If we left home early in the half light, before breakfast, the white owl would still be ghosting alongside the hedgerows on silent wings to take a last late vole to the shadow of the barn.   And  there in the garden of the big house, behind the wall, a fairy woodpecker, red head and ladder back would be fidgeting his way up the tall trees.  

Alas, the house has been demolished;  the barns pulled down, the birds gone, even the chinking of Corn Buntings in the fields.  The spectral owl still hunts in the wildernesses,  but the fairy woodpecker is a figment, an image torn from a book, a trace in the memory.     

Fifty three more springs have passed.  And then on Thursday,  lying in sharvasana  (the corpse posture) under the tall beeches on the Tumps,  I heard a soft regular tapping, more like a snore or the purr of a contented cat, and a high pitched call repeated three times.   I opened my eyes and caught a flutter as a tiny bird, no bigger than a sparrow but more fragile, moved to another dead limb and rattled a different pitch.  I focussed; the same white stripes, the red cap, the cheek patches and I believed in miracles.

The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker has declined by more than 90% in the last fifty years in the UK and cross Europe.  There are now fewer than  2000 pairs left in Britain.  At least two pairs are present amid the deer and open woodland in Chatsworth Park. The British Trust for Ornithology identifies the possible reasons for its decline as competition with and predation by Great Spotted Woodpeckers, and reductions in small-diameter dead wood suitable for foraging, while the species’ large home ranges suggest that landscape-scale changes in woodland (loss of mature broadleaved woodland, losses of non-woodland trees such as elms, and woodland fragmentation) may also be important (Fuller et al. 2005).

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Once a soldier, man of action,

with connections to the King,  

A traveller, he healed the sick 

From Dumfries to Berwick,  

Made miracles

from Durham to Dunbar,

Received acclaim from Rome.  

.

Be our bishop, they cried.  

At first, he denied. 

Too much work,  he replied. 

I need peace, time and space

to converse with the grace 

of God, but don’t mention the ducks,   

We’ll throw in the island, they said,

Bring you breakfast by boat.  

.

You can wash our feet, they said

if that makes you feels good. 

But he waved them his blessings 

And cuddled his ducks instead. 

.

They must have thought Cuthbert was the man of the moment, a born leader, active, wise, understanding and willing to travel.   But he was also widely known for his piety, diligence, obedience and asceticism.   Northumbria extended as far north as the Forth and as far west as Galloway.  Cuthbert travelled the length and breadth of the country,  preaching,  performing miracles and talking to the people.  His generosity and gifts of insight and healing led many people to consult him. He set up oratories and churches throughout the Kingdom and established a reputation for himself and the church further afield.   When Alchfrith, King of Deira, founded a new monastery at Ripon, it was Cuthbert who became its praepositus hospitum or visitors host. He was a leading exponent of the customs of the Roman church at the synod convened at Twyford on the River Aln and also at the synod of Whitby.     

King Eagwith, about whom the great historian Macauley once said, ‘Who?,’  was impressed and prevailed on the Abbot of Montrose to release him to become Bishop of Lindisfarne,  but Cuthbert didn’t want that sort of responsibility.  He liked coming up with ideas, but he needed space to think and contemplate.  He agreed only if he could live for as much time as he needed in solitude on Inner Farne.  Cuthbert loved the sea and had frequently travelled from Melrose to the priories at Lindisfarne and St Abb’s.  It was said that he could communicate with the wild creatures.  The Eider Ducks were so tame they would nest in his hut.  To this day, the locals refer to them as Cuddy’s Ducks. 

But Cuthbert spent more and more time on his remote island.  If anybody, even the King, needed to see him, they would have to get a boat and a pilot and undertake the often perilous journey from the mainland.  At first he would welcome visitors and wash their feet, but later he waved his blessings from the window and returned to his contemplation. Cuthbert preferred the company of his wild creatures to man, but his inaccessibility only added to his reputation for piety.  

He died in his island hermitage and his body was brought back in state to be buried at Melrose.  Some years later, it was exhumed and his beatification was assured when it was found that no decomposition had set in.  It now rests in Durham Cathedral. 

