Cold Comforts

As the buffet was presented to the assembled masses I realised that fate had indeed dealt a cruel trick.

And so, as so often before, let me rewind.

I am attending a celebration in my local council chamber.
I represent my school as we gain a prestigious award.
An award showing what a healthy workplace we are.
For three years we have filled in forms showing all the healthy things we do.
Some of us go to the gym. Others cycle to work. A couple have given up smoking. A water cooler has been installed as a refreshing alternative to the tar like black coffee trap. Healthy snacks and fruit have replaced cakes and chocolates, though here with the same hand chocolates have been introduced as a reward and promotion of relaxation and thus staff well being…..a healthy workplace is complicated.
We have corresponded with outside organisations. We have promoted moderation in all things and wisdom in our interactions.
Tonight, along with others, we are declared a ‘Healthy Workplace’ and the Welsh Assembly Government presents yours truly as a representative member of staff with the badge of honour. A propitious occasion worthy of celebration.
Much clapping, fine words and mutual congratulation. We were all very pleased.
We were also very pleased to stay on afterwards for the thoughtfully provided celebratory get together.

I don’t think though that I was the only crestfallen soul when I saw the feast prepared. I was anticipating vol au vonts, sausage rolls, cheesy things on sticks, cold meats of various origin, quiches, chicken legs, maybe crisps of perhaps a chip or two, cheesecakes and chocolatey biscuits, fresh rolls and yellow butter. Even a glass of something. What do you think the table was graced by?

Carrot batons, celery sticks, incredibly small tomatoes. Crispbreads. Fruits chopped and whole. Juices and water……….

Phtah! You can take this healthy living business too far you know.

Not Waving But……

How many of you recognize the snippet quoted I wonder?
All weekend I have been feeling a little out of my depth.....
...All weekend? Well no not all weekend in truth.
I remember some years ago helping a couple of fine fellows who worked for Carmathenshire County Council install a chimney liner. While they took a brief weekend over the whole thing, I remember thinking at the time that there was no great mystery revealed. Given a following wind I could manage that.
As I may have mentioned before I have never seen a lack of prior experience on my own part as prejudicial to flinging my hat in to the ring.
Secure in myself I have been carving up the Gable end wall of Hallett's Mountain in search of a chimney.
Inside the barn large holes, holes that might make lesser souls quail,Holes that a structural engineer migh have batted an eylid at, have appeared. I have gradually hacked and chopped all weekend until I have finally got the majority of a gap made all the way to the pot. In this flue I intend now to install a chimney liner that I will backfill with vermiculite cement and various reinforcing members (steady on now it is only a word).
I had not a care and was quite confident. I live in the best of all possible worlds and optimism is my current middle Monica.
Then.
All of a sudden.
She Of The Townhouse mentioned building regulations………
.......Fiddle Faddle.

fANTastic

In my secret life, the work that I can only hint at here dear reader because so much of it is confidential, we have been having fun.
Some of the Hallett's Mountain ants have been carefully scooped up. Brushed into a small Tupperware container with a soft paintbrush, and introduced to the ant-o-sphere.
All week we have followed their Antics with rapt attention.

Count Your Chickens

The warmth of the early spring and the abundant supply of easy food both surrounding and inside the bird feeders has attracted some unwelcome attention from squirrels here on Hallett's Mountain. They have only made it this far up once before in my tenure and that some time back in the last century. This year however there are at least two and possibly more.
I can’t tell squirrels apart of course and have never seen them as a pair.
I know there are a minimum of two though because one of them is a consummate expert at dodging to the left.
The other one tasted a little bit like chicken……

The illustration is the ever growing hole in my wall as I search for the chimney....
I didn't feel I could use a squirrel picture....

