The morning side of midnight:

A series of short pieces, from the bulging book of writing ideas, often from some time ago, I keep handy, written as the title says after midnight, when I’ve always found myself to be at my most creative, and by then even the early evening wine has worn off!! Here’s the first that comes out at just over 250 words and as such sets a rough target, up to about 350 words, so no groaning that another ten pages of idle ramblings has arrived again from Roger, and maybe a reasonable target for the replies that people always tell me they are going to do, but rarely materialise!!

These were all in 2020

1        A reoccurring dilemma.

Well actually at the moment with France only just coming out of lockdown and strict social distancing rules, I’ve been spared this dilemma recently.

Kissing in France is, as I’ve said before something of a dilemma; to kiss or not to kiss, how many, starting which side and when do you know a man well enough for him to be included in the barrage of kisses that until recently started every get together – playing football, going for a group walk,  having a picnic and even meeting someone you know when out shopping!  Amazingly, as the multiple bissous are so much a part of France, two being the bare minimum and anything up to five or six for very good friends or Parisiens!, the present Covid – 19 crisis has totally put a stop to not only kissing but also shaking hands, after a brief period early on when elbow pumping became the fashion, before we weren’t even able to get close enough for that.

So, I suppose if the traditional and well used greetings don’t return, my dilemma may be solved for me, albeit rather drastically.  The dilemma is do I kiss my next-door neighbour when, each week I meet her very scantily clad and the rather apt bare minimum of two presents said dilemma.  I should hasten to add we are both swimming up and down the local swimming pool at the time, and sometimes a cursory wave is sufficient, if they are some distance away, but I’ve finally decided that when we do come face to face, when in France ….

 

2       Two French letters tonight!

I know what you’re thinking – quite an achievement for one so old, and indeed it is age that creates the problem.  All can be going swimmingly one day and the next I’m shooting blanks and can’t manage to string two letters together coherently, let alone enough words for two letters of the postal variety.  But, on this particular night needs must and with a little help from Linda, she’s better at French than I am, and the invaluable help of a dictionary and possible hindrance of Google translate, by morning the two letters were ready to go, one to be delivered by hand, the other entrusted to La Poste, by the very convenient and very French method of placing the letter in your household post box at the end of the drive and turning a dial inside.  That places a red marker in a little window and alerts Monsieur ou Madam Poste to the letter awaiting collection.  I’m further told, although have yet to put it to the test, that if you haven’t got a stamp you can put the money in with the letter and the postie will purchase a stamp for you, attach it to the letter and send it winging on its way, and should you not have the correct change, your change will be returned to your box the following day!

However, the posted letter being a rant about the fitting of our new fosse septique (septic tank) for which the contractor’s figures didn’t equate to ours, we had attached the correct stamp to ensure speedy delivery.   The other letter was to one of the local farmer’s family, who we had befriended when living in our rented house, and was to congratulate them on the birth of a baby son.

 

3      Whilst showering in northern Spain…….

I was standing naked under the warm trickle of water, when somewhat surprisingly transported back to a rather boozy night, close to Christmas, in The Rising Sun pub, in Gloucestershire.  No, it had nothing to do with the plentiful booze lowering the inhibitions and the rugby club atmosphere of that long-ago night causing scenes of nudity, it was rather to do with the music.

The publican at The Rising Sun at that time, had taken on the pub, and more or less retired from playing rugby at the weekends, restricted by the opening hours, as well as age creeping up and injuries becoming more frequent.  However, although I’m not sure how much he missed the battles on the pitch, it was obvious that he certainly missed the after-match revelries!

So once in a while, he would give the regulars the nod, myself included, and whilst calling time and ushering out the non-regulars, those in the know would sup slowly, until such time that the door could be locked and the lock in commenced.  On one memorable occasion, several of us regulars had to leave and hide round the corner, as one of the other drinkers sensing that a lock in was on the cards tried to gate-crash.  We waited for him to drive away before creeping back in through the back to continue the evening into the early hours.

The lock-ins were certainly no quiet affairs, and it was just as well there were no close neighbours and little chance of a passing police patrol car.  But the landlord came to life, standing crouched on a low bar stool in the middle of the low room and leading us through his repertoire of bawdy rugby drinking songs.  The lyrics of his favourite included “My sister Belinda, she peed out the window and filled up my brand-new sombrero.”  And that morning in Spain, whilst in the shower, a workman renovating part of the toilet block was loudly whistling the tune, and I nearly burst into spontaneous song, singing along!  

 

4      It made a difference for that one.

I have a very large framed print of an anonymous poem called Making a Difference, now hanging in my bedroom, and it is very dear to me, given to me by a very dear friend who felt I had!  (I also have a smaller version hanging in the study!) It’s about a wise man who goes walking on the beach and spies what he thinks is a young man dancing in the distance.  Getting closer he discovers that the man is actually reaching down and rhythmically picking up stranded starfish from the beach and returning them to the sea.

The wise man asked the young man what he is doing to which he replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”  The wise man then says what he should have asked is why are you doing this, to which the young man replied “The sun is up, and the tide is going out. And if I don’t throw them in they’ll die.”

The wise man then said that the young man couldn’t possibly make a difference as there were many miles of beach with stranded starfish all along it.  To which the young man didn’t reply straight away, instead he bent down, picked up another starfish and threw in back into the sea, then turned to the wise man and simply said “It made a difference for that one.”

Well, a couple of birthdays ago I went for a walk on a very long sandy beach, near to home, and imagine my surprise to find it liberally covered in stranded starfish, and like back then when the poem was gifted to me, I hope I made a difference for quite a few!

 

5      A snapshot from one night.

I often when locking up for the night stand on the top step of the front door and take in the surrounding night.  I guess it stems back to when Fergus would go out for a last “pud” (puddle) before bed and biscuits!

As I rarely go to bed much before two o’clock, something that a previous dog, Max, could never get used to and would often ask to be able to go to his bed, and have his biscuits!, well before that.  Mind you, he would at times try and pretend that he hadn’t been out earlier and think he should have more biscuits!!

Well, standing on the doorstep that late at night, usually means that all the lights are out in the neighbouring houses and without street lights, and with the nearest towns some distance away, the night is truly dark but sometimes anything but quiet.  Mostly natural noise such as frogs croaking in spring time, crickets in summer, owls hooting at any time and even the strange whirring of a nightjar, from a distance sounding more like the ticking over of a small underpowered mobylette, with just the occasional drone of a faraway aircraft, or a late-night traveller driving along the distant main road.

