Over the past week, I have had numerous opportunities to come home at unholy hours of the night, or the wee hours of morning, and have been able to observe the various night scenes of my local area at these rather strange hours. Camberwell has been gradually moulting in my mind's eye, shedding its scaly and somewhat sinister sinews for a softer, more benign skin. The town is quiet at midnight, sleepy almost. Stores are closed, shutters are down, and there are few people on the streets.

In the early hours of the morning, just as the birds shrug off the drowsy coat of sleep, the town is silent, still. One imagines the Sandman stepping softly sideways through doors and windows, leaving trails of dreams in his wake. The bus is almost empty, but for a whiskered street cleaner on his way to work, or home, rolling himself a cigarette with athritic fingers, and a young and cocky couple dressed in matching silver jackets trying to take the mickey out of the cleaner, who steadfastedly ignores them both. I look out the window, see a street littered with suggested presences - the empty beer bottle leaning against the busstop stand, the half-finished beer can balanced precariously atop the dustbin, the faint lights of a twenty-four hour convenience store.

Walking up the steps to Waterloo Station, I think briefly to myself that I must be completely mad, to be awake at three in the morning, to reach a train station at four, a train station that isn't even open yet, to catch a five o' clock train to a forest.

On the way to New Forest, I banish that thought very, very rapidly.

We step out onto a deserted train platform; the sky is grey, a little cloudy. It is drizzling, and the town is silent, still. We remind ourselves that it is highly unlikely people would even dream of coming to New Forest this early in the morning, and so, with this thought in mind, we decide to walk to the central town. We take a forest detour that eventually leads us back to the exact same place that we started out from, and during said detour, I manage to have a slight mishap with a ditch that has you in stitches, and keeps you in stitches throughout the rest of the day. I am thankful you did not manage to capture it on camera. While navigating a marsh and trying not to sink, we spot a small herd of deer, fleetingly through the tree branches, velvet brown against green, and hear a woodpecker working his way through a tree trunk so constantly, you are convinced that the noise is, in actual fact, caused by several woodpeckers in an attempt to drive you mad.

We eventually reach the central town, after some long minutes of walking along the edge of the road, by a rather wet grassy area pretending to be a grass verge (but failing miserably). We catch our first glimpse of the wild New Forest ponies, and talk about inconsequential things, such as the difference between a horse and a pony - because some of the ponies are so large, they actually look like horses. We learn later that there aren't any horses, and all the short brown-furred, long-maned equine creatures we see roaming the grasslands are ponies.

For a while, it is nice to see civilisation again, people, cars (expensive cars), tea houses and pubs. In an attempt to prevent ourselves from getting lost again, we purchase a map at the Information Centre. You buy a pot of tea from a cheerful looking cafe, and we learn that appearances can be very deceiving - we spend several minutes looking at the menu, and realise that tea is just about the only 'ordinary' thing on it. We have just wandered into Diet Central, and, tiring of the saccharine sweet descriptions of fat-free food and desiring real food, you finish your tea and we leave in search of a pub, somewhat amused by the cashier's shocked expression when she inquires as to your order - "Just tea?"

We eat in the sun, under a bonny blue sky, and for once, the sun's rays are actually warm, a rarity for England, generally. I imagine this must be what the flowers feel, every Spring, this urge to dance, shout, stretch and unfurl, to shake off Winter's frost.

Later, we walk through a pleasant wooded area towards a deer viewing point, and find ourselves face-to-face with a rather inquisitive New Forest pony. You play at being pony whisperer, though perhaps you play your part too well - the pony inspects us from top to toe, and allows itself to be stroked and petted on the nose before returning to crop at the grass.

The landscape around us changes so quickly, I feel as if I have travelled through several countries by the time we actually reach the deer viewing point. At one stage, we are strolling through oakland; in literally the blink of an eye, we find ourselves in a vast, windswept grassland area, dotted with a few trees, all harsh lines and sharp edges, a few melancholic pools of water glinting and grey; not a moment later we are surrounded by rolling green meadow that is so reminiscent of the English countryside; gradually the meadow is overtaken by tall stately pine trees, their tree trunks stretching over our heads and disappearing into verdant green clouds. The sunlight peeks through the trees, scattered light catches against fallen pine cones, and the sharp scent of pine fills the air. Soon enough, we reach the deer viewing area - in fact, we would have walked past it if not for the well-placed signboard pointing us to the small fenced platform. We buy New Forest ice cream from a van parked in the middle of a small field, and sit on a bench dedicated to a man and his cat Treacle, to eat. We watch families go by: a lady walking her dog, a little boy playing pretend-war, a small toddler in a pretty pink coat waves her ice cream cone at us, her mother jokes about how she hasn't dropped it yet. I mumble that you decided to share your ice cream with the bench. You prod me in retaliation. It is getting slightly colder now, but we stay on our bench anyway, watching the sunlight weave through the tree branches, sometimes leaving us in shadow, sometimes in light. At some point we amble slowly down through the pine forest. Again, this area is different from all the other woods that we have passed. The trees feel older, somehow, and the tree trunks are smooth and thin. We pause to examine the underside of a fallen tree - the twisted and gnarled roots forming a sort of natural arabesque, tribute to an unknown god. You read my unspoken request in the silence, and take several photos, since my camera battery has given up on me.

