Trail teas

From spruce needles to haw berries - pluck yourself a few ingredients from the hedgerow for your next cup of tea in the great outdoors

Spruce needles
Resinous, refreshing and rich in vitamin C – spruce needle tea is the perfect pick-me-up after a long hike. Pick the young needles (they taste sweeter) at the tips of the branches and infuse in hot, not boiling, water. Do not confuse with yew needles – they are toxic.

Hawthorn berries
Hawthorn is Britain’s most abundant hedgerow tree, so you’ll not be short of berries for an autumnal brew. They look like mini red apples, and require soaking for 12 hours to soften them before infusing, but all worth it for a tart and tangy tea that’s high in antioxidants.



Gorse flowers
The thorny gorse bush flowers at any time of year and is commonly found on clifftops and heathland. Its vivid yellow flowers have a mild coconut and almond flavour – perfect for a calming cup of tea before a night under canvas. Bruise the petals slightly before steeping.

Birch twig
Easily identified by its peeling white bark, the silver birch can be found in woods all over Britain. Birch twigs and buds have diuretic properties, so are good for flushing out toxins. Make sure the water isn’t boiling, as that will evaporate the wintergreen flavour.

Always take a reputable wild food guidebook with you when foraging – if you’re not sure, don’t pick it.

This originally featured in issue 10 of Ernest Journal. Illustrations by Aidan Meighan.

Pure shores

Vivienne Rickman-Poole reflects on the intimidation, awkwardness, then utter joy she feels cold-water swimming in the mountain pools of Snowdonia

Images by Vivienne Rickman-Poole

I am constantly, helplessly drawn towards Snowdonia’s mountain pools. I find myself ever searching for the huge expanse of nothingness below the surface. Nothing quite compares to that ultimate abyss of a deep, sometimes dark, mountain lake, where there is absolutely nothing below you. That is what I am searching for in every single swim: the absolute reward for getting in. It's not always there – not all lakes are deep and crystal clear – but when it is, that's the moment of zen, when I can swim and swim, my whole body in tune, my front crawl arms, legs, hips and breathing are perfect and my mind is empty. It is a present feeling, which I think enables me to reflect more; I always spend a few moments recording or writing after every swim.

I enjoy the relationships I form with the water. One lake close to my home – Llyn Dwythwch – has been a source of love and hate for many years. Nestled in a particularly boggy cwm, it’s a spot of solitude and wet feet, of isolation and elation. I have procrastinated on its banks many times; I’ve sat on its lake bed during a mid-winter howling wind and let the cobwebs drift from my hair; I’ve floated face down and stared in complete awe at the sheer falling darkness below me. It’s this feeling of intimidation, this awkwardness and eventually utter joy from the water that constantly feeds my need to explore the mountain lakes.

Sometimes I just have an overwhelming need to feel submerged. To feel that depth, that pressure across your skin. It’s a little like receiving a hug, enveloped in a freshness that only a mountain lake can provide. I swim all year round and look forward to feeling the changing seasons on my skin, especially as winter comes and the temperatures drop; not only does the clarity of water become incredible but the somehow it feels purer.

Getting into freezing water in the dark months of winter takes some getting used to. I spent months acclimatising many years ago and have developed little rituals to help me get in with seamless ease. I like to get certain parts of my body used to the chilliness first – I splash my arms, chin, my neck, back of the neck and then I am straight in. It’s this moment, the split-second of being submerged, that feels sublime. I always feel truly alive after a swim but that feeling intensifies in winter as the water gets colder. It’s quite hard to describe – winter swims are shorter but the ‘alive’ feeling is greater and lasts longer.

I guess I am always hoping to feel an ‘afterglow’ – something that new swimmers often feel, and which comes from dipping in cold water. When you get out, usually when you’re getting changed, a flood of warmth sweeps across your body followed by slow building cold, a cold that gets inside your bones, to your very core. It’s a nice feeling, it’s intense, something you come to crave.

The experiences I have in the mountains impact my life in many different ways. On a daily level it can be both blissfully positive and a little bit negative. I mean, how can you focus on a day of work when you have walked halfway up Snowdon in first light to be the only person standing in a swimsuit on the edge of a frozen mountain lake, its mirror perfect surface reflecting the blue skies and snow-capped peaks surrounding you? Breaking the surface for an icy dip induces a knowing smile and rush of endorphins that lasts all day. I want to shout about how wonderful it was.

I have found that my journey into lone swimming has had the greatest impact on my life. Travelling into the mountains alone and making choices that are all mine, decisions only I can make – be it navigational, about the weather, about what I consider safe and listening to my own body in and out the water – these have been the things that have shaped me in other areas. I am stronger and happy to make decisions that are all mine and live by my convictions.

Follow Vivienne on Instagram @viviennerickman and join her on one of her creative mountain swim days; viviennerickmanpoole.co.uk/guidedswimming.

This article originally featured in issue 8 of Ernest Journal.