But this particularly early summer evening, not a frosty, cloudy and wet winter’s night, indeed it was a beautiful starlit night so I lingered, and was rewarded with the magical sight of a bright shooting star travelling far athwart the dark night sky, but even more magical was that its rapid, silent and very distance progress was serenaded by the beautiful lilting song a very nearby nightingale.  We are very fortunate to often be lulled to sleep by the nightingale, but rarely do we get the chance to see an accompanying ethereal light show!

 

6      Should we be worried?

Our local town, Fontenay le Comte, is a garrison town.  So, it is not uncommon to see army personnel shopping in full uniform.

On this particular day, Linda and I were in one of the local supermarkets and joined the queue behind a smart uniformed officer with just a couple of items, as he didn’t have much to go through the check out and there was only one person in front of him and they were just finishing.  This however, is not always a quick affair in France as shoppers often very slowly take items one at a time off the counter, place them loose in the trolley to be bagged up when they get to the car, pausing frequently to chat to the cashier and waiting until they have individually placed each item in the trolley before even thinking of getting out their loyalty card and means of payment.  And, if paying by cheque, still quite common in France, they have to get out their cheque book, tear out the next check and hand it to the cashier who places it in a machine, which rarely seems to work first time, to be printed and handed back to the customer to check the amount before signing and returning it to the cashier, probably after they have filled in the amount of the cheque on the section for keeping a tab on your spending.  The cashier prints off the till receipt, often accompanied by various other money off coupons, which must all be checked before stowing away and wishes the customer bon journée, bon après midi, bon weekend (any time from Thursday lunchtime) and anything else mildly appropriate. 

But this did give us time to see what the army officer was buying – a boxed set of Downton Abbey DVDs and a thick glossy magazine, which rather worryingly was one of a long series called “Strategies of War”, we were left thinking that should war break out hopefully the necessary strategies had been covered in an edition he had already read!

 

7       Englishmen Abroad

I’m an Englishman abroad, but have always tried my best to blend in, be it on holiday or now all the time as we live in France.  There’s nothing better to be walking down the street and for a French person passing in the car stopping to ask directions, thinking you’re a native.  Or going to a restaurant and having had that bizarre start to the evening where you are speaking French and the French waiter is answering in English, when they realise that actually you can at least get by in the local language and they return to the table and start speaking French, or in one memorable case, actually asked us if we would prefer to speak in French.  Having in this case obviously passed the test and the waiter realising we weren’t going to waste his time struggling, suddenly found time to chat about where we lived!

But one thing I do when out and about is people watch, and the Englishman abroad can be very embarrassing, I have on occasion felt the need to apologise for the behaviour of fellow Brits, often when they have imbibed just a little too much to be good for them, or those around them!

Over the years, it seems that the drunk Englishman abroad goes one of two ways:  They either get louder as the evening wears on and too much beer is consumed.  Then, they can become objectionable, shouting to make themselves understood, criticising the staff’s inability to speak English and have been know to belch, fart and find funny French works like PISScine!

Or, they go very quiet and maudlin, like the one I recently encountered outside a campsite restaurant, on an English owned site with a large fishing lake.  He was almost silently gazing over the large lake in the middle of the site, muttering to anyone who happened to be passing, but no-one in particular, “Fancy fucking waking up to this every morning, it would be fucking marvellous.”  I couldn’t help but agree with his sentiments, but no so much his Anglo-Saxon!

 

8       We were back in Stroud, most certainly!

We try to visit Stroud when we are back in the UK, not least to visit our son and granddaughter and catch up with friends.  We also try to visit on a Saturday to wander around the market, catch up on the café scene and soak up the atmosphere, and indeed spot native Stroudie’s!  Often, when we are out and about, the world over, we will pass a certain type of person and we’ll look at each other and silently agree another Stroudie in the world of eclectic people.

Indeed, our local town in France, Fontenay Le Comte, we have increasingly likened to Stroud, not least because of its Arts and Music scene, café culture, thriving market, as well as picturesque stone buildings and a long history.  There are also several true Stroudie’s amongst its population, although I guess we should call them Fontenaisie’s.

Fairly recently, we were back in Stroud with a little time on our hands and I went for a walk along part of the Stroudwater Canal near Ebley Mill.  First, I was passed by a young teenage girl, possibly about fourteen, who was wearing a floppy purple hat and bright yellow wellies (with other clothing I should add!) and it was the middle of summer!  Then, passing under one of the bridges I spotted some suitably erudite Stroudie graffiti, it simply said “Stroud. All hop e is gone!”, with the e of hope falling off the line, which sadly my computer won’t let me replicate accurately!

Finally, to completely make me realise I was in Stroud, I was passed by (not in this case the man in lady’s clothing who happily walks up and down the High Street, if my memory serves me right, sporting a beard!), no it was the dread-locked aged hippy who remains shoeless, even in the depth of winter!  I couldn’t have been anywhere else than the “People’s Republic of Stroud!”

 

9       Égalité a basic premise.

A couple of years ago, well I did say some of the thoughts were somewhat distant, I was in the kitchen cooking tea and Linda was outside with the door open doing some crépi work on our wall below the terrace at the front of the house.  Crépi is a thick masonry paint that is good for covering rough walls with minor cracks.

I then heard her talking to Yvette, our neighbour, who we hadn’t seen for some time.  They were generally passing the time of day and Yvette was complimenting Linda on her work, saying how good it was and how it made the front look splendid.

Having stirred the tea, I thought I should pop out and say hello to Yvette, who as I said we hadn’t seen for some time.  As I arrived on the terrace and exchanged pleasantries, I could see Yvette looking slightly askance, I was wearing an apron, but with the odd glance in Linda’s direction, before saying: “Linda fait le travail manuel et Roger la cuisine, je suppose que ça s'appelle l'égalité!”, which if you haven’t worked it out means: “Linda is doing the manual work and Roger the cooking, I suppose it's called equality!”  I couldn’t be sure if it was a complement to Linda or a back-handed swipe at me!

After all Egalité is, as the title suggests one of the basic premises of French culture.  Everywhere you go, particularly on public building you will see inscribed: Liberté, égalité, fraternité, which means “liberty, equality, fraternity”, and as it is the French National Motto, I felt I, indeed we, were doing our bit to integrate into French life!

 

10   Fine tuning

Several computers ago, it seems, I used to have a security system called AVG, which Wikipedia informs me stands for Anti-Virus Guard.

