Mostly Harmless

Lake Guillemont

Disclaimer

It is beautiful today in Lake Guillemont, so I decide to make a serious investment of time gazing out the window. My first impulse would be to describe our surroundings as "landscaping by those who would rather have knocked up a few more buildings" but that would be grossly unfair. For half a mile we abut mixed woodland owned by the M.O.D. I could hardly call it "undisturbed" since at any moment its peace can be shattered by apocalyptic booms which seem to come from every direction. At lunchtime it fills up with dog walkers who are used to the din. More surprisingly their dogs seem inured to it too - calmly raising a leg to a tree trunk while I find myself diving for cover in the nearest shell hole. I conclude that these phlegmatic beasts are either war veterans themselves or simply stone deaf.

So the woods are not undisturbed but they have been here a long time. There are many mature hardwoods so there is a good mix of wildlife and the sort of general untidiness which reassures the observer that nature is being allowed to get along quite well thank you. And it is that untidiness which the builders of this modern, spacious and curiously earthquake-proof office have successfully allowed into the grounds.

We have manicured lawns along the front, paying lipservice to the norms of business park gardening; but they run up against a rugged moat within which a riot of waterweed conceals dark things stirring. Workmen at perpetual tea-break on the bridge claim to have seen monstrous fish leap clear of the water. They speak wistfully, as if planning to return at night with a rod and a warm jumper.

We have a central park with little paths and benches surrounding a spinney. But this is not planted, rather conserved from what was there before. It is something like chalky heathland; wirey and straggly and bursting forth with hundreds of different species of sedge and hawkweed and trefoil. The botanist I once was can't really remember the name of anything, but rejoices nonetheless.

And we have the lake itself (a pond really) which teems with dragonflies in the Summer and anarchy all year round. As I watch, a vast heron flops onto the water and begins to struggle with a fish the size of a coelecanthe. I am so mesmerised that I fail to notice at first that my tea has gone cold and my boss is standing next to me. He peers at the same scene through a pair of field glasses as the heron begins to prevail. "Ah John, John", he murmers in a voice of distant disappointment, "it's an Ardea herodias eat Esox lucius world..."

Some people know too much for their own good.

Posted at 01:28AM Nov 21, 2006 by John Alderson in Lake Guillemont  |  Comments[0]