Swimming in cold water can be dangerous, do not swim if you're not acclimatised to cold conditions.

The Uncanny Scenery of a Dream

In his upcoming exhibition at the Jealous Gallery, London, Stanley Donwood showcases his mesmerizing illustrations inspired by the poems of Thomas Hardy

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Our paths through flowers (2021), by Stanley Donwood

Many may recognise Stanley Donwood's artwork from the cover of every Radiohead album since The Bends in 1995 , and his Brothers Grimm-esque illustrations for Rob Macfarlane and Dan Richards' bestseller Holloway.

Donwood’s latest body of work, The Uncanny Scenery of A Dream, draws inspiration from the rural Dorset landscapes described in Thomas Hardy’s Selected Poems, which will be published in a new hardback edition from The Folio Society later this year. To create the series, Donwood travelled to the areas that inspired the author’s poetry, creating a series of sketches on scraps of paper, old envelopes, maps and torn pages from yellowing books. In appreciation of the strong abiding affection Hardy felt for Dorset, Donwood immersed himself in the romantic landscape and rendered atmospheric layered drawings, providing a new way of visualising Hardy’s Wessex.

In his illustrations Donwood explains he has “tried to encapsulate the vague air of solitary melancholy” he interprets from Hardy’s work. Many drawings depict a lone figure in isolated environments with boundless sky above, and flocks of birds transcending the page and earthly plane.

The Uncanny Scenery Of A Dream runs from 27 May - 20 June 2021 at Jealous East, 53 Curtain Road, London, EC2A 3PT, then the exhibition continues at their Crouch End Gallery, 27 Park Road, London N8 8TE from 24 June - 18 July 2021. Find out more at jealousgallery.com

In our upcoming edition of Ernest, author Dan Richards speaks to Stanley Donwood about his new artworks depicting the chalkscapes of the South Downs.

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Above: In A Solitude of The Sea and Our Paths Through Flowers, by Stanley Donwood

The Welsh Camino

In his new book Pilgrimage: Journeys of Meaning, Peter Stanford explores how pilgrimage provides the modern age with a means to take a longer, slower and hence more profound look at life, stretching all the way back to when the first pilgrim put one foot in front of another. In this extract, he describes how the ‘Camino effect’ has rippled its way to a forgotten trail in the North Wales countryside

The Abbey ruins on Bardsey Island, North Wales. © History collection 2016/Alamy Stock Photo

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm on your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

This traditional Celtic blessing has been adopted by the North Wales Pilgrim’s Way. It sums up both the spirit in which walkers take up the challenge it offers, and the ever-present connection to an earlier age that the route provides to all-comers. In early Christianity, the wind at your back would have been readily understood as the Holy Spirit, but for the new generation of pilgrims there is no requirement to talk of the visible in terms of the invisible. What is openly expressed, though, is the ambition that this trail should be regarded as the ‘Welsh Camino’. In 2009, Jenny and Chris Potter had walked the Camino in Spain. On their return to North Wales – where Chris served as an archdeacon in Saint Asaph, which boasts the smallest Anglican cathedral in Britain, built on the site where another Celtic saint, Kentigern, established himself as a bishop in the sixth century – they were inspired to explore the history of the neglected pilgrim path that passed right by their doorstep. 

It has been thanks to their efforts – a perfect illustration of the ‘Camino effect’ rippling outwards – that a route was identified, mapped, tested out in 2011, waymarked, and then officially opened in 2014, complete with its very own pilgrim’s passport, which can be stamped at churches, shops and pubs on the way. In some places the trail mirrors the one original Celtic pilgrims would have taken, its identifying landmarks being small, low-lying ancient churches and sacred wells that are scattered all over the North Wales countryside, along with distinctive Celtic crosses such as the tall, thin tenth-century ‘wheel cross’ in a field at Maen Achwyfan in Flintshire on the route near the village of Llanasa (‘the enclosure of Saint Asaph’). It features intricate knot patterns in its weather-beaten carvings, as well as a shadowy figure on the lower panel. Their exact meaning is lost in the mists of time – like a lot of things with Celtic Christianity. Meanwhile, one suggestion for this ‘wheel cross’ being in such a lonely location is that it marks what was once a hermit monk’s cell, built to be far away from any distraction save nature and God.

Place names that begin with Llan- generally indicate a sacred past, but there are so many of them in North Wales it didn’t really help in pinning down a definitive pilgrims’ route. So, notably at Abergwyngregyn around the halfway point, where the route joins the already established Wales Coast Path, the Pilgrim’s Way opts to make use of existing infrastructure. If this is not a perfect recreation, then it does successfully link four key locations from 1,300 years ago: Holywell, Gwytherin, Clynnog Fawr and Bardsey. The first three share a close association with two presiding presences on the pilgrimage, uncle and niece Saints Beuno and Winefride.