Well, it seems that quite frequently AVG, being a matey sort of anti-virus software would send me messages.  You know the type:  “We’ve scanned your computer zillions of times in the last few nano seconds and found the following problems, pay vast sums and we’ll sort them out for you.”  “Today’s your lucky day, we’ve found no problems with your computer, but paying us vast amounts, might just speed it up a little.”  “OK we’ve given up trying to upgrade you, at vast expense, how about you run this scan and see what we can do for you – at vast expense!

Actually, the free version seemed to work pretty well and do the job that I wanted it to do, it even did the odd FREE update, and then sent me a friendly message saying things like: “Did you think your computer booted up 15% faster, as we have upgraded AVG Free and you should be able to notice the difference!”  and not a mention of any money changing hands!  I’m not sure I ever particularly noticed a difference, but were too polite to say so, or rather felt if I did then they would be sure to fix it for me – at great expense!

Imagine then my excitement when I received the following message, short and succinct and obviously designed to make me dance a jig and sing the praises of AVG from the rooftops, or maybe as actually happened read the message incredulously, thinking maybe there was more!  The message “Did you think your computer booted up 1% faster!” to which all I could think is, I’m not sure I blinked, or maybe dozed off, as it wasn’t the fastest system I’ve used at the best of times.  But I did think I should have noticed a difference over time, as the combined messages told me that my computer should have been something in the order of 2000 times faster – it wasn’t! 

 

11  Choose your words carefully

Those of you who know me well will appreciate after over a decade living in France, my French has improved, possibly not in leaps and bounds but inch by inch, and the French are fairly forgiving if you at least make the effort.  The biggest problems are the language is very precise and you’ll be convinced that you’re saying beaucoup, as in merci beaucoup – thank you very much, and you’ll find a French friend creased up with laughter, maintaining you said beau coup as in nice bottom!  Also, once you have fluently complimented them on their derriere, they then assume you are generally fluent and reply so quickly that you are still on the second word when they have completed several sentences, the last one of which is a question, and you realise they are waiting for an answer!

However, we have over the last few years been increasingly visiting Spain and although I make an effort with greetings/farewells, ordering a coffee, loaf of bread or a piece of cheese, I can’t manage, try as I might to compliment the locals on their posteriors and even more worrying (possibly!!)I can’t manage to order a cerveza!  I did find out last year that it’s easier in Portugal, where the word is very similar – cerveja – but is pronounced as it is written.  Imagine then my delight, when in Spain recently, to discover an easier way to quench my thirst, and no it isn’t resorting to using finger and pointing to the pump, or indeed as a barman in Madrid, once suggested; he spoke no English but hearing my struggle looked me in the eye and said “two halves of bitter, señor!”, no I can now order a caña (a small beer), and it sounds like it looks!

But I must still remain vigilant, particularly after a caña or three and not muddle up my bodegars with my bordellos, the former being a temple to wine and the latter a temple to woman, both of which involve you with parting with large sums of money, or so I’m lead to believe in one case!

 

12  Overheard

I’ve been in several situations, when travelling by plane, train or ferry and there is someone having a loud, one sided conversation into a telephone?  Its tempting to angrily say “Do you mind, some of us are trying to sleep, read ……” or “For pity’s sake, please turn on the speaker then at least your conversation would make sense!” or “Do you think it might be more private / less irritating if you stepped outside to have that conversation!”, difficult at 30,000 ft in an aeroplane, although ……!

Twice recently it happened to me, on a ferry without the telephone involved.  In both cases the two people involved were sitting very close to me, not so close to each other, late at night and I was trying to sleep.  The first one, on reflection, was a little sad and falls into the category of “It’s good to talk,” but better in a quiet corner in hushed tones, as the whole lounge didn’t need to know.  A man who seemed to be travelling alone had befriended a fellow traveller and proceeded to regale them the sad story of his wife’s serious medical condition, visits to the doctor / hospital, the prescribed medications and her ultimate demise.  We then learnt all about visits by the children, prior to her death, funeral details and subsequent transportation of her ashes back to the UK.  Not only the volume of this conversation made it difficult to fall asleep, the content also didn’t help!

The second high-volume conversation was between two women, one doing most of the talking.  The animated conversation built up over a period of some time and was basically all about an important document that finally “he” had signed and so now couldn’t be changed unless …… and there followed a number of scenarios where actually it could be changed!  As for the document, I never did find out what it was, despite knowing all the ramifications of getting it signed in the first place and that actually it still wasn’t legally binding!

 

 13   Le rossignol chantait

I’m reminded of this as earlier tonight, even when listening to music on my headphones, the unmistakeable gravelly sound of a nightjar ground through the open door, and it’s the first we’ve heard for some time.  I was talking to our new neighbours the other day about said bird, and likened it to one of those old-fashioned French mobylettes, powered by a “cylinder” engine mounted above the front wheel.  In fact, the noise is more like one of these underpowered mopeds straining to go up a slight incline, more than that and you have to assist by pedalling – and then the noise changes!

But back to le rossignol chantant, or indeed le rossignol chaitait dans le cour secrѐte, which if you’re not following translates as “The nightingale sang in the hidden courtyard”, which sadly doesn’t scan particularly well to the tune of “A nightingale sang in Berkley Square”, and for once I even think the English sounds better and certainly more romantic!

We first heard the nightingale, or at least became aware of hearing it some years ago when we were sitting in said courtyard, with a large group of friends from England and as it became darker, we became aware of this bird singing loudly in a tree by the wall, we were being well and truly, and beautifully serenaded, almost without realising it!  Then, someone said “What’s that bird singing, is it a nightingale?  Being not sure someone confirmed it with a suitable app on their mobile which must have given the real bird something of a shock, when close by a fellow feathered friend started singing loudly!  Fortunately, it didn’t seem to mind and carried on its virtuoso performance for us.

I’ve not heard one close by so far this year, but I am reminded that last year for several weeks we were nightly entertained, sometimes by more than one, to the point that some nights it was almost tempting to stick our head out of the window and ask them to keep the noise down, particularly as it is always rather a lively tune!!

 

13   Have Harley will barbie

Several summers ago, the sun was shining, spring had been left behind and things were hotting up.

On the roads it was the normal story, more lycra clad cyclists, who as you approach them from behind look lithe and young and are making a cracking pace as you would expect of one at the peak of fitness.  Overtaking them you look in your mirror and see the rider isn’t a day under seventy and it’s a firm bet that they’ll be doing more kilometres than their age!  Then the French caravans, as opposed to caravans from elsewhere in Europe.  Why does this make it summer?  Well, it is very unusual to see a touring French caravan on the roads outside the months of July and August – that’s when France holidays!

