All Episodes
Daisies
I passed a primary school in a forgotten-looking estate of identikit tower blocks as I cycled into today’s grid square. The playground was full of joyous shrieks and l...
Vineyards
Out into the delirium of spring, riding fast and light-heart- ed towards today’s grid square. Birds belting out love songs in every hedgerow. The first blush of sunshi...
Houses
Blackthorn blossom decorated every lane this week. It was late March and the best time to spot the difference between hawthorn and blackthorn. Blackthorn trees blossom...
Pigs
I locked my bike by the pond on the village green. It was a quiet morning and nobody was about. Village greens conjure peaceful imag- es of cricket matches, community ...
Blossom
‘March, month of “many weathers”,’ grumbled John Clare, the peas- ant poet, and I thought of him as I sheltered from a shower beneath a church’s lychgate. Lych is deri...
Renewal
I was drawn by the distinct scent of fresh water. It’s such a fine, uplifting odour. ‘Long enough in the desert a man, like other animals, can learn to smell water,’ w...
Golf
This was a landmark day of the year: my first bike ride without wearing gloves. I woke to a softer, earlier, warmer sunrise and cycled out to a grid square that began ...
Marina
Historical names for February include the unappealing Old English terms Solmonath (mud month) and Kale-monath (cabbage month). I’m pretty sure the Hawaiian word for Fe...
Snow
There are two types of people in the world, those who love snow and those who do not. There is no such thing as a child who does not like snow. A few people have valid...
Coppicing
Right, Humphreys. Stop procrastinating. You haven’t even started yet!’ I rebuked myself, and stepped out into the rain to begin. As always, solvitur ambulando, I solve...
Enclosures
The Right to Roam, Enclosures Acts, and the issues of accessing the countryside.Rain was still falling hard a week later when I cycled past a garden with two life-size...
Raindrops
I hid my bike in a hedge and set out to explore the grid square on foot, keen to see what the world would offer to my imagination today. My voice sounded small as I hu...
Stillness
Busy days and rain falling. Chasing my tail and going nowhere. Horizons closing in. Boring routines and putting away the weekly shop. So, when I got an opportunity to ...
Gardens
The darkest hour may be just before the dawn, but the darkest morning comes well after midwinter, when the jollity of Christmas has long since faded away.The latest su...
Creek
Litter was strewn over today’s grid square like wrapping paper on Christmas morning. I didn’t want to be disheartened by it on every out- ing, but nor did I want to no...
Litter
December is a quiet month. I looked out over a rolling landscape of empty fields divided into squares by long, straight hedges. The only sounds were of distant cars. W...
Mudlarking
One motivation for exploring a square each week, come rain or shine, was to make being out in nature part of my routine. I hoped that becoming connected with where I l...
Food for Thought: Eating Meat and the Way We Use Our Land
I suspect this might be the most controversial episode of this podcast.How do we use the land in our country?What impact does our food have on nature?How much land is ...
Growing
A sweaty man ran towards me, suffering the exertions of his morn- ing run. This was the first grid square I’d been to that was predomi- nantly residential. I stepped a...
Deneholes
I’d ridden to today’s square straight after waking up, so still felt morning fuzzy as I sat on a log to settle into the woodland and sip coffee from my flask. The grou...
Fly-Tipping
'My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have not yet exhausted th...
Beginnings
I studied my map for a while and found what appeared to be its most boring grid square. A square without road, house or river, just a single footpath, one pond, and th...