The World Renewed: Out and about – on Cartridge Hill.

On Cartridge Hill

When the Soviet Union collapsed, footage emerged of Russian motorists travelling deeply potholed roads, even in their major cities. The poor benighted souls, we thought. But our sympathies were edged with more than a hint of smugness. After all, our own infrastructure could never fall into such a parlous state as that. Could it? Fast-forward twenty years, and we can tell we’re entering the environs of Chorley by the sheer violence its roads are doing to our suspension. Thus, we shake, rattle and roll towards the Hartwood roundabout. It’s a beautiful morning, a top-down day, and the little blue car has an excited buzz about her. We’re heading over to Tockholes for a walk up Cartridge Hill, on the edge of the Darwen Moors.

As we make way, I note there is nothing by way of reminder there are local elections on the 4th of May. There are no posters in windows, and I’ve had no leaflets through my door. I suppose they’re always a low-key affair, few punters bothering to turn out. But there seems something almost secret about them this time.

The Labour Party usually retains overall control of the council, here. I don’t expect that will change. It’s not much of a bell-weather for the shifting political tides of the nation, though. That said, I suspect the Greens will do a little better than usual. I read they’re currently attracting disaffected lefties, upset by Labour’s rightwards drift. Disaffected Tories are going the other way, to Reform UK, though they’ve yet to field a candidate here. Thus, we become ever more polarised, and nothing gets any better.

So, we take the Blackburn road towards Brinscall, then Abbey, and the A675 towards Belmont. Chorley is never far from beautiful countryside. Soon, we’re cruising along rural roads, flanked by neatly clipped thorn hedging. We dally with the idea of parking at Ryal Fold, but it’s getting busy there, even of a mid-week. Instead, we settle on the quieter Crookfield Road carpark.

The moors surround us here, pale as straw, and stretching as far as the eye can see. We have a clear blue sky, but a cool wind blowing down from the heights. We step out to the sound of curlew and lark.

Just off a busy turnpike, the carpark is also a favourite with vans and rep-mobiles, guys pulling in for a break between appointments. There’s a boss class Beamer, leaking thump-whack music. Then there’s a beaten up builder’s van bearing the logo of a construction company. He’s listening to Dvorák’s New World, second movement – not heard that in a while. We park closer to the builder’s van, all the better to listen, as I change into my boots. Then we set off to rejoin the curlew and the larks. Unusual that, not the sort of thing you expect to hear coming from a builder’s van. It just goes to show, you can’t always tell the depths of a man’s soul by appearances. So, beware your prejudice.

When the larks are ascending, like they are today, it’s Vaughn Williams that comes more easily to mind. But for our ascent of Cartridge Hill, it’s definitely the New World that worms about in the ear. Composed in the 1890s, and inspired by his time in America, the symphony has great warmth. It conjures up, in my own mind at least, a spirit of optimism, an anticipation of the great adventure.

Considering how the summit of Cartridge Hill must be the least visited of the West Pennine tops – at least judging by the complete lack of detritus – the cairn here takes on a different appearance every time I come by. Although indistinct when viewed from the moor, the hill has a dominant position over the valley. As a viewpoint, it is well worth the effort for a seldom seen perspective.

But now I’m thinking we’ve done this the wrong way round, actually, and climaxed too soon. We’re barely a mile in, and the remaining four have not as much to offer. But that’s just our mood talking. Lunch is chicken soup, and a view to die for. Great Hill, across the way, is dominant. Over its shoulder, I can just about make out the three windmills at Cliff’s Farm, way down on the plain at Mawdesley, near home. Next time I’m there, I’ll have to see if I can make out Cartridge Hill. Thus is it we slot the pieces, one by one, into the map inside our heads. Except now, we rely on the sat-nav and other iron-brained devices to tell us where we are, and perhaps even who we are. And such questions as “what’s that hill over there” no longer have any meaning in the world.

On we go, then, picking up a faint way towards the little moorland oasis of Lyon’s Den. The moor is dust-dry, and sandy in places. The sun is blinding and the wind is keen. I wonder if we’re heading into another of those seasonal droughts that last until July.

Darwen Tower

A huge walking party is coming up from Ryal Fold. They are taking photographs of a distant Darwen Tower with their phones. It looks like they’re heading out that way. They’ll need to hang onto their hats. We leave them to it, and cut down to Ryal Fold. As we reach the lower pastures, dandelion and coltsfoot are in profusion. We’re tempted by a brew and a bacon butty at the Rambler’s Cafe. But they’re queuing out of the doors again, and time is getting on, the long haul up through the plantations still ahead of us.

In Roddlesworth

Mid-afternoon now, and sunlight is filtering through the trees of the plantation. They are mostly bare, and the mosses are luminous. As I’ve written before, the Tockholes and Roddlesworth plantations are a bit of a doggie place. Sure enough, I meet a couple of the new breed of professional dog walker, sleight looking girls with packs of big, bouncy dogs that seem barely in control. They talk to the dogs like they are little people, but can barely manage a passing hello for me.

Roddlesworth and Tockholes are at their best in the autumn. Springtime brings little of interest, none of the carpets of anemones and allium, and bluebells of more ancient woodland. Lone gateposts among the tree trunks mark a long-lost residence, while fragments of drystone wall and fallen tree, thick with moss, speak of a near perpetual winter wet.

The Well House – Hollins Head

It is indeed a long haul from the bridge over Rocky Brook, up past Slipper Lowe, with just a faint respite to the ruins of Hollins Head. A final pull brings us back to the car. Short and sharp. Five miles round and eight hundred feet, according to the Iron Brain. The builder’s van has gone, so has the Beamer. The New World and thump-whack. Each to his own.

There’s a Green candidate putting up in my ward. I’ve had to dig for the information. Should I lend him my vote this time? If there are elections in your area, do turn out, but remember your ID. I know,… it won’t change anything. I fully expect the potholes around Chorley will be even deeper this time next year. So it’s even more important to get out for a walk. Returning from a walk, the world always seems renewed, no matter what mess it appeared to be in before. It is less a path to wrack and ruin, and more another step in the great adventure.

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Out and about – around Harrock Hill

We park on the Highmoor road, between Hill Dale and Wrightington, just a little further on than the old restaurant. I remember Rolls Royces pulling out of here, once upon a time, and gentlemen in dinner jackets. Boom time, a long time ago. It has been shut for ages. I’ve no idea where the County congregates, now. I would like to think they go about their business less ostentatiously, perhaps self-conscious at their riches, while the rest of Albion lies in tatters, and that they are meditating on the part they played in all of that.

There are a couple of laybys along here, usually occupied, but it’s a gloomy afternoon with a forecast of rain, so we have the place to ourselves. That said, there’s a feeling of spring, a luminosity to the air, aided perhaps by the daffodils and the forsythea, and the greening hawthorns. We are on the cusp of change, and it’s a shame to be indoors.