As time runs on, the woods that we come upon get more and more interesting. We begin to speak of Ents, nymphs, and the possibilty of seeing Bacchus on his pony, and start spotting faces and expressions in gnarled tree roots and interesting boles and knots on tree trunks.

The sun begins to set, slowly, majestically, beautifully. We stop several times to simply look. Pines rise up on both sides of the road, stark and evocative against the yellows and reds of the sunset. Treetops are drenched in burnished bronze and gold, Nature proving more adept than Midas, pale lavendar undergrowth appears in the distance, and, one can almost see the pale green pines dancing in purple mist on cold clear mornings. We pause on a small bridge; you take photos and I watch the sunlight meet the wind-nudged water, the reflection of sky, tree and light caught in the half-light of dusk.

The sun begins to dip below the treeline, as we turn onto a wide tarmac road that leaps away into the distance. The sky ahead is a dusky blue, Venus is a silver pinprick, and the moon a spotlight of white. The sky behind is beginning to resemble a masterpiece by the old Masters - muted yellow meets dark orange just above the treetops, wisps of cloud settle comfortably near the ribbons of colour, and the piece of sky nearest the setting sun is the slightest shade of eggshell blue. I wish I had eyes at the back of my head, as I constantly turn around to catch the last breaths of the sunset. Then I begin to wish fervently for a camera with slow shutter speed, because we find a still, silent pond reflecting the moon next to an equally still tree, a shadow in the gathering dusk accompanied by the silhouette of a bird that has chosen the bare branches of a nearby tree as its roost for the night - the very image of twilight - while to the right of this tableau, the slow embers of the sun are still inching gradually behind the trees.

Few cars pass us, and I comment that we could be the only two people in the world - it is not difficult to believe. We are in the middle of a ribbon of a road, winding through a vast expanse of scrubland, strangely reminiscent of the American desert and complete with the short bushes and shrubs one might expect in an arid landscape, a few ponies crop grass in the distance, and a slight breeze moves swiftly through the fields.

This is one of the things that I will hold on to for a long, long time: the two of us strolling along the side of the road, two travellers almost blending in to the darkness, disregarding the cold wind, the passing cars, talking aimlessly, our voices disappearing into the silence, because sometimes, other things are more important.

We successfully find our way back to the train station we had departed from some twenty-four hours ago, under moonlight and starlight. At the station, we share food and a bench; we both try the oat-baked bars that I have brought. You are convinced, in spite of what the label on the packaging says, that it tastes of apple and not cherry and cranberry. Though at the same time, you insist that I am trying to kill you. I make neither (outrageous) claim, and simply eat your pistachio nuts without comment or complaint.

On the journey back: I discover a comfortable sleeping - well, not sleeping, really, because I am not so much tired as content - position, and we try our best not to laugh as the quiet of the quiet coach is broken by a family that seems unware there are others on the train carriage who actually desire peace and quiet, and tell us rather too much about their toilet habits. It is impossible not to listen in, rather like those very bad sitcoms that draw their viewers in because they are so awful. We end up moving to the next carriage where we finally get the peace and quiet the 'quiet carriage' was meant to give us.

London welcomes us with all the noise and clamour we'd forgotten we'd left behind. We wait a monstrously long time to order tea, and I wonder briefly if a day in the forest had rendered us invisible to the harried denizens of London - not that I would mind if it had. Sat outside a Burger King with tea - served in Starbucks-esque cups complete with the corrugated cardboard sleeve - watching with a mixture of bemusement and annoyance as an overzealous employee snatched up tables and chairs the very instant they were vacated.

We stood by my bussstop, waiting for my bus, talking of inconsequential things. I half-wished we were back in New Forest, under the tapestry of stars, as every bus except for the one I needed passed us by.

Walked back home in surprisingly warm, almost balmy weather, in those quiet hours that occupy the pre-dawn. I could not see the stars here, from where I was, but nonetheless, as I entered my building again almost twenty-four hours after I had left it, in the odd hours of early morning, I felt a definite and comfortable warmth settle around me, that had nothing to do with the weather.

'What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
long live the weeds and the wildness yet.'
---excerpt from Iversnaid, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

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