Slaughter Hill,Haslington, Cheshire Slaughter Hill may be a corruption of “Sloe Tree Hill”, and as blackthorns grow here – trees of ill omen,cantankerous (irritating, difficult) crones“The trees are undressing, as Thomas Hardy wrote in his poem Last Week of October. nowadays, or burnt-toffee and russet leaves litter open farmland,one moment absinthe-green, the next treacle-dark as deep shadows pass over wet grass and the sun is switched on, and off,on, off. A dog barks. Rooks kaah, and kaah. There is the low moo of cattle from the farm. The scent is sour-apple-sweet with a hit of wood smoke.
I pass through the kissing gate festooned with spiders’ webs,and pause to watch a murder of crows in an oak tree open their tatty-cloak wings and scatter in different directions.
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Source: theguardian.com