Roadside stalls are reopened selling produce such as melons and everywhere is advertising “Rentrée!”  That so used to annoy me, when I was a teacher and had just got rid of the little darlings and was looking forward to a restful holiday and going to stock up with some restorative beer and entering the supermarket you’re reminded that it’s not that long until it’s “Back to School!”

Now as I browse the wine aisle, looking for summer rosé and salad stuff, the classroom is increasingly distant, and other than the people (children and staff) rarely missed!  

The roads also become full of large powerful motorbikes, that must have been mothballed during the colder and wetter months, when putting on wet weather gear is only for the real enthusiast, or those relying on their bike for work.  So, cocking a snoot to the “Rentrée” signs, we went shopping in Fontenay le Comte, and there in the supermarket carpark was a brilliant (in more ways than one) red Harley Davison, the rider just starting it up with that distinctive and immediately recognisable throaty roar.  He’d popped down to the shops and his only purchase was strapped to the pillion seat – a large bag of charcoal for the barbie!  

 

          16   He was certainly a disappointment to them!

Back on the ferry…… and once more people watching!  We were having breakfast as the ferry set off, before trying to have a bit of a sleep, to recharge ready for the drive the other side.  On a nearby table sat what some might regard as the “perfect” family; Mum, Dad, older sister and younger brother, except only three of them sat stoically eating their breakfast whilst the son was having his breakfast on the run, flitting in and out to collect the next tasty morsel before circling the nearby tables, not particularly noisily, but without pausing.

Now the boy was perhaps ten if not a little older, and certainly, some would say, old enough to know better, and although showing no outward signs of a disability, I’m quite happy to concede that it could have been caused by a number of conditions or disorders on the autistic spectrum.  Indeed, in many ways he was doing us and those around us no harm and the worst harm he might cause himself was probably a bout of indigestion!

Really, it wasn’t his behaviour that caught my eye, but that of the rest of the family, who may at this point have simply reached the end of their tethers and were trying hard to pretend he wasn’t there!  Body language from the parents certainly gave the impression that he was a great disappointment to them, but more striking was the fact that the older sister, perhaps aged thirteen or fourteen, wasn’t a disappointment, as they all sat there having an animated and in depth conversation, with serious bits , light amusement and above all oblivion, if not total forgetfulness that the younger sibling existed at all, the daughter NOT, as might well have been the case, trying to milk the situation.  It had obviously been a long day, and they weren’t there yet, and I couldn’t help but reflect sadly on whether every day was like this.

More to follow next year!!

   I’m back!  Happy New Year 2021

Hi, yes maybe a bit of a surprise, but I’m back!  It’s not that I’ve been idle since my last blogposts, working on a number of projects that either haven’t been finished yet or simply haven’t been posted on either of my blogs.  I’m posting this on both blogs, as neither has had a post for some time and hopefully that will be rectified over the coming weeks and months.

The main reason for the sudden return, was a timely reminder of how long it had been since my last blogposts.  I have just had an article published in the current edition of a storytelling magazine called F & F (Facts and Fiction), which I’ll reproduce on the “Creative Urge” blog, so if you’re on the “It happened ….” blog, you’ll have to go to the other one to read it! (see below)  Well, I submitted the article for consideration on an older version of my Hotmail account, as the newer one was playing up and also doesn’t have some of the features I needed.  I forgot on this version I had embedded, on the bottom, the information about my two blogs, and when the magazine was published earlier this week (online for this edition due to the current covid-19 problems), I found the blog information printed on the bottom of the article.  This led me to look at the blogs and realise just how long I had neglected them for, hence this brief blogpost, to reassure anyone who ventures onto the blogs, that they’re not totally dormant and forgotten!

So, although I didn’t make a New Year’s Resolution this year, as it was rather a none event, after the rather nice duck comfit supper earlier in the evening, hopefully this will have kick started me back into posting more frequent posts.  Also, a reminder that if you do find your way here, it would be good to have some feedback, good or bad, so I at least know somebody out there is looking and hopefully reading my offerings!!

Oh!, and before I forget Happy New Year, and most importantly this year wishing you not just a prosperous year but also a healthy year.  Or, as they say in these parts, Bonne année et bonne santé.  And as we now seem to say more and more Keep Safe, and also try to keep happy!  I’ve always pointed out, it takes less energy to laugh than to scowl, as it uses less muscles!

Below are my two blogs, so if you are on one you can click on the link and find the way to the other!!   

http://ithappenedonethursdayinfebruary.blogspot.fr/ 

a blog that tells you about our life in France. 

http://rogerscreativeurge.blogspot.fr/ 

does "what it says on the tin" and contains my more creative/ esoteric posts.

 By way of an apology (although I still wonder whether it’s necessary!)

You may wonder who Gino (see below) is, and hopefully if he were to read this now; firstly he would recognise himself and remember the occasion and secondly, as he’ll now be grown up, he’ll forgive the slight deception, but read on and “All will be revealed” as they say!!

Due to a “special offer” it had been decided to take away the Year 5’s from school, for a short trip (2 nights) at a residential centre in the Forest of Dean, as preparation for longer trip we usually ran for the Year 6’s.  We were also looking to extend our residential programme and looking at ways to provide the children with an experience away from home, for as little money as possible and possibly getting away from the typical “Field Trip” experience.  So, we had briefed the Centre of our intention of having a “Storytelling” theme running throughout the visit, whilst dipping into some of the activities they had to offer.

Interestingly,  at this stage, they found it quite difficult to get away from the environmental studies type activities and think Literacy, but as schools were increasingly looking for different ways to cover the curriculum, changes were afoot and the Centre had already spent quite a lot of time and money developing historical themes and had build a fantastic Anglo Saxon house in the field behind the centre, which as you will hear has the most amazing views out from the Forest over the River Severn and beyond.   But, more of this later.

 We had also been fortunate to obtain a small grant to make this visit possible and part of the package was to hire in a professional Storyteller for part of the visit, to both set the scene and tell us some of his stories, but also to try and inspire the children to come up with some of their own.  Indeed, during the visit a star was born, and we discovered that a relatively new child to the school, of African origin, had the most amazing, seemingly natural ability to weave the most fantastic and usually very gory tales, using a tremendous range of skills for one so young.  And although the stories didn’t always hang together brilliantly, he had obviously heard accomplished storytellers in the past and many of the techniques, such as voice, volume and facial expression had been picked up and he could keep a fairly lively class of 10 year olds spellbound for a considerable time.

