Notes From Walnut Tree Farm By Roger Deakin
Posted at 10:34AM Tuesday 30 Dec 2008
Notes from the Walnut Tree Farm
ISBN: 9780241144206
These extracts from the celebrated naturalist's diaries of the last six years of his life, mostly in and around his Suffolk home of the title, have been arranged to cover a single calendar year, so that the reader might share in Deakin's rapturous observation of the changing weather and seasons. He swims in his moat, sleeps under the stars, adores his cats, and instructs us as to the "optimum dimensions for a writing shed". (I took note: 14ft by 9ft.) He also has a philosophical mode, swift and laconic: "I am interested in the society of trees. A wood is a society of trees, and it stands for democracy and society." And I was delighted to read of his fetishism of the Rotring Art Pen, which I share. The lesson of this gorgeous and deep book is that nothing is boring if you look at it hard enough; and though there is a lot of fascinating material about working outside with plants and timber, my favourite parts were the anecdotes about particular spiders or ants inside the cottage, wandering over the writer's desk or lurking by the window, seen close-up with a patient and wondering gaze: they are little narrative masterpieces.
Guardian review
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