I was thinking only recently, places like this country lay-by no longer seem littered with those little silver cartridges of nitrous oxide. I’d wondered if the kids had moved on to some other drug du jour, and how funny that would be, to say nothing of ironic, given recent news of the imminent outlawing of its sale by a government determined to appear tough on antisocial behaviours, while continuing to get away with murder themselves. But as I tie my bootlaces, I see something lurking in the grass, and realise they’ve simply moved on to industrial-sized containers. I presume it’s cheaper when you get your laughs supplied in bulk. Heavens! There’s enough N₂O in one of these things to take the little blue car to the moon and back.

We’re a bit late getting out, so it’s just a short walk today, a pleasant circuit across land that is mostly part of the Harrock Hall estate. Still a private residence, it’s one of Lancashire’s grand old halls, bits of it dating to 1699. Former seat of the Rigbyes, it was remodelled in the Neo-Gothic style during the Victorian period, then sadly fell into serious disrepair. It’s now home to a branch of the Ainscough family, who have restored it. A working estate, there is everywhere a manicured look to the landscape.

We begin from the entrance on Highmoor Lane. A sign here does its best to frighten us off. Personally, I would have gone for something more classy. I don’t see a public footpath sign, either, which is curious, but there’s definitely a right of way, so here we go. So long as we keep off the grass, we’re perfectly at liberty to walk, and admire the view.

Now that’s a better sign, I think, calmly authoritative, a polite smile in the accompanying daffodils. There are lots of daffodils around the estate. After a couple of hundred yards, we leave the driveway to curl sedately down to the back of the big house, of which we catch only a distant view. It would be nice to see what it looks like, now, but there are hardly any recent pictures of it online, and the best I can do is this scan from an old postcard, which I’m guessing is mid twentieth century.

Anyway, here we branch off along a network of public ways, all narrowly confined by hedgerow and wire. The resulting concentrated footfall has made these paths heavy going. Indeed, at certain times, the way is almost impassible with deep mud, and best avoided. Today we just about manage to keep going, but the boots will need a good cleaning when they’ve dried out. The sky is a persistent moody grey, but we have those bright lanterns of daffodils to light the way, and an audience of lambs watching with innocent curiosity as we pass.

We’re heading for a local landmark, this being the ruined windmill on Harrock Hill. At a little over five hundred feet, Harrock Hill is one of the first upland areas you encounter as you travel eastwards over the plain, from the West Lancashire coast. A mixture of grazing and managed woodland coverts, it offers fine views to the sea. Shooting is a thing here, with at least some of the resulting avian casualties ending up on the menus of the local hostelries.

In spite of the gloomy sky, there is virtually no haze, so a rare clarity to the air, allowing us to see beyond Liverpool to the mountains of Wales. Northwards, there is Black Coombe, rising across Morecambe Bay and the Duddon, on the western edge of the Lake District and, just peeping over the West Pennines, there’s the grand old lady Pendle. I’m reminded my hapless hero, Tom, in search of his lost love, Rachel, finally traces her to a des-res up here. Thus, in a way, and in my imagination at least, the Road from Langholm Avenue leads to High Moor. It’s an area not on the way to anywhere in particular, so it little visited, except for those who live nearby.

The windmill is a peculiar structure, built half underground. Preserved in what appears to be a parlous state, there is still something romantic about it. Known to be operating in the 1660’s, it was already a substantial ruin by the 1830’s, then a fire in 1880 left us with what little we see today. In the summer months, when the woodland is dense with leaf, you can walk by, and not even know it’s there. In the bare season, like this one, you can see its silhouette, beckoning, and it’s well worth a visit.

From the mill, we follow a broad track down towards Cooper’s Lane, but turn off and cross the boggy meadows to pick our way above Wrights Coverts. Here we have views across the vale to Coppull, the West Pennines rising beyond. I’m walking with an older digital OS map on my device, using a trusty application called AlpineQuest, but the map’s antiquity occasionally lets me down. It’s still showing a right of way around the seventeenth century house, at Higher Barn, which I’d been hoping to get a closer look at. But a massive gate, with coded electronic entry, suggests there’s been some gentrification, and a reroute. I also have the official OS mapping app as a back-up, which I don’t think is as good, either for route planning or navigation, but at least the maps are up-to-date, and this confirms the path has been moved. The house is grade 2 listed, beautiful from a distance and oozing with an ancient, romantic charm. It’s currently valued at around six million.

The rerouting takes us along the edge of a pleasant, sheep cropped meadow, more spring lambs gambolling as we pass. Just as we’re getting cocky, it ends in bog, and it’s with some difficulty we rejoin the firmer ground of the estate road. Our boots have had a squelchy hammering today. They used to be leaky, but liberal applications of boot cream over the winter seems to have rescued them, and they’ve kept our feet dry.

So, now we’re back at our starting point, at the little blue car, and those massive canisters of N₂O. There’s some weight in them, stainless steel – I’m guessing. They must have some value as scrap. Perhaps the dealers are missing a trick there and should offer a deposit scheme. Apart from those canisters, there’s been a striking absence of litter throughout the walk. And, miracle of miracles, I encountered not one dog-bag.

Three miles round and just three hundred feet of fairly gentle up and down

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Out and about – around the Lancashire Coast

Bank End, Cockerham

They have installed a new parking meter, and spy cameras at Glasson Basin. There are two things to note about that. (1) The price to park has gone up, and (2) I found the meter impossible to understand. But help was on hand from the younger generation, and we muddled through. The important thing is we’re here, the walk having been postponed from February.

It’s good to be in Glasson again, though I was saddened by that parking thing, and the hike in tariffs, as it’s not exactly the Lakes or the Dales. Yes, there is an understated charm about the place, but this new parkomat seems to rather overstate its virtues. It will of course be something of a cash-cow, as the days warm, and the weekend crowds return.

But for now, it’s a cold morning, and there’s a steady breeze off the water, with razor blades in it. There’s an in-and-out sun, but a mostly gloomy sky. The forecast is for dry until mid-afternoon. Then a band of rain and sleet is set to sweep up from the south, but we should be on our way home by then.

There’s a forlorn look to the few barges moored on the canal, as we walk by on this first leg of our journey. Indeed, they puncture any bubble of romance one might have had about living off grid, and on the water. They look rusty, damp and cold. Some vessels have also moved out of the vicinity of the basin and are now moored much further down the canal, as if shunned from the port’s environs. There is trouble afoot here. The sleepy look of Glasson belies recent tensions with the port authority, who appear to be asserting themselves over the local residents, and in ways that aren’t at all popular.

Glasson Basin

From the canal, we take the little lanes south, through the meadows, towards Thursland Hill. In doing so, we pass the Morecambe R/C aeroplane club who are putting their little machines through their paces. There is also the steady drone of a Pilatus as it takes off from the skydiving centre where, for as little as £150, you too can throw yourself from an aeroplane.

The vast meadows around Thursland Hill are dotted with itinerant swans today. They are the biggest of our birds, and so common a sight on our lakes and waterways, we take them for granted. I think they look better on the water than off it. Off it, there is also a lumbering menace about them. Beyond the meadows, beyond the swans, in the far distance, the shaggy Bowland fells are dusted with snow.