A Right Slating

In the past I have been a mocker of my local council for eschewing the produce of local granite quarries in favour of cheaper alternatives procured from the Orient.
Now I find myself eating my own words.
I live within easy reach of slate quarries of world renown that are bursting with marketable goods of the finest quality. I find though, that I am whistling innocence and looking the other way.
As the house is being turned upside down anyway, I have decided that a fine slate tiled floor would make a suitable statement downstairs. The long serving green carpet (that doesn’t show sheep sh*t stains) that has done its job for almost thirty years is finally for the skip.
After a consultation with James The Tiler, I was shocked to hear that slate slabs of suitable quality, excellent quality even, were obtainable from Brazil for a fraction of the price of the home grown and doubtless organic variety.
Realising that this would mean a saving of at least a thousand pounds on my grand design I have seen the light. I no longer seem to be concerned that small children are splitting slates for cents in a dark quarry in the depths of the furthest reaches of the Amazon basin.

Up On The Roof

Given the family script you will perhaps forgive me if I point out from the outset that I was extremely conscious of the safety aspects.
So. There I am on the apex of my own roof with my Heath Robsinson stick in hand. I mean just how would you get a good look at what was going on further down a chimney than you could see?
This relates to my ongoing central heating installation. Radiators are all in place and the heating circuit to them and to the new hot water cylinder is complete. They now need connecting to the Rayburn. Before the Rayburn comes in to the house though the direction the flue pipe must first be clarified.
Now I know that there is a fireplace hidden somewhere in the kitchen. I have been reliably informed by a bloke who saw it just after the second world war. The trouble is it hasn’t really been seen since. Sometime in the interval it has been obscured. Working down from the top I was to drop a sonde, a little radio transmitter, and then by use of a pencil and a radio detector set to ping when it heard 33kHz signal, mark crosses down the wall inside the house and thus reveal the line of the chimney.
I was also quite confident, and remain so, in my uncle’s advice that chimneys in houses of this age are not complicated. They seldom deviate from vertical.
Lowering away then, I was a little disappointed that my test stone on a string stopped about three metres below the pot and refused to go further. What to do, what to do?
Using my neighbours draining rods, A USB webcam and a long lead, also an inspection lamp, balancing a computer on the chimney haunch, I was able to make a surprisingly decent endoscope contraption.
I now have video and photographic records of the inside of my chimney. I also have a degree of frustration in that I can see now that there are no side shoots and that it is in fact blocked up with rubble from an earlier modification.
The next step I suppose is to hit a hole in the wall at around the level of the blockage and to start removing it. At the same time of course as taking stock of the prospect of everything above falling down.
Dear friends, the adventure of Hallett’s Mountain is never ending.

Cold Comfort Farming

Wishing that my spectacles came equipped with windscreen wipers I stand in a cold wet field. Though June it feels more like a nasty day at the beginning of November. I am reminded of the great Carl Giles vision of the agricultural idyll.
Looking out through the door of a cluttered barn grim faced farm hands survey an uncompromising deluge. A yard full of turnips or some other root. Water a foot deep. In the mud a small pig. Soggy roll ups hang from the lower lip.
In my real world it is “Open Farm Sunday” and the Snowdonia Society have organised a dry stone walling competition. Six competitors out of the promised field of twenty have arrived and the one spectator is me. Set back a little three organisers hold fort in a gazebo that has two sides closed against the rain. Bara Brith is being buttered and a hot water urn is fired up in the optimistic prospect that people will soon come to this field of dreams.
Thursday past I saw this advertised in the ‘Weekly Witter’ and was quite engaged by the prospect. I envisioned rural pleasantry in warm sunshine. I saw myself swapping hope and seeking wisdom at the hands of the masters. I have many fine walls around Hallett’s Mountain which own part of my time. While I plug away and lift the fallen sections, I am ever willing to learn.
And so here we stand. I am on one side of the tape. They are on the other. They are clearing stones of a wall in need of repair down to the quagmire of its foundation. Pegs set a metre apart mark the sections that they will raise. Each is covered from head to foot in filth. Muttered comments in the tongues of Angels are exchanged as the water runs from every beast and surface.
Whatever kind of walling this is, dry stone is mocked.
After a while there are six competitors.
The only spectator goes home to watch the Grand Prix.