So what kind of man was Cuthbert?   A reluctant leader?.  A man of great promise, who could not deliver; always out for a duck?  A selfish recluse?   This is open to conjecture, but I like to think of him as a scholar, a man of ideas and inspiration, who could be too affected by others’ agendas.  He needed to escape, to cease the chatter, the demands and be alone.  It wasn’t that he was selfish; quite the opposite.  But he was no politician.  He could see everybody’s view and could so easily be compromised.  And he was quite unsuited to administration. Luckily for him the King recognised Cuthbert’s symbolic importance and his retreat to the island just added to the mystique. He even passed a law protecting the ducks.   

I have just completed St Cuthbert’s Way across the Border Country from the abbey at Melrose to Lindisfarne Priory. It crosses the Eildon Hills (the Roman Trimontium), then follows the broad upland River Tweed as far as the crystal well at Maxton,turns south along Dere Street, goes up over the Cheviots to Wooler, gains the sea at Beal and follows the Pilgrim’s Route across the sands to The Holy Isle.

I rubbed up  a whole new crop of blisters and trudged the mud and sand of the Pilgrim’s Route barefoot and bloodshod.  Half way across, the sky darkened and a squall blew in from the North Sea.  It was then that the it started, an unearthly sound as if all the souls of the departed sailors shipwrecked on this coast has been disinterred and were howling in agony.  It came from what looked like a clump of rocks on a distant sandbank. I focused my binoculars and saw between two and three hundred seals, half of them pups.  This would have stirred Cuthbert’s heart and it stirred mine.                           

My feet have healed and I’ve donated my boots to the RSPCA.  Maybe a duck will find them useful.

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And birds have ceased to call  

When nighthawks glide through misty glades   

And fiery Mars comes up from shades

When fireflies blink and crickets wheeze.

and deer cough deep and owls sneeze  

The sky spreads its carpet of myth

Up ending Orion,

while I, sitting on a stone,

move the branch into the glow and wait   

‘til tousle haired, he brings dazed frogs, which,

steamed with greens, and pungent spice,  

we serve on leaves with sticky rice

and eat with bamboo shots.  .

Nyok!

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the sky deeper.  

Steam rises from the falls,

turns grass stems to prayer flags,

trees into wedding gowns. 

The windows of the big house,

shine gold and

Thomas Payne’s excellent bridge

burns like a biscuit     

against moors of palest pink

Crystal deep,

sparkling deer

join cosy sheep

In a warm circuit of silage,

fermenting an uneasy friendship 

in cloven harmony of hunger.

Flashing red, a woodpicker  

pecks at freezing bark

while Titmice forage,  

out of habit, more than hope,

Spying a discarded raft, I climb aboard

and launch myself down the slope until, 

disgorged in a tumble of laughter,   

I get the drift, use my hands,   

like rockets on a space module

to gain stability but no direction.  

A stranger eyes me by the cattle grid,  

‘I’ve only come for my grandson.’  

I smile like sheep in silage. 

And resolve to buy a sledge.

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Bird How is a simple construction, such as a child would draw; a rough stone box with a gabled roof , two windows and a door painted green.  It stood there, timeless and impassive, when William strode the coffin route from Ambleside with Dorothy scuttling in his wake, to take out a lease in Grasmere.  Restless beasts still bumped and sighed in the shippon and provided underfloor heating when Ruskin worried about industrial pollution from his perspective on Coniston and Mallory practiced the crags of Great Gable.    

The National Trust rescued the house in 1963. The conversion retains the character and feel of the original dwelling.  You enter into a simple living space, a chair a settee, a table and a fireplace with plenty of wood.  The kitchen is behind a curtain and two bedrooms are at the back, one larger with twin beds painted sky blue, the other with a double bunk. 

This accommodation has no bathroom. You wash in the sink or take a bowl onto the terrace.  But after a  muddy descent from the summit across Great Moss and down through the treacherous gorge,  what bliss to wash naked in the rain and pour warm water from the jug onto the shivering spot between the shoulder blades and then run inside to dry off by the chattering fire.     

There’s a chemical toilet in the shippon.  It doesn’t smell but the bucket has to be emptied into the cesspit outside; it’s that rustic.  We might have stayed three nights in a hotel in Grasmere for the same price, but the luxury would have spoiled us with excess and depleted our initiative. Bird How just provides shelter and basic necessities, but accepting the challenge to make a home in the wilderness creates a frisson of adventure and self sufficiency that can never be achieved in a hotel or on a package holiday.  Only don’t forget your sleeping bag and a spare box of matches.    