Beyond Thursland Hill, the scenery shifts from cultivated plain, to coastal marsh. I’ve said before how the Victorians took the most attractive bit of the Lancashire coast and built the screaming fun metropolis of Blackpool on it. At least that’s Blackpool’s front of house. For the rest, it is the most deprived town in the North. I’m sure there are other towns who can argue they are worse off, but it’s not exactly a competition we should relish, and speaks volumes instead to the times.

This bit of the coast is untamable, and therein lies both its charm and its salvation. However, even here, much of what we see is shaped by sheep, reared for the salt marsh lamb, and for which Bank End farm is famous. As in much of the Lake District, they crop the shaggy grasses and give a fresh mown appearance, which is pleasant, but unnatural. There are a couple of benches by the farm here for weary pilgrims to rest their bones. I choose one for lunch. On the other sits a man with a telescope and a notebook, spotting birds out on the marsh. We exchange greetings. He seems a quiet type, has with him a quiet, companionable dog. I don’t like to disturb them, so we share the view in easy silence.

It’s around noon, and the incoming tide is beginning to fill the vast network of dendritic channels which are patrolled by shrilly piping oystercatchers. There are eagle-eyed cormorants, too, statue-still, waiting for incoming fish. There is a lone egret, and further out, by their thousands, all huddled together, on a slowly vanishing sandbank, there are dunlin. That’s the extent of my knowledge of coastal birds, but I bet the other guy has spotted dozens more. If there is any healthy diversity in the natural world, it is at the liminal zones like these, where human reach is limited. Elsewhere is ruin.

The light is strange, today. I want to say it is gloomy, but there’s an occasional glow to it, like something sunny and revelatory is wanting to press through. The moments are fleeting, and we let the camera make of them what it can. As we walk, I’m worried about Jansen Pool, which is coming up on the latter part of our meander. It’s a tidal channel, through which our path passes, and is sometimes submerged. There is no viable alternative, other than a long back-track, or acrobatics involving a farm gate and slippery planks. I have checked the tides, and we’re looking at five meters today, around mid-afternoon. The problems only arise at the spring tides, and we are several days past the moon’s full. We should be okay then, but I am no Salty Sam, and have been caught out before. That’s for later, but adds a certain spice of anticipation as we make our way up the coastal trail to Cockersands.

The Chapter House, Cockersand Abbey

We try a couple of fresh perspectives here. One is of the Chapter House, the sole remains of the Abbey, and a grade 1 listed building. It’s a perspective I’ve copied by researching other photographers’ takes on it, though we seem to have captured today’s fleeting light and moody sky. Then, turning to face the sea, there is also a striking view of the Plover Scar lighthouse and an altogether different mood. It has a kissing gate at land’s end for foreground interest. The lighthouse looks rusty and ancient, even though it was only recently rebuilt after a ship collided with it. Beyond the light, we have the wide reach of Morecambe Bay, and a snow speckled Black Coombe.

The Plover Scar Light

I check the phone, on which I run the navigation app, to confirm the distance still to go. I have forgotten to turn the data off, so a notification has leaked through and informs me there will be no pundits on Match of the Day, tonight. I’m not a fan of football, and haven’t watched Match of the Day for donkey’s years. But this is about much more than football.

The lead presenter is a popular celebrity, with a huge Twitter-base. He has said something derogatory, but essentially true, about the government’s refugee policies and the BBC have suspended him for his candour. His colleagues have now also withdrawn their labours, quoting “solidarity”. This is not the sort of word one usually hears among the astronomically well paid, but welcome all the same.

It is a serious matter for the BBC who appears to have caved in, and very publicly, to political pressure. It damages their reputation as an impartial public service broadcaster, and is to be regretted. But it is a reputation already in question on account of their chairman being a significant donor to the Conservative party. I don’t see this playing out at all well. But I note also the media fuss is over the man, rather than the policy, which is widely, and internationally condemned.

I fear all of this means the next few years will be a hateful time, as more cultural issues are stoked for their incandescent effects on public opinion. Indeed, we’re going to hear a lot about who we should hate or fear, as a distraction from more pressing issues. Those damned bloggers for a start, perhaps, those bleeding heart amateur hacks, bleating on like they know what they’re talking about. But we should remember that, while the populists claim to be defending us against bogey-persons of their own invention, our futures are being dismantled brick by brick, freedom by freedom, doctor by doctor, nurse by nurse, and ambulance call by ambulance call,…

Tidal flooding at Jansen Pool

Anyway,… Jansen Pool is passable with a mere splash of the boots, unlike in the photo, taken on a previous occasion and which required acrobatics. Then we’re up the final pasture, where the thorn trees make dramatic shapes against a glowering sky. And, finally we return to Glasson, to the shimmering basin, and the simmering discontent of its locals, to its eclectic moorings, and its shiny new parkomat. Here, we call at the Lock-keeper’s rest for chips, and a brew. There’s always a handful of garrulous hairy bikers here, with their thundering machines. It’s a good run out on a bike, or in a little blue car with the top down. But we’re in the big grey one today, anticipating this band of weather, and wary of salty roads for fear they might dissolve the little blue car’s undersides. The big grey one ran well, was powerful and comfortable. It’ll be taking us some distance in the coming year.

As we’re served our chips, the skies darken, and the rain comes on. It’s gentle, just the lightest kiss, but with flecks of sleet in it. In a world of few certainties, it’s comforting to know you can at least still rely on the factual impartiality of the Met office.

Six and a half miles, dead flat.

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Out and about – around the Abbey reservoir

It beggars belief, but yesterday’s domestic news was dominated by our recently ousted PM’s unsubtly trailed and somewhat premature angling for a comeback. In her forty-day tenure – the shortest serving PM in history – she crashed the markets, wiped billions off investments, stunted the growth of defined benefit pensions for millions of workers, and ruined the UK’s reputation for sound financial governance. But, she writes, it was not her fault. She was badly advised. And worse, there are those within the now bitter dregs of her party who think she’s right. My heart sinks, says the leader of the opposition. Mine too, mate.

Then, political journalist, Andrew Marr, now released from the constraints of corporate news media, has been more frank and informative in his analysis of world events of late. Rumours of an early end to the war in Ukraine are premature, he says – though I must admit I had not heard any such rumours – and we should be prepared for it to go on for another five or ten years. This will cast a dark shadow over European – indeed world – affairs throughout the 20’s. But the UK is particularly exposed, it being now the worst performing of the western nations, including Russia, with stagnant growth and levels of entrenched inequality that are quite staggering. You are better off being poor virtually anywhere else in the world, than in the UK. We must expect energy and food prices to remain high, for a long time.

All of this paints a bleak picture, one that is in contrast to the positive vibes of the morning, with clear skies and the frost still lying across the meadows. We leave the car on Dole Lane at Abbey Village, and walk down to the Hare and Hounds, then strike out along the right of way whose signage does its best to say it is not a right of way, but access only to a private residence. But a right of way it is, and has been forever, so off we go.

Just a short walk today, more of a dog waking circuit for Abbey residents, and incomers like me, around the lower reservoirs, and the Roddlesworth plantations. We have no dog, but there is no shortage of yappy canine accompaniment, and our trousers are soon muddied by an over-friendly, jumpy creature, who gets a telling off by a scold-faced woman. I am ready to wave away her apology, but do not get one. Most people we meet are open and friendly, but we tend only to mark the ones who are not.

