Sleeping Wild

A night under the stars, next to nature

Up with the lark: 3.21am

I slept outside last night, under an oak tree.

In the tall grasses next to a wood I made myself a nest, rolling out a mat and bivvy bag.

It’s somewhere secret, off the footpath, a place where I tread lightly. Last night, it’s where I slept lightly.

Sleeping out is otherworldly. Drifting in and out of consciousness, dreaming one moment, disturbed by unfamiliar sounds the next, it’s like inhabiting a parallel universe, far removed from the everyday unthinking of daytime.

The night is associated with fear and unknowing, but the strong boughs of the oak arched above me offered protection and I felt safe in the still night air.

I haven’t slept outside for some time. I’ve been waiting for a warm, dry evening to escape into the countryside and immerse myself in the natural world.

It was already 10.30pm when I walked out of the village in midsummer twilight and headed for my secret destination, about a mile away. The moon, a waxing crescent, hung like a silver scythe in the westerly sky.

Finding my place, I lay back in the grass, the stems and seed-heads silhouetted against the deep blues and purple of the darkening easterly sky.

Immediately, I sensed the miniature ground world around me was alive and at work. Light taps and cracks in the grass, the tiny feet and nocturnal activities of insects. Movement, manoeuvres in the dark. A moth buzzed above my face.

In the trees, the sound of light steps, a creature making its way cautiously through the undergrowth. I listened, unmoving. A deer, I guessed.

It stopped. Perhaps it had sensed me. Then it moved on, plotting its way tentatively through the wood.

I wondered if I might hear an owl in the woods or tree above me, but only one little owl called, some way off. Otherwise, all was quiet. Lying on my back, I drifted into faint dreams.

Sometime before 2am a distant rumble of thunder woke me. I’m sure I felt it in the ground as well as my ears. My eyes half open, I tried to comprehend what the noise had been. No storm had been forecast and I could see blotchy Van Gogh stars above me through oak leaves.

I sat up and put my glasses on. The night sky was clear and there was no breeze. Lying down again, I watched the heavens rotate through the gaps in the leaves, stars moving from one space to the next, like slow-motion hopscotch.

A brightly reflected satellite moved steadily at speed across the sky, west to east. Occasional night flights, cargo planes my app said, flew north west to the United States. Paris to Chicago.

The bell of a church clock struck 2am, followed a minute later by another further down the valley, its bell pitched higher, the toll more urgent, calling belatedly to the first. The air was cooler now and carried an edge of moisture, so I was glad for my fleece jacket and hat.

It never became completely dark last night, reminding me of past midsummers in the forest near Hämeenlinna, north of Helsinki, where the sun rolls below the horizon for a couple of hours, but an ethereal light remains. On those nights, we would alternate between sauna and lake, late into the night, eventually going to bed when a dazzling nordic sun rose above the tree tops. I remember the reeds of the cold lake tickling my toes as I trod water.

My lungs filled with crisp air, I slept for another hour until a lone skylark took to the air and trilled loudly at 3.21am. Up went more skylarks, ascending like little sky rockets into the lightening sky.

Up with the lark – my alarm call. Soon, two blackcaps sounded, piercing warbles from the wood edge. Blackbird, robin, chaffinch and wren joined the chorus.

An hour later the sky was ablaze. The sun had already lit the tops of the trees and the north side of the valley, before it finally rose above the hill ahead of me, sending low beams across the crop tops, turning the barley and grasses gold.

5.15am: Photo by Gary Firkins

I sat watching the day unfurl for the next hour, the sun minute-by-minute heating my chilled bones. Even with an overnight temperature of 17C, a night on the ground can feel cool.

I rolled up my mat and bivvy bag and wandered between patches of oxeye daisies, before reaching the road that clings to the side of the valley, into which the sun now streamed.

Strolling back into the village, upstairs cottage windows had been left wide open freeing the heat of a close night. Everyone asleep. I remembered all those nights I had slept out, alone, but next to nature.

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