The Moss Garden

A CUSHION-FORMING MOSS on a concrete path in a back garden looks like dense forest seen from the air. A brighter green feathery moss covers the roots of an Ash. Take the time to tune into this miniature world and you'll begin to see the life that inhabits these forests of moss. A small bronze-green beetle trundles past and there are smaller scale creatures you'd need a hand lens to pick out.

Fossil worm burrows (or feeding tracks made by shrimps or shellfish 300 million years ago) are picked out in relief in a sandstone block edging the canal. Where sandstone facing is missing from a wall the original in-fill of rock fragments can be seen. There are broken bricks stamped 'FOUNDRY(?) IRON BRICKWORKS' and chunks of iron furnace slag.

Black-headed Gulls look at home on a semi-permanent flood, the steep slope behind has been planted with poly-tube-protected saplings. Between the canal and River Calder nearby stands a stone-built farm, probably older than the canal itself. If I ever need to illustrate a story set on a farm I know where to come.

What could also be out of a story book, at the old canal basin at Savile Town, Dewsbury, a woman trots a lamb back to her narrowboat. The yard dogs are a friendly bunch, as we sit with our coffee at the Old Stable one comes over, rests his head on my lap and looks wistful. Later I discover he had given me a pebble to throw. A toddler runs around a patch of quay-side tarmac with that jerky run that makes me fancy he is road testing a new and unfamiliar pair of legs.

Sitting in the sun, drinking coffee at a quay-side cafe, watching the world go by. It seems very continental. As we come back past the Asian community of Savile town on the far side of the canal, a delicious spicy aroma of Indian food drifts across, we could be wandering along behind the Taj Mahal.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail;'richard@daelnet.co.uk'