We’re planning a bigger walk in the Forest of Bowland for later in the week, when the weather is looking iffy, but today, being such a good day, it was a pity to waste it indoors, so here we are, but not wanting to wear our legs out for the upcoming epic. We have time to linger over familiar ways, to take photographs, and to ponder world affairs. As we move from winter’s dark into the first hints of post Imbolc light, and the snowdrops begin to show, there is the feeling of a weight lifted, of an optimism returning. The media, however, have other ideas and would sooner scotch all hope before it has the chance to bud.

I have the long lens today, not the obvious choice for woodland photography, but I’m looking for details in isolation with blurry backgrounds. The obvious targets are the lone juvenile copper birches, holding onto their leaves, and rising into shafts of sunlight against a backdrop of fuzzed out darker woodland. I’ve a feeling it’s a cliché, but I’m not selling photographs, so it doesn’t matter. There’s something in them that’s worth a moment of contemplation, anyway. The branches have poise, like a dancer, expressive of,… well,… something.

The big international news of course is this devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria. Over 5000 souls are known to be lost, so far. It’s an unimaginable and sudden tragedy that puts our European troubles into perspective. It’s also worth remembering, however, that a study by the University of Glasgow concludes we lost 335,000 souls, across the home nations, between 2012 and 2019, due to poverty alone, as caused by political austerity a fact the media seems curiously reticent about. But to dwell on these things, says our redoubtable chancellor, is to talk Britain down.

On the middle reservoir, the fly-fishermen have pulled their boats in for the winter, so the cormorants are perched instead on the mooring buoys. Patient birds, they share the character of vultures in their Victorian funeral feathers. We are also befriended by a robin which hops onto a post within arm’s reach, and eyes us cheekily. He bobs about there for ages, so enchanting we forget about the camera, and as soon as we do remember it and try to get focus, he’s gone.

Then we meet a bunch of guys we used to work with, the entire department actually, all retired, but still keeping in touch and meeting up for regular walks. It was a tonic to see them looking so hale and hearty. The chancellor scowls and tells us we are part of the problem, we, the early retired, and economically inactive, and should get back to work, along with the sick and disabled, fill in all those vacancies left by our European friends who went home post BREXIT. But the taxman still collects his dues from us, which is more than can be said for certain members of the cabinet. He will have a tough job coaxing us back into the office, should we even be wanted, which I am sure by now we are not.

We have in common our freedom from the constraints of those things we cannot alter, like the clocking machine for a start, and the daily deluge of bullshit emails. We have the freedom to focus on those things that are within our remit: to stay at home and write, do a bit of DIY, tidy the garden, come out for a walk, explore an unfamiliar part of the country, choose which lens to bring with the camera. These are small things for sure, but important all the same, if not as things in themselves, then as vehicles for exploring the deeper self. But even granted such freedom, we risk ignoring it, to go fretting instead over those things we cannot change, like what further madness the chancellor and his swivel eyed colleagues might be planning next. How about scrapping all environmental, food, employment and animal welfare standards? And making it illegal to go on strike.

I have begun a new story, about a man living alone on a remote Scottish island. He finds a humanoid robot of the type they are now developing, and hyping to a ridiculous extent, washed up on the beach. I take all the frankly improbable tech utopian projections, and bestow them in spades upon my fictional bot. It wakes up and proves itself both intelligent and an astonishingly capable companion, as well as gorgeously female in appearance. In what ways does it alter the man’s outlook on his own life?

Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic, but even as a romantic with an increasingly non-dualist perspective, I hesitate to make fun of it. It is a thing to be reckoned with and, if the impact of the Internet is anything to go by, it will render the near future unrecognisable, and in ways that are not predictable and not entirely benign either. Again, this is something we have no control over, but at least as a writer I can explore it, whilst being careful not to be too shrill in its condemnation, or as its advocate. We’re up to three chapters and the ideas are still coming, but we’ll say no more in case I jinx it.

Anyway, just two and a half miles today in frosty sunshine, then a pleasant drive back over the moors. At home, we clean and waterproof the boots for Bowland. I read on a blog recently of a method of spiritual and philosophical reflection, where we cast our minds back over the week, and ask what lessons we learned, something our former PM would do well to dwell upon. I’m not sure if I’ve heard this before – I think I might have – but it’s not something I do by habit, and it’s early in the week yet, so I hesitate to jump to conclusions.

We’ll see come Friday.

Thanks for listening

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Out and about – High noon on Noon Hill, with John Wick

A light fall of snow overnight clears to a frosty dawn. The forecast is too good to be skulking about indoors, so we muster our gear, then set out for Rivington, and the Hall Avenue.

Mid-week, mid-morning, and it’s busy with cars, kids and dogs. These are school age kids, and they are with working age parents. Again, I wonder to what they owe their premature attainment of escape velocity. There’s a sprinkling of snow here, and the ground feels mushy where the sun touches it, but it’ll most likely be frozen, higher up, so we pack the spikes – just in case – and off we go. Check: camera on aperture auto, shooting RAW, and set to bracket, polariser on the 18-140mm lens.

I’m a bit pie-eyed this morning, and feeling gormless. I used to be a night bird, but no longer seem able to burn the midnight oil without consequences. I’d stayed up watching a movie that had been recommended, called John Wick. Personally, I found it mindlessly violent, almost like a video game. There was one brutal set piece after the other, and then the embarrassing festishisation of ever more elaborately phallic firearms. And there was a veneer of glamour whose thrust had me wincing more than the oft-wielded knife blades. Okay, so it wasn’t my preferred genre.

I didn’t make it to the end, but fell asleep, frankly, bored. That said, John Wick’s brooding, funereal presence is still following me around this morning. I hope he’s wearing a decent pair of boots, or he’ll be grumbling later.

Unlike John’s violent and nihilistic universe, the world of Rivington is peaceful, and beautiful. We take a meandering approach to the terraced gardens – no particular route in mind, as seems usual with me these days, when on home territory. The snow cover thickens as we climb, and the low sun paints buttery highlights. There’s just enough whispy cloud to add interest to the sky without it tipping the atmosphere into something gloomy. John would prefer it gloomy, he says, while checking for the firearms secreted about his person. But this is England, and we don’t allow that sort of thing here. He’s puzzled by this. I mean, what if someone insults you?

On the great lawn, there are two summerhouses, now wonderfully restored and architecturally fascinating. I’ve just worked out one faces the morning sun, the other the evening. Mi’lord Leverhulme would have taken breakfast on fine summer mornings at one, and sipped his sundowners at the other. And me, sitting down on the steps of his morning summerhouse, basking in this buttery light, would have been seen off with dogs, and John, no doubt in Mi’lord’s employ. A century later, I have my revenge, and sit with impunity, for Time is the great leveller.

I never tire of the gardens. They’re certainly a royal way to approach the Pike, and the moors beyond. A vague plan is beginning to form. We’ll do the Pike, then chance the moor, across to Noon Hill.

