Country diary: Quieter days around the solstice | Paul Evans

The Marches, Shropshire: After the wind shook everything up, the rains have returned and the crazy old oaks have withdrawn into themselvesPigeons of the patient mind swirl over roofs of the post office and a Wetherspoon's named after Wilfred Owen, the Oswestry-born poet. All the birds have been shaken by this recent brood of storms, which deepen the answering violence of the oceans. Through the physics of vulnerability, all the molecules of bird and wind rush in the same direction, casting hollow bones through the forward motion of primary feathers into the aerodynamics of trust.The trees are shaken too. An old beech, with all its grand architecture and generations of carved graffiti like runic script, was downed in Cae Glas Park. Out in the fields up Penylan Lane, jackdaws settle in an oak. In its dark hollow is an imprisoned King Lear, who raged against the storm, daring it to "crack its cheeks" and send the "oak-cleaving thunderbolt". It's quiet now. Rain returns, clouds wrap the skyline, and the crazy old oaks, instead of raging in their own heads, have withdrawn into themselves. "No," Lear says, "I will be the pattern of all patience. I will say nothing." Continue reading...