When I was a child, my parents made me go for walks with them in the countryside. It was not my favourite activity: for me, the best bit of the walk was the point when we turned back. Despite this…

My year is bracketed by beetles. Glow worms (see previous blog) mark the end of spring and the arrival of summer. But when the leaves turn and the tawny owls begin calling and the nights start to…

‘A ribbon of lights’

One summer night in 1919 a young girl walking home across the Slad Valley collected enough glow worms along the way to decorate her straw hat with 'a ribbon of…

Amanda Lawrence lives, works and gets distracted by wildlife in the Slad Valley, near Stroud. She is a full-time glass artist and part-time wildlife surveyor and scrub basher, helping to run…