This article was short listed for The Guardian’s Travel Writing Competition and pubished in today’s paper.  

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The mountains are their playground,

the crags, the fell, the muscular ridge,

the scouring dale, the tumbling water,

the gliding, striding, sliding edge. 

Beating time like boatmen,

their pinioned oars hum in the stiff’ning breeze.

Dark against the weather,

they surf the breaking storm.  

The sudden call, the stall, the mock attack,   

the plunge; the breakneck beak.   

The other, swerving to the pass 

makes high speed chase above the grass.

They’re such show offs!  Like clowns,  

they chuckle, roll over, fly upside down.

Like trapeze artists, they swing on the wind, 

As free as the fall; so near, so close to rocky death.

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Exhausted with the pressure of  work, the bustle and clutter of city life?  Then don’t head for the crowded beaches of  the Mediterranean,  follow the geese; go north to Finland.     

Arola farm is in the region of Eastern Finland known as Suomussalmi, just south of the Arctic Circle and within sight of the watchtowers of the Russian Federation.   It lies on the edge of Martinselkonen National Park,  a Tolkienesque wilderness of dark lakes, vast open forests of spruce, pine and birch, and broad expanses of grassy bog; a magic land of moss and lichen.  Here, over a hundred miles away from the nearest town, you can wander all day in complete solitude, your every step monitored in the tree top conversations of Ravens, the laughter of woodpeckers and the mocking call of the Cuckoo.   

Suomussalmi is on the migration route.  Many of the birds that overwinter in England, such as Whooper Swans, White fronted and Brent Geese pass through here en route to their breeding grounds in Siberia. Others such as Fieldfares, Redwings, Brambling, Waxwing and Golden Plover breed up here but are much more colourful, extravert and  flambuoyant than they are at home.  Bramblings,  small dull finches with stripy wings and narrow white rumps when glimpsed flying up from Cambridgeshire fields on dark wet winter’s, stand sentry in their smart black and red uniforms and announce their presence in long drawn out whistles. And one morning while canoeing up river, we came within a few feet of a Red Throated Diver,  late for the wedding in his light grey morning suit, black and white striped shirt and crimson cravat.  A few Siberian species have also taken up residence in Suomussalmi; Bluethroats, Cranes and Siberian Jays.    

But Eastern Finland is not just for the birds.    If you go down in the woods, you’ll, be sure of a big surprise. Martinselkonen is a refuge for the few remaining really large European mammals. There are Brown Bear, Elk, Wolves, Lynx and Beaver in the forest.  It is just like being in Canada.  Arola has its own bear hide, at the side of a forest clearing a few miles from the farm.  Every night, Eero, our host, leaves 100 kilos of fish and elk meat out under a log.  With their own five-star restaurant,  the bears, normally shy, venture cautiously out of the forest in the long light nights often bringing their cubs with them to feed, play and even make love.  European Brown Bears are enormous creatures.  The male weighs in at over 200 kilos and stands over ten feet tall.   The female is not quite that size, but when they make love, the earth really moves!    But this is no zoo; these are wild animals.  In the hide we speak in whispers and cover our skin to disguise the smell.  Bears have a very good sense of smell.  The slightest whiff of human presence and they gallop off into the forest.  

Bears are not the only creatures to come to Eero’s restaurant.  Occasionally a Wolverine, a kind of large polecat, will venture out for a snack if he thinks the coast is clear.  And a pair of White Tailed Sea Eagles balance on the topmost branches of a spruce tree, fending off attacks from the gulls and waiting until the bears have gone to grab some fish. 

The Sappinen family have farmed in Arola for generations, even throughout the chaos of war when this region was occupied first by the Russians and then by the Nazis.  In 1939 it was Eero’s mother, Lempi, who bundled her children in a blanket, put them on a sledge and escaped across the thawing river to warn the people of Juntusranta that the Russian soldiers had come across the border.  In Finland, as in many parts of Europe, life for small farmers has become increasingly difficult.  And so Helena, Eero and their son Jeru gave up the farm just two years ago and decided to open their farm for tourism.  Visitors can stay here at any time of the year.  Helena once worked as a nurse in Plymouth and speaks English fluently.  She can accommodate up to 11 people in two houses; the old farmhouse and Hevonkuusa,  a lovely log cabin, 500 metres down the track by the lake.  The latter comes with its own smoke sauna and diving platform.