Penmaenmawr stone circle, photo © Hansjoerg Lipp (cc-by-sa/2.0)

Like so many other Celtic monks Beuno, who died around 640, came from a privileged background. He embodied the missionary spirit that was a key part of vocation. His personal pilgrimage was as much about finding souls to convert as it was seeking personal enlightenment. After ordination in Bangor, now a popular starting point halfway along the Pilgrim’s Way for those on a tight time schedule, he spent his days travelling all around North Wales, bringing people to a God whom he saw in every bit of the dramatic natural environment around him, bounded as it is by the sea on one side and the spectacular mountain range that includes Snowdon, Wales’s highest peak, to the other. Often when he moved on after such a mission, he would leave behind a simple church building and a well. Water had special significance to Celtic Christians, who used ‘triple immersion’ in baptism ceremonies (in contrast to today when a tiny scoop of water is deemed sufficient). And Beuno was never happier, legend recounts, than when praying half-immersed in cold water, punishing his body to bring his soul closer to God.

Water also possessed healing powers, he believed. The pagan roots of this typically Celtic belief are plain. Indeed, one of the features of the North Wales Pilgrim’s Way is that it encompasses, alongside Christian churches and crosses, pagan holy sites such as the stone circle at Penmaenmawr (pictured above), and the 4,000-year-old yew in the churchyard at Llangernyw. On account of their extraordinary longevity – making them a symbol of (near) eternal life – yews held a special place in pre-Christian belief systems. Springs and wells, too, as well as groves of trees, were believed to be sacred, and became the backdrop to pagan rituals. Emerging Christianity sought not to confront and wipe away such patterns of worship, but rather to merge them in its own approach to the divine. Some anthropologists refer to this process of assimilation as ‘baptizing the customs’.

This is an extract from the chapter ‘The North Wales Pilgrim’s Way: Celtic Revival’ in Pilgrimage: Journeys of Meaning by Peter Stanford (Thames & Hudson: 2021)

In partnership with Thames & Hudson we’re giving away three copies of this beautiful book on Instagram – head over to our feed to find out how to enter.

Thames & Hudson are also providing Ernest readers with a 25% discount off the book - just enter ‘PILGRIM25’ at the checkout when you order through their website.

Island dreams

“Of the islands I’ve cherished most, I met many first in print”. In Island Dreams, Gavin Francis examines our collective fascination with islands. In this short extract, he follows the literature of Charles Darwin, Bruce Chatwin and Herman Melville to remote islands in the Pacific and Southern Atlantic Ocean.

South Georgia and Bird Island, G.W. Colton, Colton’s Atlas of the World Illustrating Physical and Political Geography, Vol. 1 (New York, 1855)

Chiloé

The island of Chiloé is notorious for a dank and macabre mythology in which much of the population is said to still believe: goblins, warlocks and all manner of creatures are thought to populate the caves in the forest along the eastern shore. When Darwin visited in the 1830s there were tales of people accused of devil worship being sent to the Inquisition in Lima. On the island’s western coast, I watched the Pacific. The roar of it, the mother of all oceans, deadened all other sounds. My mind couldn’t begin to grasp the immensity of water: the same ocean lapping the Antarctic, California, New Zealand and countless thousands of atolls and islands sprinkling across the globe’s half-span. From it, tropical sunshine raises clouds which pour rain over the whole of the earth. The number of dialects and languages spoken along these shores was inconceivable, as were the diversity and abundance of the species and habitats dipped in the water that slapped the soles of my feet.

Tierra del Fuego

There was a time in my youth when, like Bruce Chatwin, I was captivated by E. Lucas Bridges’ The Uttermost Part of the Earth – a book about growing up on the island of Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of Patagonia. I went there aged 26, between a spell training in emergency medicine and taking a job as a doctor with the British Antarctic Survey. I travelled north to the Valle Carbajal. Eagles watched warily from low-hanging branches, a Fuegian fox ran off with my bread rolls, at the summit I swung by legs over glaciers the colour of petrified sky. In four days along the trails there were no other walkers.

Bird Island, South Georgia

On our approach to South Georgia, the ship pushed through bands of fog and sunshine, the seas around the ship’s hill teeming with life. Fur seals somersaulted through the water; sooty, wandering and black-browed albatrosses swooped in the ship’s wake. The waves frothed with giant petrels, cape petrels and penguins. I took a ‘tender’ to meet scientists who live year-round on Bird Island – a splinter of rock off South Georgia’s western cape. They handed me a broom handle ‘seal-bodger’ with which I was to beat off any fur seals that approached with fangs bared. Black-browed albatrosses nested along the slopes among the tussock grass. Up on the plateau I tiptoed, awe-struck, between the nests of wandering albatrosses. The immense birds, larger than swans and with a 12ft wingspan, were untroubled by my presence, marvellous in their serenity.

Island Dreams: Mapping an Obsession (Canongate: 2020) is an exploration of isolation and connectedness based on 30 years of travel, from Gavin Francis the Sunday Times bestselling author of Adventures in Human Being and Empire Antarctica.