Goodnight from High-on-the-Hill Farm, where the Trigg family are enjoying a stubble-goose feast after having paid their quarter day tribute to Faery. Goodnight from Ralph Shenwood calling on the Archangels for strength to resist answering the Hoarse Hag’s call. Goodnight from Hookland.

Weather Report pt 2: contrails for comets at sunset. Words I’ve held dear since 1987: ‘A comet that was lost Should be visible at sunset, Those million tons of light Like a glimmer of haws & rose-hips’ Ravens homeward on taffeta wings. Blowing up sparks from embers of light. *Seamus Heaney

Weather Report, pt 1: not nearly as warm as expected. A blanket cloud, clearing. The washing still damp off the line & a day long chill on bare limbs. Out the gate to see the sun down; ivy scent, rooks clamouring. Mist gathering above the fields between the woods. Emotional Weather: emotional.

Weather Report: still Septemberish. A heavy drizzle, afternoon. Bonfires. Pied & grey wagtails around the horses’ legs. The road, a ribbon. A stubble field machine-knitted & drilled into a fine, damp tweed. A nod to the tree with the healed lightning strike. Emotional Weather: bit weary (or lazy.)

'Landscape with a Geoglyph ll' by contemporary painter Sarah Lees #WomensArt

Weather Report: still Septemberish. A heavy drizzle, afternoon. Bonfires. Pied & grey wagtails around the horses’ legs. The road, a ribbon. A stubble field machine-knitted & drilled into a fine, damp tweed. A nod to the tree with the healed lightning strike. Emotional Weather: bit weary (or lazy.)

The size of *one* of the AI data centre buildings proposed for Great Torrington in north Devon, versus Exeter cathedral 🤯 From this useful piece profiling the local campaigns against it: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Vintage of the village hall tea towels. Drying up after so many dos, meetings & events. A ‘Newbury Coat’ commemorative (1991, I was there) a Tetley Tea man (early 1980s) a precious @themerl.bsky.social design (I realise this is one I left behind!) & a possibly 1940s one, that’s dried a few teacups.

Weather Report: mare’s tail skies & mackerel, gulls going over in Vs. Low, speeding swallows, hedge hopping south at sunset. The vaulted heavens a scrabbled, painterly fresco of plough, ridge, furrow & harrow. So absorbed a badger snuck behind me. Emotional Weather: almost serene.

Vintage of the village hall tea towels. Drying up after so many dos, meetings & events. A ‘Newbury Coat’ commemorative (1991, I was there) a Tetley Tea man (early 1980s) a precious @themerl.bsky.social design (I realise this is one I left behind!) & a possibly 1940s one, that’s dried a few teacups.

The village pond & the lake at the Big House are still completely dry. Before we wander into the autumn in our climatical fugue state, let’s not forget this summer of 2026. An Ecology of Love & Ruin. (Blog & Substack /2.) nicolachester.com/2026/09/13/a...

Here, here they come… all the pretty horses, cantering over the field to claim their herd member back, & welcome us home.

Kentish barn, eyerolling at yet another walker cooing at the oast house at its shoulder. Hop cones on the vines in the hedgerows at Ightham Mote Farm, & hoppers huts on the field edges. Hop-picking holiday country, somewhere hereabouts, that Grandad knew as a boy.

Here, here they come… all the pretty horses, cantering over the field to claim their herd member back, & welcome us home.

Something about the end of September … add a whiff of good, grassy cow muck, a horsey, slightly damp tweed… an old waxed jacket creased in lines like a map…

The Watchful Cook@thewatchfulcook.bsky.social · 5d ago

Am now smitten with incredible nostalgia for agricultural shows of my childhood and youth. Every refreshment tent always smelt the same: bruised grass, hot tea, cakes and sweaty farmers.