The café that has recently popped up in the ruins of the old public lavatories, below the Pike, is open, and John is gasping for a coffee. It has recently installed a diesel generator, and we are treated to its noxious exhaust as we approach from downwind. I am not tempted, but John grabs a quick one, then crushes, and discards his cup in the bushes. I fish it out and put it in my bag, decide against giving him a lecture on it. He seems at times on the verge of becoming a reformed character, but a moment’s thoughtlessness, and he reverts to type.

There’s quite the procession going up the Pike, they’re also struggling, avoiding the steps, which are thick with ice. So we put the spikes on and make a traverse, spiralling round to get at the top from behind. It’s cold and blowy, people taking selfies. They’re looking at John like they know him from somewhere. Again, there are many here I would have thought of an age to be either in college or working. I wonder if they are on strike today.

The various strike actions are deepening across the country now, and the usual yapping dog presses seem to be failing in their attempts to demonise the Union officials. The government is also looking crass and incompetent, in its refusal to negotiate. The political Zeitgeist is swinging to the centre and would swing further, but the left no longer has meaningful representation. The powerful have not grasped these are not the nineteen seventies. The discontent is different, born of an inequality our parents never knew, one that has been a decade in the manufacture, at the hands of those who, by contrast, have profited handsomely by it. John confides in me, he’s been approached by several kingpins with a view to taking out ringleaders of discontent. He’s told them he’s retired and doesn’t do that sort of thing any more.

Anyway, in the summer months the route across the moor from the Pike to Noon Hill can be difficult to trace, and intermittently boggy. But today it’s plainly picked out by a dusting of snow, a thin white line squiggled over an undulating expanse of pale straw, and the ground is hard. The trick is knowing where the snow is covering bog, and how thick the underlying ice is. Will it take your weight, or will you burst through over your boots? As we get going, we look back and take a few shots of the pike in retrospect. There’s a lone man making his way up, and with a tight crop, the scene is dramatic.

Noon Hill is an unimpressive summit from this angle, just a small spur off the Winter Hill ridge. It’s more interesting when viewed from the west, where it forms a meridian with Great Hill, and I’ve often wondered if there’s any significance in the fact that, whatever the time of year, when viewed from Anglezarke, the sun will always be directly above Noon Hill, at noon. What do you think, John? John shrugs, couldn’t care less, checks instead for the knife in his sock. I’d told him to lose that, because it’s a one way ticket to chokey, if he’s caught. He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. What kind of dumb-ass country is this where a man can’t carry a knife or a gun? Clearly, we’ve a way to go before we can restore his faith in humanity.

Noon Hill is the site of a Bronze Age saucer burial. It was first excavated in 1958 by John Winstanley who was then curator of the Hall in th’Wood Museum. It was an eventful dig, and his diary makes for interesting reading. Further information can be had at the excellent Lancashire Past website, here. There are also some fascinating period photographs of the dig here.

The ground becomes more treacherous the nearer we get to the top, and the light turns bleak as thicker clouds begin to gather from the south. The view looking back to the Pike takes on the appearance of a revelation now, as the sun fans down though whatever heavenly apertures it can find. But it is the view northwards that is the most stunning, across Anglezarke moor. Then there’s the land falling away to the plain, and finally the glittering line of the sea, to the west. And to the east, we have the stacked ranks of increasingly snowy hills, marching out towards Rossendale.

But there’s little time to settle and enjoy it, greeted as we are by a face numbing wind, so it’s a quick shot of the snowy cairn with Winter Hill in the background, then turn tail and make our way down. The time for Noon Hill is a clear summer’s day, with a pair of binoculars.

We take the short route down to the old turnpike, then the unofficial path that drops us steeply to the bend on Sheephouse lane, and finally, a very boggy return to Rivington. It’s a walk that always feels longer than it is – just over four miles, and seven hundred and fifty feet of ascent, but a pleasantly varied route, and far enough given what looks like a bit of weather moving in.

Time for a brew, now. John’s smiling a bit. You know what? I think we’ve mellowed him out. He says he’s sorry about that coffee cup, earlier on. I just hope no one picks a fight with him in the tearoom, or we’re all in trouble.

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The writing life – the gaps between the muse’s midnight pleasure.

A week of heavy rain and brutal winds defeats the lead flashing around the chimney, and the roof begins to leak. Again. I hear it dripping into the buckets in the attic, as the wind roars in the chimney. I called a roofer out, and he turned up, which is always a surprise, but his face was covered, and he kept ten paces away. A touch of flu, he said. I felt guilty then, asking him to go up on the roof, but he said he could see the problem from ground level, then disappeared back to his bed with promises to return when it stopped raining. It’s been raining pretty much for a week now. I wish him a speedy recovery, a clearing in the forecast, and hope he’s not forgotten me.

I never used to fret about the integrity of the old homestead. The former day-job tended to exhaust my allotment of anxieties. But take away one set of problems, and a mind that’s so inclined finds others to occupy itself with. Now, in retirement, I imagine the house gremlins undermining the place, so it’ll fall down around my ears, in spite of all efforts at maintenance over the decades of my residence. It doesn’t help when the foul weather keeps you indoors. There are home-birds who’d happily never set foot outside their gate, except to walk to the corner shop for a paper, but I’m not one of them. Being indoors for more than a few days drives me nuts. And it’s been over a week now.

But we were talking about writing. And of that imaginary world, the writing world, doors open and close. We cultivate the dream life for clues, we sit at the desk each morning like we’re still working from home – like during those covid lockdown days – and we tickle the keys, then delete the nonsense that comes out. The dreams are beguiling, but it’s anyone’s guess what they’re trying to say: the muse wishes to be seen as something other than what I have thus far always thought her to be, or something like that; the storm lamp I use to navigate my way through complex change has lost its wick and all its fuel; then I am required to make a sworn statement by a shallow, pompous official, who I tell in no uncertain terms to “f&*k off”. Dreams are quite the thing, aren’t they? But mostly hard to fathom. No matter – just keep stirring the pot. See what bubbles up.

Thus, we await the muse’s midnight pleasure. I’m hoping for something of a change from the usual existential rumination – a powerful romance, say, or a murder mystery, or something with a bit of humour in it. We could all do with a laugh, though the times are weighed agin’ us on the latter score, which is all the more reason to laugh at the absurdity. Shall we talk then of back-ground music?

Britain starts the new year in such a peculiar state of crisis, one that’s impossible to ignore, yet seems also pointless to mention because it’s been going on so long there is no novelty left in it that’s worth exploring. I have deleted the BBC News app from my phone, because it insists on trumpeting the Murdoch front pages. Facebook and Twitter I have never entertained. I spare the Guardian only a five-minute glance in the morning, which is plenty. It tells me the health service is in ruins, and you’re stuffed, unless you can pay. There is what amounts to an ongoing national strike, as wages are so poor workers literally cannot afford to live. Meanwhile, the government drifts into authoritarian territory, in thrall to the most cravenly disruptive elements within it, and is therefore unable to govern. And BREXIT, BREXIT,… no we dare not speak of BREXIT. Same old Muzak, then.

