Woodcock corner, a place that is at the boundary between Epsom and Ashtead commons, Newton wood and fields to the North. When I get to this point on my walks there is a feeling of arrival and immersion. I can't explain it, but it is like diving into cold clear water, both familiar and strange.

It is called Woodcock corner because they used to shoot them there, so now there are none, strange how that happens.

It isn't long now till the last Artwalk on the 1st of September, see you there

Before I set off to Epsom common I always look out of my kitchen window,  this morning our local crows were perching on the scaffolding, occasionally diving off and letting the updraft lift them back up. As I made this picture a pigeon came past and in the very top corner of the frame a seagull was turning West and screeching at the morning.

I prefer to make pictures from a distance of animals, I expect they are fed up of having long lenses pointed at them all the time.

The caterpillar of the Cinnabar Moth eating away at yellow Ragwort, Epsom Common

The caterpillar of the Cinnabar Moth eating away at yellow Ragwort, they brazenly flout their waring yellow and black markings, which I think potential predators read as 'I am poisonous, don't eat me'

They become a black moth with red wing markings, If I was a moth I would love to be dart shaped, and decked out in black and red. As the goths of the moth world they dress in black and fly in the day despite the sun.

Drawing by Sarah Anderson 2013 made as we walked through Epsom common high and low meadow

 Sarah Anderson 2013

We walked through Epsom common's high and low meadow on to Woodcock corner, along the edge of Newton Wood to Ashtead common and within the Triangular earthwork, where I always think time stands still, or at least doesn't sprint past, we drew. Sarah Anderson made this drawing of one of the ancient oaks. There was a fire in this area in the 80s and all the trees are charred.

There is a timelessness to Sarah's drawing, made with pencil and some water, quite beautiful.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TIME

The more I visit Epsom & Ashtead commons the more I realise that it is time that is of importance to me and hence to this residency. The privilege of simply walking a familiar route, and is nearly always the same route that I walk, taking my own sweet time and seeing the changes in the plants, the animals and the trees, it is enough for me. I feel a pressure to make something, a photograph or a drawing, but it is enough surely just to be in a space.

To prove that I do make something here is a photo of a Meadow brown butterfly on a thistle.