Sample chapters from Fennel's books

It's in Our Nature
From Book of Secrets (2017): "The countryside is where I was born and raised; it’s where I live and work. If my boots cease being muddy, then I’ve walked too far along a well-worn path. That’s when I veer away, into the undergrowth of the unknown, to find comfort in the familiar." Read more...
Beyond the Dawn
From Nature Escape (2016): "I’d hold leaves to the light, studying their veins and textures; I’d cup handfuls of leaves and bring them close to my nose, smelling the decay that gives so much life to the soil; I’d close my eyes so I could hear birdsong and leaf susurrations more vividly." Read more...
A Roar from the Red Lion
From Friendship (2015): "What I’m talking about is proper friendship. The sort that is authentic, genuine and real. Where we can look into the eyes of another person and know what they’re thinking. We love them for who they are, irrespective of their shortcomings in their or other people’s eyes. We have the bond, through good times and bad." Read more...
7th Son
From The Lighter Side (2014): "I prayed that my future would be defined by my love of nature – that wildlife would surround me and that I would be part of it. I asked for a natural life, ‘on and of’ the land. For this life, I had learned, is the most meaningful." Read more...
Dig It!
From A Gardener's Year (2013): "Every experienced gardener knows that the soil in their garden is their most valuable resource. Without it, their green-fingered activities would be futile, like going swimming in a pool with no water, or hang-gliding in a sky with no air." Read more...
The Curse of the August Dumpling
From Fine Things (2012): "I rummaged through the stack, dismissing the obvious in search of the unique. There! There at the base of the pile, beneath an olive York cap was something different. Something unique. Something I just had to try on." Read more...
Spring into Summer
From The Quiet Fields (2011): "Today the dawn air smelled of heady watery scents; of water mint and marshes. At least until I entered the wood, when the air warmed and it had a peaty, compost-like smell of leaf litter and emerging ferns." Read more...
To Catch a Fish
From Traditional Angling (2010): "The act of fishing – for fish, dreams or whatever magic is available – is enough. It transports us to a special world where we may cast our lines beyond the reflection of the obvious, into the unknowns of the deep." Read more...
Trout at Two Thousand Feet
From Fly Fishing (2009): "It’s what we can’t see, as we gaze into the ‘void between’, that draws us in. Much like the act of fishing, when we cast into the unseen depths. Hoping, not knowing, that something is there." Read more...
Golden Dreams
From Wild Carp (2009): "I have made it my mission to discover a water that is off the beaten track. Somewhere in the undergrowth of the impossible." Read more...
To Be an Author
From A Writer's Year (2008): "I like to start slowly, then ease up as the day progresses." Read more...
A Lakeside Camp
From A Waterside Year (2007): "I am sitting on a carpet of oak leaves, with notepad on my knee, pen in hand and a mug of tea on the ground beside me. The disturbance of my arrival has subsided. Calm has descended and I feel at one with my new surroundings." Read more...