But that’s the thing with permacrises, I suppose, they’re – well – permanent. We adjust to the new normal, and thank our lucky stars we only have a leaking roof to deal with. But mostly I gather the media is presently obsessed with a gossipy book by an exiled Royal. I know this because everyone I know is talking about it. Well, not everyone, but enough to remind me how easily we are distracted by cakes and ale.

Oh, there is a feast of material here for someone of the stature of an Orwell, but an Orwell I am not. When on my soapbox, I am but a little dog growling at the moon, and the muse gently coaxes me back down. But where to, I ask?

Then my elusive GP sends out a questionnaire, asking me to rate his performance. There could be some material in this, for it strikes me as both obtuse and ironic. The questions don’t allow me to indicate I have tried to see him on a number of occasions, one of them urgently – or so I thought – and was rebuffed with directions to the warzone that is A+E. I throw the Byzantine missive away, his officious receptionist reminds me by text. I ignore it. We have built a world of bullshit and fantasy performance indicators, while allowing all substance to fall away. Plenty of material there – but again that’s for an Orwell.

No, the muse is drawing me to an island, or a remote valley. But we’ve already been there, and done that to death, I protest. No, this time it will be different, she says, as she relights my lamp. Trust me.

Such is the writing life, and the little gaps between.

The forecast is for dry next week. I hope that roofer turns up.

Thanks for listening.

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On my bookshelf: Humankind – a Hopeful History – Rutger Bregman

My thanks to fellow blogger Ashley for his mention of this book, which I was inspired to read over the Christmas and New Year period, and what a wonderfully hopeful message it offers. Indeed, what better way to start the New Year than with an entirely fresh view of humanity, that if we could only realise our true natures, so many of the problems plaguing societies the world over would be solved.

Sounds too good to be true? What is this magical formula? Well, it’s a simple idea, and not particularly radical. It’s an idea backed up by centuries of data, yet somehow conveniently ignored. What is it? Well, it’s simply that most human beings, deep down, are not self-seeking individuals with scant regard for the welfare of others. They are decent, and will go out of their way to help you.

An aircraft crashes on takeoff. Do people panic and make a mad stampede for the doors? Or does everyone help each other, make sure everyone is okay and gets out alive? If asked, we’d say the first scenario, the mad selfish panic, is the most likely outcome, because that’s what happens in the movies. And the media is daily full of examples of the selfish, indeed the downright nasty natures of our fellow beings – so be on your guard because all strangers are out to get you, trick you, scam you, or at the very least get ahead of you in the queue for the door. But, in fact, studies show we’d be wrong, that it’s the second option we’d most likely observe in reality. By far the majority of people really would help one another, even at the risk of their own lives.

Rutger Bregman is an historian, a left leaning intellectual, and a powerful advocate for a Universal Basic Income. His YouTube TED talk “Poverty isn’t lack of character, it’s lack of cash” is up to nearly four million views. His opinions regarding the positive nature of human beings are at times counter-intuitive, to the extent of being hard to swallow, and he triggers much invective from the right-leaning. But his argument runs that our “intuitions” have been poisoned by the media we consume, that the data alone should be convincing enough, and he draws upon several fascinating examples to illustrate his point.

One of the motives behind the civilian bombing campaigns of the second world war was the already discredited theory it would inflict such terror in the minds of the population, the state wouldn’t be able to function. London would empty, the country would become ungovernable, and fall apart. However, the lesson of the blitz was that, in spite of the most appalling loss of life, life went on, the population adjusted to the new normal – terrible as it was – and their resolve deepened. And this was not a peculiarity of the British character, either. The same thing happened in Germany, under allied bombing, and in Vietnam under American bombing, and it’s happening now in Ukraine.

There is nothing better for forming bonds of fellowship, and bringing out the finest and the bravest, and the most altruistic in human nature than adverse circumstances. So the mystery is why our societies are organised on the assumption that we’re all greedy, dishonest, and self-seeking. It’s an urgent question, too, for this pessimistic, and endlessly competitive view of human nature has brought us to the brink of disaster, with massive levels of poverty, and inequality.

Bregman boils his thesis down into ten rules that he says we should all follow, to put things right:

1) When in doubt, assume the best in others.

2) Life is not really a competition where there must always be a loser. The best scenarios are where everybody wins.

3) Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Ask them first. Their needs may be different to yours.

4) Do not simply empathise with the suffering of others. It’s useless and you’ll go mad. Be compassionate instead.

5) Try to understand others, even if you don’t get, or even like, where they seem to be coming from.

6) Love your own as others love their own, while remaining conscious of the love others have for their own. This will close the distance between us, and allow us to see others more as we see ourselves.

7) Avoid the daily news, and all push notifications from social media – they only serve to distance us from others. If you want current affairs, read in slower time from journals – monthlies, weeklies, for a more considered analysis. Ditch the news cycle.

8) Don’t punch Nazis. Meaning, don’t lend your own energy to the provocation of others, and resist the trap of cynicism regarding the fallacy of the entrenched nature of human folly.

9) Don’t be ashamed to do good.

10) To be truly realistic about the facts of human nature, we must discount the myth that most people are a bad lot. They’re not, and the facts bear it out. So, be true to your nature, offer your trust and act from the goodness of the heart.

But who among us has the courage? To be street-smart is a badge of honour – how not to get bushwhacked, or scammed, or mugged? We must basically expect the worst from strangers. We teach stranger danger to our kids. How dare we not? There is, after all, an epidemic of violence and crime against our persons. Or is there? Are we not simply being taught to fear?

Bregman tell us that, yes, of course, showing trust, we will occasionally be taken advantage of, but it’s a mistake to allow ourselves to become poisoned against the rest of our fellow man as the result. Reflecting on his message, uplifting as it is, I doubt I have the courage to live all ten of those rules, even though my own life experience does bear out his thesis. I have fetched up more than once as an innocent from the sticks, in Liverpool, a town that has the reputation – in the media at least – of the wild west, and each time I have been aided by perfect strangers, with genuine heart and feeling. But my transactional experience with people also suggests that, although a person’s primary instinct may be open and altruistic, if they are given any excuse for thinking they have been slighted, they will turn against you very quickly.

A very uplifting read, from a fascinating author.

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Coming home – around the Abbey reservoirs

Abbey Village

The gate to the war memorial at Abbey Village is locked. I usually visit in the week leading up to the armistice, to leave one of those little wooden crosses for my great uncle. He died in Mesopotamia in 1918, and is named on the column. He was one of the many sons of the village who did not come home.

So, what to do? Well, after a moment of indecision, I toss the little cross, as gently as I can, but still rather indecorously, through the bars, where it falls skew-whiff among the evergreens in the planter at the foot of the column. I offer a wordless apology. A token charged such as this should be placed mindfully, not tossed as a last resort, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had not wanted to walk away with it still in my pocket, for then the charge would have fizzled away to meaninglessness. I shall have to rethink arrangements for next time. I’ve been coming here for years and never encountered a locked gate before. I wonder if the village fears vandalism?

