Nature Diary Rocks History Gallery Home Page 
A TRAIN JOURNEY gives a fresh perspective on a familiar landscape. Unlike road travel, you don't feel hemmed in by signs, advertising hoardings and heavy goods vehicles. Instead you're sweeping across open landscapes or dipping into cuttings which, in addition to their wildlife interest, give a glimpse of the underlying rocks.Between Wakefield and London the GNER travels through time, geologically speaking, leaving the valleys of the Yorkshire coal field then climbing Grantham's Jurassic ridge, before cutting through the chalk of the Chilterns. By the time you get to the London Clay you've travelled through 250 million years of Earth history, an average of two million years a minute.
Mouse in the Metro 
A BROWN MOUSE glides around like a clockwork toy beneath the tracks of the Piccadilly Line at Kings Cross. It continues as the train thunders along the line, inches away from it.
Richard Bell, |
On the approach to Kings Cross, the embankments form a long thin wildlife refuge, stretching into the heart of the city. I sketch Buddlehia, Sunflower, Common Ragwort, Teasel and what I think is a kind of Sweet Pea (above). The trackside tangle of garden escapes, weeds and wildflowers also includes Russian Vine and Golden Rod (left).