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| Drone's eye view of my familiar patch | Drone's eye view of my familiar patch |
| (5 months later) | |
| Rough ground looks like chenille, softly tactile, from 20 metres up. A puddle blinks back whitely, a fallen fragment of sky. I can’t absorb what I’m seeing fast enough. The land beneath me rolls away and the horizon pulls near, creating a sense of adventurous possibility. I’m used to trudging about the garden, hauling sacks of compost, dragging wheelbarrows over gravel; this, by contrast, feels like freedom. | Rough ground looks like chenille, softly tactile, from 20 metres up. A puddle blinks back whitely, a fallen fragment of sky. I can’t absorb what I’m seeing fast enough. The land beneath me rolls away and the horizon pulls near, creating a sense of adventurous possibility. I’m used to trudging about the garden, hauling sacks of compost, dragging wheelbarrows over gravel; this, by contrast, feels like freedom. |
| Hoping for deeper knowledge of my garden, a hectare (2.47 acres) of former farmland on the Cheshire plain, I’ve acquired a small drone with a camera. Drones make brief, veering, playful flights, revealing the familiar from fresh angles. Mine seems more like a kite or a bird than a human with wings: it’s heedless of paths, happiest in ascent, sensitive to the breeze. When it skims the ground it glides over obstacles with grace and purpose, motors no louder than a couple of bumblebees. | Hoping for deeper knowledge of my garden, a hectare (2.47 acres) of former farmland on the Cheshire plain, I’ve acquired a small drone with a camera. Drones make brief, veering, playful flights, revealing the familiar from fresh angles. Mine seems more like a kite or a bird than a human with wings: it’s heedless of paths, happiest in ascent, sensitive to the breeze. When it skims the ground it glides over obstacles with grace and purpose, motors no louder than a couple of bumblebees. |
| Watching the footage afterwards I’m frantic, trying to read the story sketched on the ground before the film runs out. Shadows in the turf where trees used to grow: a reminder that the field was once an orchard. I never knew until now how many rabbit-paths criss-cross the land. Bleached skeins of last year’s goosegrass conceal a ditch and mark out a hedge. The hedge itself proves as wide as a bridle path, while a 200-year-old oak becomes an airy structure viewed from its shoulder, ragged and fragile rather than imposing. | Watching the footage afterwards I’m frantic, trying to read the story sketched on the ground before the film runs out. Shadows in the turf where trees used to grow: a reminder that the field was once an orchard. I never knew until now how many rabbit-paths criss-cross the land. Bleached skeins of last year’s goosegrass conceal a ditch and mark out a hedge. The hedge itself proves as wide as a bridle path, while a 200-year-old oak becomes an airy structure viewed from its shoulder, ragged and fragile rather than imposing. |
| The clean bare lines of spring work better than summer’s fuzzy sprawl: hot colours disappear; water glints from hidden pools and sloughs. The drone offers a desultory, wandering gaze, not a steady and possessive one. Equally, its speedy progress lets me forget my worries over scruffy flowerbeds and moss-grown lawns. When I first flew the drone I wanted to discover things within the garden I hadn’t guessed at. Now its place in the wider landscape seems far more meaningful than the fussy details of my own small plot. | The clean bare lines of spring work better than summer’s fuzzy sprawl: hot colours disappear; water glints from hidden pools and sloughs. The drone offers a desultory, wandering gaze, not a steady and possessive one. Equally, its speedy progress lets me forget my worries over scruffy flowerbeds and moss-grown lawns. When I first flew the drone I wanted to discover things within the garden I hadn’t guessed at. Now its place in the wider landscape seems far more meaningful than the fussy details of my own small plot. |
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