flowers. I had the fear that the only thing that would find me there was dusk. After a bit I had the sense to follow the fence round til I'd found the gap. I was laughing at myself by then. But later I couldn't sleep, thinking of that little tree alone in the rain and the night; and when I could, I had some folk-horror of a dream, rape and crow-cults, and woke up sweating. If I go back to that place, maybe I should bring it a candle.

There's not been so much else to the last few days. But I watched THE TESTAMENT OF DOCTOR MABUSE last night and loved it. There should be a collection of occult detective stories starring Inspector Lohmann.