Nicola Chester

Nature Writer and Activist

swing riots

  • Nature Notes

    Pulling Ragwort. I love the ritual of pulling ragwort. We make a heap of it, slapping bites from horse flies with the clap of a flat palm and a smear of our own blood. For a few weeks, I’ll wear an unscrubbable half-moon of dark juices beneath my fingernails and know its July stink and […]

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  • Nature Notes

    On Speen Moor, Part II: The Library and the Starlings. An hour before sunset, we walk to Speen Moors, stopping at the Ladywell. The ancient stone predates the Romans and covets a sacred spring. The path to it is damp and full of a chill, green, mysterious brightness the colour of duckweed and moss. Wild […]

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