Remembrance and the red-poppy has become a political wedge issue in recent years. For myself I feel it’s simply important to keep alive the memory of one’s family’s losses in war, and that we carry that consciousness forward into the lives we lead ourselves, for if enough of us can re-imagine the grief, following those fateful telegrams home, the generation we raise might be better able to temper their reactions whenever sabres start to rattle, as they inevitably do from time to time. And they in turn might pass the same thing on.

Autumn in Roddlesworth

Abbey is a place mostly pictured for me in the monochrome and the sepia of family photographs, from the nineteen thirties to the early sixties. Time has changed it, of course. Motor cars now line the main thoroughfare, and satellite dishes bristle from the rooftops. Five minutes, though, and it is a world forgotten, while another modernity lures us in. This is a modernity of the Victorian period – the reservoir system, and the woodland plantation that surrounds it, a circuit of which will take us a couple of hours, and covers a good five miles. It was a Sunday stroll for my parents, decked out in their best threads. Now we wear storm-proofs and hiking boots, like it’s the world’s end, and the rain will melt us.

The light in November starts poor, and fades early. This afternoon we begin with the flake-white overcast that forms a backdrop to so many of L.S. Lowry’s paintings, and it takes on an increasingly blue-grey tint as sunset approaches. But the intense beauty of autumn has arrived, and the woodland around the Abbey reservoirs is a delight to walk. It is also a place of deep, mysterious shadow, but wonderfully coloured along the pathways, from the rose-gold of the fallen leaves, to the yellows of the beeches, and the pale greens still hanging on. And as the trunks and boughs emerge from their thinning foliage, they assume expressive postures, with the feel of an impressionist tableau.

Autumn in Roddlesworth

I had felt something unfriendly, even unwelcoming in that incident at the war memorial, that the modern village no longer wishes to recognise its past, of which I and my family are a part, but then I discover only smiles and hearty greetings from the few walkers I encounter on the trail. In fact, I encounter most of them twice, as we pass in opposite directions, doing the same circuit, but the other way round. There are owls calling, deep in the privacy of the woods, and I discover a working charcoal kiln, with evidence of fresh coppicing, and woodland management. The charcoal is used mostly for barbecues, but also art supplies, and the bits left over, the charcoal fines, are bagged and sold as “biochar”, a horticultural soil improver.

Charcoal burning, Roddlesworth

On the one hand, it is encouraging to see these traditional practices still being carried out, while on the other it’s disconcerting to see how much woodland is required to be fenced off from casual exploration. Not all the best photographs can be taken from the marked trails. We need some flexibility to stalk the light and the shadow, and these fences, liked locked gates, get in the way of imagination and our freedom to express ourselves.

From Abbey we descend as far as the bridge over Rocky Brook, then begin the climb towards Ryal Fold. The rambler’s café is a tempting destination, but it shuts at three today, and we’ll never make it, so we take the more direct return along the woodland ways. There are hints of a pale sun trying to break through, now, a last gasp for the day, but it never quite makes it. No matter. The woodland has an exquisite air about it this afternoon, and the autumn colours are ravishing. We return to Abbey at lighting up time. The car park of the Hare and Hounds looks busy, so we’ll pass on coffee, and begin the drive home. The woods were a sight for sore eyes today, and a balm for the soul.

Autumn in Roddlesworth

On the subject of remembrance, there is a story about a young man lost in the war, and his father holding on to the hope that there’d been a mistake, and his son would return. To this end he would go down to the local railway station every day to meet the tea-time train, thinking his son might be on it, but of course he never was. The father maintained this ritual for decades, into old age and the Beeching cuts, which saw the line closed, and the rails taken up,…

I regret I do not know the author’s name, but it was a story that touched me deeply. It could have been my great-grandfather, refusing to believe in that telegram message, that there had been a mistake, and of course his son would return, hale and hearty as he had set out. But it’s a long time since the trains ran through Abbey, and, for sure, my great uncle isn’t coming back.

Shall they return to beatings of great bells

In wild trainloads?

A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,

May creep back, silent, to still village wells

Up half-known roads.

_{Wilfred Owen}

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Many a true word

The day begins with a scam text message purporting to be from the courier, Evri. It wants us to “Click here” to re-arrange delivery. I’ve not ordered anything. The sender intends emptying my bank account. I wonder how many poor souls have fallen for it, and thereby helped swell the coffers of an organised criminality the world seems unable to outwit. I wonder how they came by my number, since I am ever so careful with it. We block the sender for all the good it will do us, and, while we have the phone in our hands, we turn to the news.

In the UK, right leaning ministers of state are spurring hot-heads to violence with intemperate language. Internationally, the UN reports the last eight years were the hottest in recorded history, and that limiting global temperatures to what is calculated to be a relatively safe 1.5 degrees is now a forlorn hope with, thus far, no realistic plans in place, anywhere. In America, Trump looks set to begin a return to the presidency, following the mid-term elections, while various armed MAGA hatted militias are discussing outrages which threaten civil war. Back in the UK again, the pollster, Sir John Curtice, reports significant buyers’ remorse over BREXIT, with a 15% lead among the public for those in favour of now re-joining the EU, but the political debate has closed on that one, BREXIT being the one thing no one talks about. All this and we have only scrolled half way. What other grumblies await us down there? Shall we doom-scroll some more, and see? No, that’s quite enough.

We set the phone aside, rise into the cold of the house, make coffee and check on the washing machine.

Current affairs hold a significant fascination, dare I say even an addiction. We imagine, by keeping ourselves informed of the various goings-on, we gain a greater understanding of the world, that it is a virtuous thing to do, the mark of an intelligent, well-balanced and educated person. At least that is what I was encouraged to think at college, forty years ago. Now I’m not so sure. The media landscape has something of the nature of quicksand about it. Perhaps it always had, and I am simply less sure-footed than I was, for I suspect the older one gets, the more it seems the world is going to hell in a handcart. Things no longer conform to one’s personal expectations, and perhaps, too, one’s expectations begin to narrow, thus alienating us from life still further, whatever our disposition. And we find in media whatever data we need to support our personal hell in a hand-cart hypotheses.

There are plenty of things in life we should be wary of – alcohol and other drugs are the obvious ones, but also this connection to fast-food and short sell-by media. They each poison us, make us less useful as the eyes and ears, and the heart and soul of the universe. Our phones suck us down into a sorry world that is void of imagination, and creativity. They land us among the sterile refuse of data, where we become much less than our selves, as the spark of individual value drains from us. Then we merely subordinate our selves to a tribe who holds certain data to be sacrosanct, other data to be heretical, and thereby we become mere unreflective data-points ourselves, so we might be served more of the same unwholesome junk.

So now, the washing machine has finished its cycle. There are clothes to dry, and the maiden is still full from last week. Things dry slowly these colder, autumn days, and it serves to remind us there are only certain kinds of data that are unequivocal. Your clothes are still wet, or they are dry. Other data requires nuance. It requires a more right brained, wholistic approach in order to separate the wheat from the chaff. Anyway, after sorting that one out, we take up our coffee, pick up the phone once more, note that in the meantime there has been a glitch. The phone has rebooted itself, and come back with a curious error message in which, with brutal honesty and admirable self-flagellation, it tells me it is corrupt, and cannot be trusted.