A week in Arola will broaden your mind.  All you need to bring is a love of the wilderness and a sense of adventure.  Children will love the excitement of it. There is so much to see and do.  Trekking in Finnish National Parks is very easy.  The trails are well maintained  and marked,  the traverses across the swamps are dry and boarded and there are comfortable huts equipped with stove and fuel and clean toilets, where you can stay  overnight at no cost at all.  In the summer you can canoe up river to the rapids, trek all day in the forest, watch the wildlife and return for a wonderful sauna and nerve-tingling dip in the river. But in the long winter, when the forest is transformed into a wonderland, you can ski all day along forest trails and return to your log house, warmed by a stove constructed from the local dark soapstone.  Or perhaps you would prefer to go by sledge, pulled by teams of eager huskies. 

Self catering is an option,  but it would be a mistake not to enjoy Helena’s wonderful traditional Finnish cuisine.  Locked in by snow for half the year and with the nearest store 5 miles away, self sufficiency is the by-word.    So berries picked late in the season are boiled and bottled; the delicious dark crimson blue berries swollen with sweetness,  the creamy cloudberries with their subtle hints of butterscotch,  cranberries from the bog and my favourite, the wonderful combination of sweet, sour and bitter flavours of the lingonberries.   Mushrooms are also stored over winter.  Some need to be boiled twice to remove the toxins and then dried.  Others are pickled in brine. Made up into a sauce, the rich earthy flavours are a delicious complement for the tender sweetness of fresh pike or the meatiness of Elk.  Fish is caught locally all the year round.  In the summer, swarms of roach can be caught by net, cleaned and cooked slowly in salt, onion, olive oil and lemon and bottled with tomato.  In the winter, pike can be caught by rod and line through a hole drilled through the thick ice of the lake.    Elk is shot during the brief hunting period in October and kept frozen overwinter.  It tastes like beef, but does not have the fat content.   Reindeer is smoked and salted and is lovely as midday snack in the forest between two slices of freshly baked rye bread.  Beetroot, cabbage and potatoes grow quickly during the light nights of the Finnish summer and can be pickled and stored through the winter. 

To book a holiday at Arola, visit the website at www.arolantila.susmussalmi.net or write to Helena Sappinen at Arolantie 5, FIN 89920 RUHTINANSALMI. (Tel/fax  +358 8 734 403 ). Travel is remarkably inexpensive.  Flights from various airports in England to Helsinki can cost around £200.  Then take a flight to Kuusamo (£80 return), from where Jeru will collect you and drive you the one and half hour journey to the farm.

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by the longer shades of day,

pale as scalded milk, you ghost by,  

weave arabesques in still air;   

your faint heart scans for signs of life,   

the fluorescent tag of fear. 

Then you twist on folded wings,

turn on a tussock, drop, reach,    

close, and fly  away to the barn

to devour, digest and spit out the bones.

And where the bracken is defended

by walls of stone, above the first blush of heather,

and the late surrender of the cotton grass,

as rustic as oat meal, you patrol your expanses,

conceal your intent with patches of white,

keep to dead ground,  row swift then glide

with certainty through a rising dawn,

your face impassive as a clock, as,

driven by instinct  born of empty hunger,

you hover, pounce and feast in the sedge.

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With the breeze over the pines,

a northern angel,

wings spread,

Feathers like fingers,

Feeling, catching  

Every nuance.

A master of energy,

you exploit the faintest

currents of air. 

You hardly seem to move,

No beat, no flap, just

a hint of tilt,  and an

opening like a fan,

of wingtip and tail.  

You close the span,

narrow the profile,

incline the head

bend the wings

and you are a missile,

swift across the valley.

And then, sensing,

A rise of air and heat,

you spread out, stop,   

tilt, spiral

up, up, up,

high, so high,

you are just a dot

against a patch of bluer sky.

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Flashing red, flicking,

vibrating, shivering,

never still, seducing,

enthralling, enticing,

her whistle a question

the answer a scold.

She’s such a tease!

Please!  Oh, please!  

But to be frank,

She’s not a lot to look at,

a dull olive green,

she hides herself in leaves,

but the tail’s a give away,

this brazen hussy

is all tail.

But what of the male? 

Such a serious mate;   

Above his bill, a headlight,

his bib as black as soot,

Chest and belly a flame,

His back as blue as dusk,    

But his shame, his shame too

is in his tail.

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