When our children were young, we’d take them on voyages of exploration to an extensive patch near our home of what is sometimes called the unofficial countryside, and by unofficial I mean of course forbidden. Trespassing wasn’t mentioned, but children know when parents are being shifty. The subterfuge only added to their excitement, and having to ford a river to reach this lost Eden was very heaven. One April we stumbled across a large patch of wood anemones that hardly anyone would ever see, treasure that could never be moved. So when this past winter suddenly gave way to blazing sunshine, I wondered: could I find it again?
Despite the sun, the moors were still heavy with rain, so the water flowed deep and fast. I threw my boots to the far bank and teetered across, immediately rewarded with a thick spread of ramsons, still fresh with dew. This is a plant almost designed to please children. It stinks and you can make up stories about the bears that grub for the bulbs, wild garlic’s Latin name being Allium ursinum. I stepped carefully, bathing in pungent draughts of scent, toes pushing into the warm earth.
On top of this sensuous richness was a wall of sound, a depth of birdsong increasingly hard to find on these fringes of the Peak District: chiffchaffs and blackcaps, angry wrens and raucous nuthatches, wagtails zipping down the river and the trees full of jays. A woodpecker, head cocked like the hammer of a pistol, chattered to its mate on a neighbouring oak before both fled at my approach: so elongated against a tree, so stubby-tailed and compact in flight.
Of the anemones there was no sign. Was I in the wrong place? Ahead of me was an expanse of brambles so thick that I put my boots back on. As I stepped cautiously, the thorny mass finally cleared to reveal a patch of bone-white flowers turned towards the warm sunshine. It was much as I remembered, certainly no bigger. Wood anemones spread so slowly, rhizomes creeping through the soil, their presence a drift of time deeper than the oldest trees around me.