Kentish barn, eyerolling at yet another walker cooing at the oast house at its shoulder. Hop cones on the vines in the hedgerows at Ightham Mote Farm, & hoppers huts on the field edges. Hop-picking holiday country, somewhere hereabouts, that Grandad knew as a boy.

Trying to be a proper grown up professional at the start of a new term. But these are, & have ever been, my stapling stationery tools. None of which work. Although, Dad’s reliable (Fire Station stationery cupboard) 1960s Rapid 17 does, the box of staples are for the Rapid 14. I’ll keep them anyway.

Trying to be a proper grown up professional at the start of a new term. But these are, & have ever been, my stapling stationery tools. None of which work. Although, Dad’s reliable (Fire Station stationery cupboard) 1960s Rapid 17 does, the box of staples are for the Rapid 14. I’ll keep them anyway.

Weather Report: a dry clouded morning, then skeins of folding rain. Blue September skies today. Farming & rural showtime: engagement, outreach, pride. A forage harvester display, horses, cattle, vintage & high tech machinery, lunch on strawbales, the old yearning. Emotional Weather: agri cultural

Weather Report: a dry clouded morning, then skeins of folding rain. Blue September skies today. Farming & rural showtime: engagement, outreach, pride. A forage harvester display, horses, cattle, vintage & high tech machinery, lunch on strawbales, the old yearning. Emotional Weather: agri cultural

We are absolutely delighted to share that Ghosts of the Farm by @nicolawriting.bsky.social was awarded a Highly Commended recognition for Nature Writing at last night's 2026 Wainwright Prize @wainwrightprize.bsky.social #Booksky #Nonfiction Congratulations, Nicola! 🎉

Fantastic afternoon & evening @wainwrightprize.bsky.social at the stunning Elmley Nature Reserve. Thrilled to bits to be Highly Commended & receive such wonderful support & comments on Ghosts of the Farm. Forgot to take any photos!

It’s @wainwrightprize.bsky.social eve, & just to say how lucky I know I am for this book to have made it into being, & got this far. It comes from a place where everything changed for nature & people, & has so many resonances with now. Younger me can't quite believe it.

Here’s a nice minute of our chickens & dog (Tansy Beetle) entertaining themselves. Chicken luxuriating in the very deep dust bath they made for themselves, & Tansy playing her endless sniff-then-swing-rope game… woof if you wanna go faster…

The Reality of Archaeology an occasional series: Leveret on the spoil heap

Event: Tue 15 Sep - 19:30 - 21:00 FarmED, Honeydale Farm, Station Rd, Chipping Norton.

Nicola Chester@nicolawriting.bsky.social · last mo.

Looking forward to this event with Melissa Harrison & @jcniala.bsky.social @realfarmed.bsky.social Imagining Tomorrow’s Countryside #FutureRural @littletollerbooks.bsky.social & @cprecountryside.bsky.social @cpreoxfordshire.bsky.social

Here’s a nice minute of our chickens & dog (Tansy Beetle) entertaining themselves. Chicken luxuriating in the very deep dust bath they made for themselves, & Tansy playing her endless sniff-then-swing-rope game… woof if you wanna go faster…

This is brilliant. We have to keep writing about what is happening ‘Any longer grass – on headlands and verges - turned a lurid shade of climate fiction. I became unsettled and fascinated by the weird colour, trying, in everything I wrote, to define this new, ill colour on the land’

Nicola Chester@nicolawriting.bsky.social · 2w ago

Before we get lost in new weather, I wanted to set it all down, this summer of 2026. New piece for An Ecology of Love & Ruin. nicolawriting.substack.com/p/an-ecology...

Tomorrow! A handful of tickets left!

Nicola Chester@nicolawriting.bsky.social · last mo.

Looking forward to this event with Melissa Harrison & @jcniala.bsky.social @realfarmed.bsky.social Imagining Tomorrow’s Countryside #FutureRural @littletollerbooks.bsky.social & @cprecountryside.bsky.social @cpreoxfordshire.bsky.social