Ash on Scout Scar in winter light Sunlight and shadow play through slender ash trees. They are older than they seem, these Scout Scar ash. It's exposed up on the ridge and water drains away through the limestone clitter where they anchor so they are diminutive, never reaching the majesty of mature ash. Spring foliage comes late and the prevailing south-west wind is quick to strip them bare in autumn. The quality of winter light makes them distinctive against a foil of bright blue and gathering clouds. Perspectives lead you through the trees toward ethereal wisps of ash on the horizon.
As cloud gathers the light plays fleetingly across the landscape. Twin trunks seem to set the ash dancing. I remember Paolo Uccello's The Hunt in the Forest, a colourful gathering of medieval huntsmen and hounds about to pull down deer. The gaze is drawn through the trees and deep into the dark forest. Uccello imagines the scene, constructs perspective carefully. A hunt in such darkness, surely not!
Up on Scout Scar what you see is the momentary creation of season and weather. There's an allure of perspective framed by trees. You have to find it for yourself, and it's elusive. It is the winter gift of the place.
Up on Scout Scar what you see is the momentary creation of season and weather. There's an allure of perspective framed by trees. You have to find it for yourself, and it's elusive. It is the winter gift of the place.
After a sunlit Sunday, next morning there is fog. A pall of mist hangs over the River Kent. From a town chimney a column of smoke rises and diffuses into the whiteness, into an atmosphere full of moisture. From high on its drumlin, Kendal Castle overlooks the town but this morning the mist rises from the river and engulfs the castle ruins. A ghostly presence. A faint glow on a bank of cloud and a hint of blue breaking through. Trees drip with moisture and a pale winter sun illuminates them, for an instant. A crocodile of brightly clad tots makes its way down into town from school.
These December days bring such contrasts. 'Saturday night was wild,' he said. ' Christmas lights flung about in the wind.'
Caccia Notturna, Uccello's The Hunt in the Forest is a study in perspective. Otherwise, it is unlike Scout Scar. In the centre of Uccello's painting there's a stag leaping to keep clear of the snapping jaw's of a hunting dog chained by its collar to the arm of the huntsman. The mounted riders wear swords and daggers. Men on foot carry spears. There's a hunting horn slung about a huntsman's belt. Deep in the forest there seems to be a lake, a sliver of water. Stylized trees have all the symmetry of the Gothic architecture of cathedrals.
I wonder what hunting expeditions there might have been from Kendal Castle.
I wonder what hunting expeditions there might have been from Kendal Castle.
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