One of the activities for the visit was for individuals or indeed small groups to have some time working on stories, based on the idea of a journey, and modifying one of the Centre’s geographical activities – map sticks, where the children use a length of stick to make a linear map, tying on natural objects to “map” their journey.  They would then “read” these maps to retrace their route whilst directing another group on their journey.  So, simply, the map sticks became “Story Sticks” and the journey had to involve some sort of adventure along the way, the tied on additions became “aide memoirs” in the same way that someone telling a story might jot notes down on a series of cards.  The children then had to “walk” the story for another group as well as remembering their stories, with obviously the help of their story sticks, for a storytelling session later that evening.  It was also a “rule” that each member of the group had to take part and tell part of the story, no strong silent types allowed, even if the less confident simply announced the story or did part of it in “duet” with one of the other group members.

So, some of the first evening time was spent telling their own stories as well as having a session with the professional, who wove some wonderful tales interspersed to great effect, and hopefully with some of the techniques rubbing off on the enthralled children, with music and song.

On the second evening, there were more stories to tell and we were asked if we would like to use the Anglo Saxon house, where we could light a fire and try to keep warm – I forgot to mention that the trip was during a particularly cold and frosty February, with night time temperatures plummeting well below freezing.  But, the thought of sitting in an Anglo Saxon house, warmed at least on the front, with the flames of the fire casting eerie shadows amongst the rafters was too good an opportunity to miss, at least for a short while, before returning for a warming cup of cocoa and bed!

 Gino’s Night

At the appointed hour, well wrapped up against the piercing cold, we took our torches and ventured out into the night.  The moon was full, and being still low in the sky seemed magnified and cast an almost warming light, had it not been so perishingly cold!  The sky was completely clear of clouds, but as the moon was yet to reach its brightest, there were quite a multitude of stars twinkling in the cold night air, just visible through our own clouds caused by the animated party breathing out and chattering excitedly.

The route took us through a dark piece of woodland, down a short track, which had the ground not been turned to iron by the deep frost, would have been quite muddy, through a wooden gate and onto the field in which the wooden house had been built and now, despite the dark, stood out sharply in the moonlight as well as being silhouetted by the distant lights of Gloucester town.  The true majesty of the scene unveiled itself as we crossed the field; as the moon hung low in the sky above the silvery line of the far off river, etched along its length by the moonlight, which underneath the moon turned the river into a golden pathway – who needed an Anglo Saxon house, with the flames of the fire causing shadows to dance magically around the rafters, surely the scene before us was inspiration enough, but it was mighty cold and the thought of at least a little warmth from the promised fire was too much to resist and had us fumbling, with the all too modern key to unlock the heavy wooden door.

Inside, was some respite from the cold, as it at least stops a gentle breeze, that you almost didn’t realise was there until being sheltered from it made you realise that icy fingers were no longer creeping into any tiny chink in your cold weather armour!  The Centre staff had left a fire made up in the central hearth, ready for a match to hopefully make it spring into life, the paper ignite the kindling and kindling catch the bigger sticks and logs from which the warmth would, with a bit of luck, emanate.  Despite my cynicism, quite quickly we had a reasonable blaze and even a little warmth, or was it simply that the mind being a powerful thing, equates flames with heat!!  Sorry more cynicism, but actually the springing of the fire to life, magically transformed the interior of the house we now sat in and I for one was transported back in time!!  Having not been in the house before it was interesting to use the firelight and torches to look around and discover what seemed to be a very faithful reproduction of an Anglo Saxon dwelling, complete with; primitive furniture, cooking pots and utensils and a sleeping platform above where no doubt the families animals would have slept, perhaps adding a little warmth as well as an odour or two!!  Now animals of a different kind inhabited the space and most of them seemed to appreciate at lease something of the magic of the place – certainly a stark contrast to warm cosy homes that seemed a million miles, as well as nearly a thousand years away, but in reality, which almost seemed to have been suspended, were only a few miles and less than an hour over the river!

Some of magic rubbed off and having viewed our surrounding, one or two stories from our visit’s work were shared, the atmosphere of the place adding a certain something to even the humblest of offering and the flickering flames helping to add expression and animation to the plainest of faces.  A good time was being had by all , and then the bubble burst, when some bright spark, one of the animals (sorry child), not something from the fire, found a small piece of raw wool lying abandoned from the weaving that a previous group visiting the house had done, and wondered if it would burn!! You might think that said miscreant was Gino, but not so!  He might similarly know who he is and at this particular point was far from popular, as we discovered that wool does indeed burn and produces the most foul smelling thick acrid smoke that despite efforts to remove it from the fire or at least remove the choking smoke, by opening the door, proved unsuccessful and we were forced to abandon the relative warmth of the house and sit instead on the logs outside, bathed now in brighter but no warmer moonlight taking in once again the splendour of the crystal clear and sparkling night hoping that given a short time the air in the house might clear enough for us to return.  As it was taking its time and indeed so awful was the stench that an early return seemed unlikely, so enjoying the spinning of a good yard myself and certainly inspired by the location, I quietly asked the assembled crowd who had now almost stopped haranguing the wool burner, whether they would like me to tell a story, to which there was general agreement, as my assembly stories usually met with approval.

Having made the offer, I had to think quickly; a story I already knew sprang to mind, but there was a danger that I may have told it them before and so interest might be lost or the story wouldn’t reflect the splendour of our surrounding (would “How the leopard got its spots” or “Three Billy Goats Gruff” work sitting outside on a freezing cold February night?) or should it be a new one, premiered on this night inspired by the surroundings.  Due to the storytelling theme for the visit, it really had to be the latter, so I launched into a story at the time with no idea where the journey would take me, and in nautical terms, well I had launched into the story, sailing very close to the wind! 

To buy myself a little time to think, I started to tell the children about the previous Anglo Saxon inhabitants of the house, made up names and talked about how they lived a simple life, that was until a handsome prince happened by and became transfixed by the beauty of daughter of the house and in an instance vowed to marry her – you know the sort of thing, and had by now the children not become huddled and enthralled, it might there and then ended happily ever after.  But no, there needed to be more and the daughter, bolshie by nature, was having none of this being taken out of simple, poor life to live in some posh guys jewel encrusted palace, with servants at her beck and call!  Well, it called for a journey, a quest, to incur various hardships and danger to bring back some small token, to prove to the beautiful peasant girl that he truly loved her and it wasn’t just some short-lived whim!!