Many a true word and all that.

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A ramble around Roddlesworth

In Roddlesworth Woods

It’s not the first time I’ve arrived at the start of a walk to find I’ve left my boots behind. But it’s okay, we’re not climbing mountains. It’ll just be some soft, dew-damp meadows, and gravel tracks, so the cheap hiking-trainers we’re wearing will probably be okay.

We’re at Ryal Fold again, in the Western Pennines, and the plan is to explore some paths we’ve not walked before, so we can add them to that mental map of permitted ways. We’ll be wandering through extensive woodland, towards Abbey Village, returning along the reservoirs and Rocky Brook, and maybe to finish we’ll come back over the moor by Lyons Den, to check on the heather.

We’re looking for signs of autumn’s advance, now, looking to enjoy some woodland photography, but as ever, it’s about enjoying the outdoors. The scent of an autumn woodland, all mushroomy and damp, early leaves composting where they lie, all of that is a delight to be savoured. The walkers’ café at Ryal Fold is busy, lots of people sitting out with coffee, enjoying these intermittent days of warm sun, and there’s a party of ramblers setting out for Darwen Tower, all noisy with well-met chatter.

Of current affairs, our new Chancellor has gone and there are rumours the PM is to be ousted too, in the coming weeks, only having been in the job five minutes. Much of the mortal thrust of last week’s “fiscal-event” is to be reversed, but the crash it precipitated is still reverberating. Retirement nest eggs are now ten percent down, and pensions are once again under a cloud as the Bank of England winds in its support of the long term bond market. And no, I don’t understand any of this either. I would subscribe to the Macbethian world view of current events, that it is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing“, but that requires a philosophical leap when life-savings are going down the plug hole, and they’re putting security tags on tubs of butter.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.

I don’t know Shakespeare at all, other than the fact we can always find bits of him to suit whatever the occasion:

Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.

The man definitely had a way with words. So anyway,… before we’re “heard no more”, off we go, and plunge into the woodland. It’s still mostly green, just a thin carpeting of gold from the first fall of leaves. There’s sunlight pooling in the clearings, illuminating the canopy, spilling along the still lush sprays of beech, to be caught at last in outstretched fingers of ferny fronds, now sinking into a softening earth. There is Birdsong, but otherwise an absolute stillness, shoes and trouser cuffs already wet from their licking, as we crossed the meadows. There’s a plane of water glittering, glimpsed now and then through dense woodland as we walk. And, yes, that autumn scent.

In Roddlesworth Woods

“Have you taken any nice photos?”

It’s a large man, well padded in fleece and parka, his beanie set at a jaunty angle. He has a muddy little dog with him that looks to be having fun. I judge both to be friendly. Cameras were once a more common accompaniment. Mine now marks me as a die-hard geek. Most people are happy to make do with their phones.

“Not yet,” I tell him. “I’ll probably get some as I go up by Rocky Brook.”

“Oh aye.”

He doesn’t know Rocky Brook. I can see it in his eyes. His accent is local, but he wasn’t brought up around here. The familiar names of places no longer stick as they once did.

And no, so far I’ve been making all the same mistakes, so there are no “good” pictures in the can. I have a slow lens in a shady woodland, which means shutter speeds are dropping to 1/8th of a second, which even image stabilisation struggles with. So, it’s all motion blur, poor focus, and the usual mystery of how the eye filters out the messy confusion of a scene, which the camera subsequently reveals.

The Roddlesworth reservoirs are pretty much full, these being the first in the long chain of water-gathering that forms a semicircle around the Western Pennines. On the highest, there are rowing boats at rest, these being for use by the Horwich angling club, but which today form convenient perches for cormorants who are also fishing, and not known for returning their catch.

Fishing cormorant

And speaking of tales told by an idiot, I’m beginning to suspect the current fiction-in-progress is moribund, and I am in danger of losing touch with it. There are two types of writer. One roughs out a structure of the entire storyline, knows where he’s going before he starts, then sticks to that plan and writes to suit it. The other type, like me, doesn’t. We open with a scene, a feeling, and a handful of characters, then see how it goes. Sometimes it goes well. But sometimes you hit a hundred thousand words and things dry up, and you’ve no idea what you’re trying to say any more. Your characters get distracted by current events, so your story starts weaving about and losing momentum.

My story started off in a quiet woodland like this, with the discovery of a fallen beech tree and the age-old philosophical question: if a tree falls alone in the forest, does it make a sound? The way you answer that question puts you into one of two camps. Most people will answer yes, of course it makes a sound. How can it not? But if you think about it more deeply, you realise it doesn’t, and that’s a rabbit hole from which there is no escape.

There are several trees here in Roddlesworth that look to have come down in last winter’s storms, perhaps over-night, or otherwise, when no one was around to see them fall. And there are older trees that fell long ago, now with mushrooms growing out of them. None made a sound as they fell, which is to say we create the world of experience entirely through the senses, but that’s not how the world is in itself. How it is in itself, we don’t know. This is not woolly minded new-age thinking. You simply meditate upon the tree that falls alone, and you follow the question to wherever it leads.

My fictional protagonist is exploring the meaning of such a world-view, while trying to ignore the sound and fury of the world, and he’s trying to work out where true significance in life lies. But I think it’s led me on a bit too far, and it’s opened another door, one that requires a new story, and cannot merely be tacked on to the old. And I’m not sure I can be bothered finishing the old one, either, since it seems to have served its purpose. Or worse, I’m tempted to close it in a hurry, like: they all woke up, and it had been a dream, sort of thing. Best to let it settle, let the characters decide if they’re done or not. But it’s been all summer, and it looks like they are indeed done. I don’t know, if you write, is it best just to let a project go when it no longer resonates, even when you’re within a shout of the dénouement?

Anyway, it turns out cheap walking-trainers aren’t the best of things for walking in. After a couple of miles, you start to feel every pebble. Stand on a coin, and you can tell if it’s heads or tails. We slow the pace and linger for some shots by Rocky Brook, but here the dynamic range is more than we can capture, even bracketing the exposures. There’s a bright sparkle of sun from the little falls, and then deep shadow. The Nikon I’m using will bracket three shots automatically, but I need more, and for that I’d need to fiddle about with a tripod, and I can never be bothered carrying one. Higher up the brook we find a more shady dell and another little fall, one that that’s rarely visited, yet it’s one of the most attractive. Here the dynamic range is more within our means.

By Rocky Brook, Roddlesworth

We settle into the dell for soup. The falls too make no sound, when there is no one around to listen. Imagine that! All the beauty in the world, the sound, the scent, the vision, we do not experience it without the mind first creating it.

We pop out onto the road by the Slipper Lowe car-park. The car-park is empty, closed off, now. From here the moor rises, bright in the sun, pale as straw. We’re perhaps too early for the heather, but I had thought we’d be seeing some by now. We make a start on the climb, but the feet are burning through these thin soles, so we cut it short, contour round on another unfamiliar but beautiful path, towards New Barn, then back to the car at Ryal Fold. A splendid day, early autumn, five and a half miles round. Note to self: next time, don’t forget your boots!

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