Glasgow

First of course a very happy Easter to you all.
I am, dear reader, in Glasgow. Not the city of tenements and grey gloom that my imagination and memory held. I did come here 32 years ago for Charlie’s birthday party. All I remember is that we spent a few hours after dark in bars somewhere on Sauchiehall street. I was in no fit state to appreciate or really remember what I was seeing.
This time I have come as part of my districts delegation to the NASUWT conference here. As I might have mentioned before, I am not a desperately earnest political animal but this year I feel the need to be counted. Smiley young prime ministers feel that it is alright to mess around with my pension and bugger up an education system that has stood the test of time. I don’t think that saying nothing is the sensible option.
In between the cut and thrust of political debate there has been the odd hour to explore.
Imagine my delight at the city I have found. Full of iconic buildings and great charm. Justifiably proud of its wide open spaces. Choc a bloc with museums and galleries full of stuff that you wouldn’t want to miss.
Add to this the fact that it is a very cycle friendly city as well and I have been able to sneak trusty (and sadly neglected) bicycle with me. I have flitted through the cityscape and along the river Clyde in the …. I was going to say Mediterranean sunshine but if you went abroad over Easter seeking good weather you have missed a treat at home….in the flag splitting sunshine.
Here now, have a look.
I am off to hit the streets.

There’s been a murder in Maryhill….

(that last for fans of Taggart and Barrel Hands Boyd).

Snippet from Ordinary Life

Now to soup. It requires an explanation.
When I went away to University my mother gave me a saucepan and a small frying pan. Tools she thought I couldn’t go wrong with. She gave me the love and hopes of generations of my family who had never even imagined going to University as well of course but that is another story.
The shop nearest to my hall of residence was open for a couple of hours a day and was upstairs in the student union building.
It was supplier of pot noodle, things you could toast, coffee, milk, sugar, tea, paper and pen. In short the usual student essentials.
They also had a fine range of Heinz soups the most exotic of which, and bear in mind the days of ‘Organic Carrot and Coriander’ were still distant, this was the latter half of the seventies, (are your still following the twists in this sentence…good good),was Mulligatawny. The name seemed like a beast from Lewis Carrol’s Jaberwock stable. Exotic and extreme.
When on inspection it turned out to have curry overtones you couldn’t stop me buying a tin.
And so lunchtime toast and Mulligatawny soup became a staple of my early terms abroad. While I don’t remember this specifically I am sure that I must have thought it an affectation that would attract discerning members of the opposite sex. A man of such culinary sophistication was bound to hold hidden shallows at least.
Simmered, and often eaten, in my mothers saucepan it was the taste of days gone by.
How then could I resist the delight once more proffered adjacent to Aisle 13 in my favourite supermarket.
Of course it wasn’t quite the same. Thirty five years have changed the recipe a little, toned it down a bit I think, but nevertheless it was good.
I sat mug in hand at the end of the afternoon sun on a rock in my field and drifted back.
Martha and the Muffins screaming out …’Echo beach far away in time…’

A Bit Mutton

Most of it I got, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the fuss was about skin care products.

On Saturday I took part in a protest march. One that I had been anticipating for some time. I was there.
As I draw nearer to claiming my pension I don’t really want some politician who is younger than I am, mocking me with a task resembling that of Sisyphus. Not when the boulder is near the top of the hill.
And of course I was nobly representing the interests of my younger colleagues.

There was also an element of recapture of youth. I went on several Marches in the early eighties. Jobs not bombs. Gay pride. Solidarity with the miners…
“Maggie Maggie Maggie Out Out Out!”
Not that the old milk snatcher paid any more attention to me than I honestly expect this lot will but it is important, if you can, to stand up and be counted I think.
As I wandered down through Covent Garden to the Embankment I could see that this was a big one though. I should imagine that motorists subject to congestion charging were quite justifiably, well…. charged I guess. They certainly weren’t going anywhere fast. Or even slowly. Or even anywhere at all really.

The crowd was huge. The police presence appropriate and very light of touch. The atmosphere was festival like and full of good humour and music. There were witty placards everywhere and lots of chanting. Leaflets were distributed and recycled. Drums were beaten. Marching bands marched. The horsemen of the apocalypse stalked Whitehall in theatrical display. Balloons were released. The tories were once again proclaimed evil incarnate. We hissed and booed the gates of Downing Street.
Eventually a crowd of quarter of a million people poured in to Hyde Park and queued up in a civilised fashion for the toilets!
It was in fact a privilege to be there as a participant and I shall hold the day fond in my memory. Baldrick indeed had a cunning plan

Most of it I got on some level.
Cut the nukes not the NHS.
Bring the troops back from Afghanistan.
Fight like an Egyptian.
Save fuel burn the rich.
Dykes in black say no.
Sophie and Lawrence against the cuts.
There were loads…..

