Love Letters on the River, Carly Holmes, Parthian
Lottie Williams
‘Love Letters on the River’ by Carly Holmes, published by Parthian, is a collection of celebratory essays set alongside the River Teifi. Each showcases the author’s encounters and sometimes missed encounters with the birds and mammals which live beside and around her.
I was expecting stories about the river itself, but in fact it’s more than that – it’s about the stories which the river supports and the communities it provides for. These encounters flow from a Winter barn owl over the Teifi Marshes, to hobbies at Cors Caron, and swifts at the Watch House. Badgers eat T-bone steak, and a curiously friendly vixen ‘appear(s) as if through a rent in the air between this world and the next’. I was particularly drawn to the story of Runty, the gaunt, featherless and scabbed jackdaw, looked after by Carly and her brother, both committed to its survival.
Time and time again we feel the author’s dedication to nature, from the two month riverside vigil of a juvenile osprey, to the plight of the wrens who fledged in awful weather just in time for Carly to marry her partner, Si.
Feathered and furred
Carly describes herself as a working class nature lover. Her formative years growing up on a council estate and then moving to the big skies of rural West Wales have played a huge part in her appreciation of all things feathered and furred. She is firm when she states she is not an expert on wildlife, and this book is not intended to be an expert’s observation. These are her own reflections, and the wonder and joy she feels. Her pleasures lie in the sighting of the animals, which she prefers to watch without the lens of camera and binocular, ‘I don’t ever
want there to be a filter between me and the wild world I’m watching. Even if that means a less clear, less sharp focus’.
To live in the moment, all senses flaring, and be able to carry that memory home is far more important to Carly. Everything meets with the same thrill, from her first sighting of a bittern to the everyday sparrows and tits at her garden feeders.
Guy Manning has added to Carly’s joyful and uplifting words with beautiful illustrations. From the painting of the river and its banks which spill from front to back cover, the essays are joined by illustrative pops that capture the animal characters throughout: the sharp eyes and splayed primary feathers of an osprey; the inquisitive stretch of a weasel ‘balanced on a trembling thistle’; the open shout of a wren; a vixen curled up asleep, nestled in the duvet of long grass.
This book is also about human to human relationships and how the river brings us together, of Carly and Si chasing the dawn chorus, of Kelvin and Carly devoting their days to feeding Runty and keeping her safe, of friends drinking pints in a pub beer garden overlooking the river. It’s of families in car parks at dusk, and of birders with big lenses waiting for the big ‘moment’ – when the bird finally reveals itself.
Human and non-human
There is also an awareness of the fine line between human and non-human, and how much Carly can and does intervene, questioning the balance between allowing just enough for a bird to survive without leaving an imprint or an inability for it to provide for itself. It isn’t just her and Si’s garden, it’s a welcome place for everyone.
These love letters are a celebration of life. In comparison to other contemporary nature books, Carly only occasionally mentions the climate and ecological emergency, and that’s actually ok. With so much of what we might call ‘new nature writing’ now which focuses on the plight of the planet – and rightly so – it’s been a pleasure to sit back for once and just enjoy the pure elation of traditionally immersive and beautiful nature writing. And I say this because this type of writing, one that fills us with wonder, has no means to potentially paralyse us, create anxiety and insist that we must motivate ourselves into action now.
Instead, Love Letters on the River provides a reminder of why we love nature, how we appreciate it, and when  that happens we naturally want to protect it. Not everyone reading will be able to relate first hand, not everyone lives on the river, yet these love letters remind us to notice and connect to what we do have around us. And where better place to start than in our own backyards.
Love Letters on the River is published by Parthian and is available online and in bookshops.
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