An Oakwoods Almanac

Deliberately and quietly Gerry Loose has spent years walking the woodlands to observe the poetry of clouds and winds; to cheer the dance of gnats and moths to listen intently to the musical compositions of wrens and ravens. An Almanac of two different woodlands one in the Scottish west Highlands and one on Finland's Baltic coast it celebrates those woodlands and their human lives. With shipping and fishing reports of monks and witches landed sea eagles and night walking the voice of the stars and weather forecasts: the beauty and profundity of oakwoods are revealed in a shifting precise prose. Rooted in place through habitation and close observation; an exploration of Sunart and Saari through its languages: Gaelic Finnish English birdsong and world news; heaping language onto landscape and excavating what's been before An Oakwoods Almanac reinvents a classic form.