A grey minibus pulls up behind me as I’m changing into my walking shoes. Five young people get out and hitch their packs. ”We’ll be there at five,” says the driver, and goes. They set off along the concrete perimeter road of the old airfield, with a two and a half hour walk ahead of them. I cut through some trees and, by the time I’m on the same road, they’re a speck in the distance.
It’s been too dry, and a little early yet, for autumn fungi to show, but a whitish dome in the grass under the trees suggests it will not be long before they do. It’s hot, the car thermometer registers 26°, and I’m hoping to find shade in the Inclosure.
Notices on the gate confuse. They warn of forestry work ahead, and caution that care must be taken when proceeding, but the gate is chained, barring entry to all. Leaning on it, I wonder where the work is being done. It seems from the grass-encroached path that no one has been through here for some time.
My reverie is interrupted as a bright patch catches my eye. Nipping over the fence, I see that it is dwarf gorse (Ulex minor), its yellow flowers borne on tall, springy stems supporting short spines so soft that I can run my hand up and down them without getting pricked.
Further access prevented, my only option is to go on to the heath. Here, the pinkish-purple sprigs of heather are studded with yellow tormentil, and mixed with dwarf gorse so tight to the turf that it’s knee-high to a grasshopper. These plants are cropped by the nibbling of ponies and produce rigid stems, and spines sharp enough to spoil anyone’s picnic.
Pressing on, I come across a shallow pool fed by a drainage ditch from the Inclosure. Yellow-flanked water beetles scurry around the bottom, and along the channel, buttercup-like flowers of marsh St John’s wort, topping downy grey-green stems, reach for the sky.
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