The story wove its way through many a traditional storyline, the journey involving the meeting of various people who bestowed various gifts on the Prince, not immediately useful, but surprisingly useful when later he faced some adversary and needed a quick fix, again I’m sure you know the sort of thing – a phial of liquid smashed to the ground that becomes a raging torrent of water washing away everything and certainly any pursuer, far far away.

The upshot was that he did prove his love and after a sumptuous, but rather truncated wedding ceremony, the couple did live happily ever after.  Why, I hear you ask did the prince stint on the wedding celebrations?  Well, suddenly that nip in the air I mentioned earlier found its way through a chink and I suddenly realised that the log I was sitting on had mysteriously turned to ice – but that’s another story.  The children, including a couple who had been lulled off to sleep, were although still thoroughly engrossed and proving to totally belie the description of the class as “a lively bunch!” were in fact beginning to turn blue and in desperate need of a warming cup of cocoa and a cosy bed.  A quick look at my watch told me that the journey we had just been on together had gone on for the best part of an hour – not surprising that I couldn’t feel my feet, and other parts of my anatomy as we cagouled the weary children back to the Centre, reality and warmth!

You might be forgiven for thinking that the piercing cold had numbed the children into submission and had it not been for a conversation I had with one of the children who had sat very close to me, mesmerised by the intricacies of the story, as we made our way back across the field, trying to force some life back into our frozen limbs, I might have thought the same:

The conversation went something like this:

“Mister ‘iggs?”

“Yes Gino?”

“How did you remember all that long story?”

I was just about to say “Well actually I made the whole thing up as I went along!” when, in the moonlight I saw Gino’s face looking up at me, and just managed to stop myself from spoiling the moment and with just a touch of deception said:

 “Years of practice Gino!”

To which he replied, with a certain amount of wonderment:

“Oh!”

Now you know and at the time he was none the wiser!!  And once again, sorry Gino!

 

February 2010

One that I forgot to publish, hence not realising it was so long since the last post!

Rave review ~ Meadowland

I’ve just finished reading a book, in which the quality of writing has both inspired me to put pen to paper, whilst making me doubt whether I can really string two words together coherently or indeed successfully!

The book is about an English field – a meadow – and takes you through from the start of the year: “The Ice Moon is already rising over Merlin’s Hill” on the first of January until on New Year’s Eve twelve months later: “This is how it is, has been, how it shall be evermore.”

Those are the actual first and last lines of this remarkable book, a book that quite simply transports you to the meadow, and its close proximity, situated on the Herefordshire / Wales border, and leads you magically, although not without the reality of death, be it from old age and a life well lived or as the result of a sharp retort from a treasured shotgun, through the seasons in all their guises.

The characters in the book are not human, I can recall only a handful of people even receiving a mention often briefly in passing, no instead the cast of millions, nay billions, are the “not so dumb beasts of the field, wild or farmed, who tolerate me,” and “the flowers, grasses and trees too,” as the author credits them gratefully in the books Acknowledgements.  They’re all there from the largest cattle and horses, right down to the “bacteria, about a billion of them per gram, the land’s hidden farmers, breaking down the faecal matter into humus, into soil.”

I finished the book in winter, as the year ended, but in reality it’s only early October and although the nights have become, at times, markedly more chilly, it was still on this particular evening fourteen degrees outside at eleven o’clock at the night.  But, I got up feeling cold and was reminded of the time, many years ago, when I read “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. It was the height of a very hot summer, but I was in an extremely cold Siberia, and found myself quite involuntarily, reaching for a jumper and putting it on before realising!  It was “The wind (that) rakes the valley, searching into every fold of earth and unbuttoned flap of coat,” on the twenty-eight of November, that had me contemplating putting on a hat and scarf, before realising that the room was a pleasant twenty degrees Celsius!

 

Early on when I had just started reading the book, I was extolling to my wife, the virtues of the author’s way with words and flicked back through the previous pages for a good example to quote.  I now had a problem as I couldn’t find anything specific, instead I realised I could read out any passage, at random, and prove my point:  16^th May – “Early murk, banished by the ascendant sun,  Three trout lie like wooden clubs in Periscope Pool, faces upstream.  They are the counterpoint to the frenzy of the rest of nature:”    28^th June – “Under a chattering swallow-sky I run down the bank.  Two of the Gloucester Old Spots have done a bunk from the orchard.  Like the truant cow they have headed for the luxury grass of Lower Meadow, where they have snouted the entrance gate off its hinges, and are now energetically eating, their mouths an epileptic, frothy green.  They are pigs in clover.”  And in July “On this furnace-hot afternoon when no birds can be bothered to sing, and I am unsure whether the metre-tall meadowsweet looks more like debutantes gathered for a ball or a cresting white wave.”  I could easily go on at random and find much more, but I’ve already filled up eight pages of my small notebook with hurried scribbled notes and need, before I forget to tell you the details of the book:

The Private Life of an English Field

MEADOWLAND

by

John Lewis-Stempel

To finish my humble offering, which I hope does justice to this extraordinary nature book that Tim Smit of The Eden Project says: “I want to scream from the rooftops: buy it, give it, read it,” I was gratified to see that in the Meadowland Library that Lewis-Stempel includes at the end, many of the books on his Meadowland bookshelf are also on mine, or I have read over the years.  I’m also glad to say it made me put pen to paper, hopefully not incoherently, and that’s now ten pages of the notebook filled up and as a lot of the words belong to Lewis-Stempel himself, take his if you don’t like mine!!

4^th Oct 2018 

Seminal Written Words

Seminal Written Words

Not long ago, actually on looking back amazingly nearly five years ago, I did a couple of pieces entitled Echo of a Song I & II.  The title “a short phrase that I find both evocative and suggestive of things past, returning musical memories or seminal musical moments, which was to be original title of the above blog posts.”

Well, now it’s the turn of writing and I’ve returned to the notion of “seminal,” writing that is for me at least, some of the following; formative, groundbreaking, pioneering, original, creative, innovative.

I’m also going to return to my love of quotes, as it is often the case and indeed very true of the pieces of writing discussed below, that not only do I wish I’d said or written them but, also feel they say just what I’m trying to communicate, and probably far better that I could ever achieve.

Ralph Waldo-Emerson, an American essayist, lecturer and poet from the 19^th century, who keeps cropping up in my reading with profound quotes and what might now be regarded as remarkable “sound bites(!),” wrote the following, to his contemporary Sam Ward, an American poet, author and gourmet:  “It happens to us once or twice in a lifetime to be drunk with some book which probably has some extraordinary relative power to intoxicate us and none other, and having exhausted that cup of enchantment we go groping in libraries all our years afterwards in the hope of being in Paradise again.” And then in the words of possibly Frank Zappa, composer and singer, or Thomas Jefferson, American Founding Father:  “So many books, so little time.”  But thankfully, then French writer Gustave Flaubert comes to our rescue by telling us to “Read in order to live.”

