Author Archives: jonathan trustram

notes on bird hides and on rewilding

Posted on December 17, 2024 by jonathan trustram

Four Fields, Tim Dee, p. 51 A new sort of alienation has already been devised: the tristesse of the bird watching hide. I can feel it now in the strange log cabin that has been erected on Tubney fen. Nothing … Continue reading →

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A dream come true (and an easy walk)

Posted on December 9, 2024 by jonathan trustram

Yesterday, a sunday, I took the train in the gloom to Lakenheath, one stop on the line to Norwich, not counting Shippea Hill, which according to the map is about five metres above sea level. Lakenheath station is a couple … Continue reading →

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Easy Walks No 6, at home and abroad

Posted on November 23, 2024 by jonathan trustram

Last year I kept wondering if I’d ever be able to walk all the way up Mount Olympus in Greece. I’ve been half way up, to the first refuge, and come down again that same day. Could I stay at … Continue reading →

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Easy Walks No 5, in the Vallon de Nant

Posted on November 13, 2024 by jonathan trustram

Since I looked up the new exchange rate for the Swiss franc I hesitate to recommend a walk in Switzerland, but still, this is a fabulous walk and there’s a good story to it. You can get the Eurostar to … Continue reading →

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Into the past again, awkwardly: inside the tulip

Posted on October 23, 2024 by jonathan trustram

I’d never seen such a creature before, but I knew in a vague sort of way that something called a pollen beetle existed, and this has to be it. It could be a cue for thoughts of corruption and decay, … Continue reading →

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Cherry Hill, contested land

Posted on October 22, 2024 by jonathan trustram

To anonymous on the love ely facebook page: Cherry Hill is not quite farmland, not quite park, not quite ‘wild space.’ One half of it, separated by simple post and rail fencing which is easy to climb over, looks like … Continue reading →

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into the past again, naturally: the perfect tulip?

Posted on October 22, 2024 by jonathan trustram

Of course I don’t have a favourite flower, but this is it. In 2016, in April, at the end of a trip to Greece, I drove a long way round back towards the airport, though Parnon, or Parnonas, in the … Continue reading →

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Ely Diary

Posted on August 21, 2024 by jonathan trustram

ONE August 16. A notice advertises a visit to a ‘secret garden’, the garden of the old Bishop’s Palace, it doesn’t say what the tickets cost, but since it’s organised by the Cromwell’s House business it won’t be cheap. Just … Continue reading →

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(very) easy walks, No 4, Burwell and the future

Posted on August 6, 2024 by jonathan trustram

On the edge of the low chalk hills around Newmarket, just a few feet above sea level, just a few feet above the fens, just about safe from floods, lies a string of villages. Burwell is one. It used to … Continue reading →

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Easy Walks No 3, down to the river

Posted on August 6, 2024 by jonathan trustram

East along Ely high street, past one of England’s finest concentrations of charity shops, and, appropriately, the medieval almonry where charity was distributed to the poor and needy, stopping off at Londis. I fancied drinking a can by the river. … Continue reading →

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