For the purposes of this “blog post”, a term that I think is increasingly replacing the more old-fashioned “essay”, I’m initially going to choose just three such seminal pieces; a chapter of a book, a whole book and a magazine article, that each for different, although maybe loosely linked reasons, have caused the cup of enchantment to intoxicate me and made me travel (interestingly this is I suppose the loose link mentioned above, together with “our wonderful world” which we encounter either in person or through the written word) to Paradise, as well as leading to a fair amount of “groping” in libraries, bookshops, charity shops, book fairs and anywhere else that the written word might be found. These are they, together with some of the critical acclaim they have received:

1. The Art of Travel (Chapter 2 On Travelling Places), Alain de Botton

Sunday Times:  “Lucid, fluid, uplifting ...... it can enrich and improve your life.”

Jan Morris, Welsh historian, author and travel writer: “Delightful, profound entertaining.  I doubt if de Botton has written a dull sentence in his life.”

2.  The Shining Levels, John Wyatt

Daily Mirror:  “A delight for those who love nature.”

Sunday Times:  “The story of a man who went back to nature; funny, instructive and a rare treat”

3.  Spiritual journeys, Roger Thomas 

An article for SAGA Magazine, yes I know!!  But, it is an organisation for the over fifties, and although many years ago when only mid thirties I was horrified to receive an invitation to subscribe, I do now tick the box for the correct age group!!  And, I will say, don’t knock the magazine until you’ve read it, although aimed at the over fifties there are some great articles as you will hear below!

Hopefully, these three examples will give you just a flavour of what I grope for, whenever I see books for sale or indeed to borrow, and just maybe, some of you will have suggestions of what I might intoxicate myself with in the future and once again visit Paradise!  So to take them in order:

The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton: 

Long have I been fascinated by places, particularly at night, and as a recent blog post told you I’ve discovered that I’m a noctambulist (one who is wide awake and chooses the hours of darkness to wander in wonder, aimlessly or with a deep sense of purpose, indeed therapy, marvelling at the scenery as well as managing to if not quite to put the world to rights, at the very least sort out that niggling problem), although this wandering, at least in my case, doesn’t just involve walking.  I’m fascinated by places, as I said particularly at night, like motorway services, stations and airports, with all the fascinating stories that might come from them – Deirdre and the Expresso Machine, Tales from the Carriage, Flight into the Unknown – I’m sure you get the idea and somehow at night for me the imagination can speed up, fly away or as my wife might say become totally derailed, or was it deranged she said!  It might not surprise those of you who know me well that I’m writing this on the morning side of midnight! 

Hence, my initial interest then in a book called The Art of Travel, which does talk about what it says in the title, as well as, in parts discussing the “benefits” of armchair travel – wonderful sights and sounds from the comfort of your own armchair, but for me I think that maybe the smells and the true feel of the place are hard to put into words, so a real visit is necessary!

It’s a fabulous book, but for me it’s Chapter 2, that really does it for me because it visits “1. The service station”, “3. The airport”, “4. The plane” and “The train”.  Quite blissful, and as I said above about the quotes, not only do I wish I’d written these examples below, but also feel they communicate what I think, in a manner far better than I could write!!:

1. “In its forecourt hangs a giant laminated flag that advertises to motorist and to the sheep in an adjacent field a photograph of a fried egg, two sausages and a peninsular of baked beans.” and that’s before you’ve even got out of the car!

“There were few other customers in the service station.  A woman was idly rotating a teabag in a cup.  A man and two young girls were eating hamburgers.  A bearded elderly man was doing a crossword.  No one was talking.  There was an air of refection, and sadness too – only heightened by the sound of piped upbeat music and the enamel smile of a woman about to bite into a bacon sandwich in a photograph above the counter.” each no doubt with their own story to tell.

3.  "Seen from the car park beside O9L / 27R, as the north runway is known to pilots, the 747 appears at first as a small brilliant white light, a star dropping towards earth.  It has been in the air for twelve hours.  It took off from Singapore at dawn.”

“Nowhere is the appeal of the airport more concentrated than in the television screens which hang in rows from the terminal ceilings announcing the departure and arrival of flights and whose absence of aesthetic self-consciousness, whose workmanlike casing and pedestrian typefaces, do nothing to disguise  their emotional charge or imaginative allure.”  Wow!

4.  “Few seconds in life are more releasing than those in which a plane ascends into the sky.  Looking out of the window from inside a machine standing stationary at the beginning of a runway, we face a vista of familiar proportions; a road, oil cylinders, grass and hotels with copper-tinted windows; the earth as we have always known it, where we make slow progress, even with the help of a car, where calf muscles and engines strain to reach the summit of hills, where, half a mile ahead or less, there is almost always a line of trees or buildings to restrict our view.  Then, suddenly, accompanied by the controlled rage of the engine (with only a slight tremor from glasses in the galley), we rise fluently into the atmosphere and an immense horizon opens up across which we can wander without impediment. A journey which on earth would have taken an afternoon can be accomplished with an infinitesimal movement of the eye, we can cross Berkshire, visit Maidenhead, skirt over Bracknell and survey the M4.”  and there’s lots more!

Just a flavour of a great chapter, within a fascinating book, want more then go grope in the bookshop!

Shining Levels, John Wyatt:

I was thoroughly enchanted when I read this delightful book about a man who spent a period of his life living very simply in a log cabin deep in a wood, and every time I see a deer (he befriended a couple who regularly grazed outside the cabin), or wake up with the dappled sunlight shining through soft green leaves I think of John Wyatt’s book.

As a teacher, pupils often ask you if you have a favourite; be it football team, animal, 

colour, food, pop group, song, author, place or indeed book and I often found such questions to be a difficult to answer, with perhaps some exceptions, your allegiance to a particular football team rarely fluctuates, however badly they might be doing, but with many of the others it’s a mood or circumstance thing.  I love the colour red, but wouldn’t paint the front of my house that colour.  Similarly, I love to eat pan-fried salmon with new potatoes and green beans, but sometimes it just doesn’t hit the spot a fine confit of duck, chips and green beans does.

And, in many ways, it’s the same with books.  As a child I loved Arthur Ransomes’ Swallows and Amazons books and still look back on them fondly and at different times in my life I have enjoyed different genres, often telling the children that I have a “favourite of the moment” or “different favourites for different moods”, this being particularly pertinent for different songs.  Sometimes I’m in the mood for rock and roll, at other times I like nothing more than a quiet tuneful ballad.  But, that said I would often say that my all time favourite book was a book called Shining Levels, as although for John it was reality, for the rest of us it’s pure escapism:

“ ... one morning I awoke to find two pairs of startled eyes staring in at me from the 

sunny clearing.  It was a roe buck and doe, alerted by my movements in the gloom of my tree cave.  We stared at each other for quite a while until the two deer, satisfied with no further movement on my part, browsed their way out of the clearing.

Every morning there was a surprise awakening.  Looking out into the bright green light, from the gloom of my shelter, was like looking from the black everlasting pit into paradise.  Drops of dew catching the light at the tips of hanging grass-thatch seemed alive, each with its own jewel-fire.  This one brilliant mauve.  This one red, or orange or bright dazzling green.  Each one in isolation seemed to have vital cosmic significance as it hung there in the silence.  Peering through the perpetual night of my room, the dew drops were bright stars in a galaxy stretching into a hazy green infinity.  And time stopped.”

But it wasn’t all so idyllic, as the following passage shows, when part of the forest caught fire!

“I can promise you that there is no harder job than beating back a fire.  It is pure 

hell.  Your lungs are crying out for air and being insulted by smarting smoke.  Your heart is banging like a sledgehammer, and your arms flaying up and down like a machine.  You are tormented by the constant anxiety about keeping up with the others, and you curse the flames that refuse to go out.  They spit and snarl and dash at you, and you curse back heartily and steadily, remembering all the naval expletives that you thought had been lost on demobilisation day.  The fire strikes back at you with blows of choking heat.  As you think you are winning, and morale flickers up one notch, you glimpse, through the corner of your streaming eye, that somehow the inferno has crept behind you.” and it is not over yet!

But I should also say that, at the time, I had to admit that I couldn’t always remember the name of the author.

Then a strange thing happened!  No, not the beginning of a book, trying to bring readers in, but one of life’s huge coincidences.  I joined an national organisation for voluntary wardens in the countryside, as at the time I was a Voluntary Cotswold Warden, and at one of our annual conferences during the evening meal I found myself sitting next to the President of the organisation and as the conversation and the wine flowed, I had a quite illuminating light bulb moment, when I suddenly realised I was sitting next to the author of my favourite book.  I subsequently got to know John quite well and came to regard him as a good friend and spent several evenings with a glass or two of fine malt whisky, and with John putting his storytelling abilities to good use, before his untimely death, several years ago.  I was also then able to say that I knew the author of my favourite book, tell the story of our meeting and that made it even more special.

Spiritual journeys, Roger Thomas:

As I said above this is an article from a Saga magazine, heralding “a raft of books exploring Britain’s ancient byways” that come “hard on the heels of Griff Rhys Jones’s ‘Britain’s Lost Routes’ on BBC One”, and in little over two pages it weaves a magical pathway.

Trying hard not to simply reproduce the whole article, here are some of the best bits, starting with the opening paragraph!:

“If cars can speak to you – as those of a pedal-to-the-metal Clarksonian persuasion maintain – then landscapes can surely shout, scream and deafen.  No matter how articulate the world’s fastest, most expensive car might be (it’s a Bugatti Veyron, if you ask), it stands no chance against the leonine roar of a mountain – or, for that matter, the sublime whisper of a softly spoken valley.”

“ ......... on one of my first writing jobs.  I’d gone to Carreg Cennan Castle, an abandoned, stumpy-toothed ruin perched on a cliff in the desolate Black Mountain region of the western Brecon Beacons.  No place before, or since, has had such an unsettling – but not altogether unpleasant – effect on me.  I can’t properly explain it, but a postscript later in the article might shine a stronger light on the sledgehammer punch I felt from this collection of ancient, weatherbeaten stones mouldering on a bald, black hill in the middle of nowhere.”

“I believe that the reach of landscape extends way beyond the stuff that fills the confines of a map.  It is animate and articulate, a repository of folk memories, war and peace, life and death, fire and rain, sorrow and joy.  And you don’t have to be a loopy mystic to tune in.”

“......... the Burren, that moonscape of fractured limestone just south of Galway, an otherworldly grey dome barren but for the rare plants that grow in its fissures.  The wind howled in from the Atlantic and the sun blasted through the clouds like a biblical searchlight as I came to the Poulnabrone dolmen, the skeletal framework of a Neolithic tomb balanced on a limestone pavement.  Those were the elements of the scene.  But the sum of the parts – the synergy between rock, sun and man – was somehow greater.”

“Take it from me, the Dean [Forest of Dean] is one strange place, a high plateau on the road to nowhere, bypassed, ignored, arcane and insular.

Ancient woodlands, laden with memories of the forest as King Canute’s royal hunting ground, begin incongruously at the back door of industrial terraces.  Spirits even exist underground, as one of the freeminers of the forest a tradition going back to the 13^th century, told me: ‘This [mine] is a living thing for me, with a language of its own.  It’s always telling me something.”   

The postscript to the Carreg Cennen visit involves a vision of the place by an American who had never been there, but told to the author when he was on a visit to California 

some years after his own experiences at the castle.  But this leads to the author of this article, Roger Thomas, to finish thus:

“If this sounds too hippie for your tastes, please again be reassured that I’m a level-headed kind of guy.  Lots of New Age mumbo jumbo leaves me cold, wine is my drug of choice and I don’t believe in fairies.  But I do believe that when you follow an old drovers’ road or pilgrims’ trail, those footprints that went before you, although long gone, leave a legacy.  Their residue reveals a sense of attachment, or perhaps higher purpose, solace and comprehension.  It’s the same when you come across a place that immediately speaks to you in a language you can – yet can’t – understand.!”  

And for me there have been many of those, but that’s perhaps for another blog post “Seminal personal places!”

***********************

Finally and in conclusion, I simply hope you see what I mean?

P.S:  Since starting this and perhaps continuing with the loose themes of “travel” and “our wonderful world” and also through the writings of Richard Mabey I have both discovered and rediscovered a wealth of books that fall well and truly into the seminal.  Type the names Roger Deakin, Robert Macfarlane and indeed Richard Mabey, into your search engine and marvel at the pathways and wonders that you can encounter, not only in their books, but also those that are linked to their names, by theme, genre or more eclectic routes.  And, if you enjoyed what you read in the samples above, I’m sure you’ll find endless hours of fruitful wanderings from these small seeds, if you grope in the right places!!