The one I couldn’t figure though
As I passed by the house of parliament I swear I could hear them chanting.
“Leave Nivea alone”
I mean what was all that about……..

Modern Languages

So yesterday morning I hot hoofed it off up the valley, being careful to budget time enough for breakfast in everyone’s favourite superstore.

My writing tutor summoned me during the week. The class that I had enjoyed towards the end of last year starts again on Saturday. Same time. Same pack drill.
I found it fun and very useful last time.
The discipline of sitting for three hours and having to produce and read work. It helps.
I remember an old friend, alas long passed, a writer himself. He maintained that part of the discipline was to practice to sit and write, regardless of what came out. Eventually something worthwhile would arise.

As well as the special low cal low cholesterol mega special with extra fried bread and two bacon I decided to purchase a new writing book.
She Of The Townhouse has been tidying up back at the ranch. A necessary evil. I don’t like having to ask where my stuff is though. So when she tidies up I lose things.
My old writing book is vanished I know not where.

I was amused to see that one book they had was a little black one. It tipped my decision. Although it only has about eighty pages it might be of use if the other one mysteriously turns up.

So clutching my canvas, I headed off to Aisle 13. My usual paystop. It’s the girl there you see. She never says much but A fellow can tell. She goes a funny red colour from the neck up. You can see a pulse in her temple and she has a hard job with simple words….you know its funny. Now that I think, I wonder whether she may not have had her shift changed. I haven’t caught her lately.

So they body swerved me to the scan it yourself co we cant be arsed section.
“Please select your language”
Now it had never barked that at me in any previous incarnation so I decided to be bold. Ever eager to increase my knowledge of household products in the foreign I asked it…

“please could we converse in Serbo Croat?”

And a kind hearted sole in a uniform kindly tapped the English option for me as opposed to the Welsh one.

Later I was bemused. As I scanned the advice on my purchase I noted the following.

“Poznamkovy blok A5 spiralovy 80 listov – linajkovy”

Not a dickie bird yn Cymraeg……

Foreign Birds

Pulling up outside the reputedly haunted Elizabethan castle I was charmed to observe peacocks strutting across the road towards the woods on the other side.
She Of The Townhouse and I were staying in the Kings Suite, a generous gift from her sister.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
As we entered the lobby area a curious peacock sitting on the roof of the gate house called after us.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
While we enjoyed a refreshing cup of tea the earlier bird greeted us in a similar fashion though at greater length.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
Then later on as castle gardens were explored.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
Looking across the water meadow to the nearby town
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
Out for a meal.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
Returning to the Castle.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
As darkness fell.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
Deep in the wee small hours.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
Greeting the sunrise.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
In celebration of breakfast.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
During our extended private tour of the castle interior.
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
And as we bade our generous hosts farewell
PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW! PEEEEEEEAAAAAW!
And then as we left the car park I am afraid tragedy struck. I accidentally ran over a peacock.
Still it doesn’t seem too broken.
I wonder how it tastes.
:-P

Snippets

By an odd combination of circumstance I took my cooker to the theatre the other night. A disappointing evening as Derek Jacobi, who was due to perform as King Lear, had lost his voice due to illness and the show was cancelled.
The cooker and I returned home and had an early night in the end.
The main feed pipe to my new radiators is slowly creeping along its preordained path. I follow the careful dictum of measure twice and cut once.
In the back of a Shop in St Asaph my shiny new Rayburn has arrived. It gleams redly inside its packaging.
Down in the valley a man plans how much shale should be delivered to fill the ruts on my track.
She Of The Townhouse fiddles with her new Bilberry but steadfastly refuses to consider backing it up.
And here I sit surrounded by unawareness of the fact that there is a referendum here on Thursday.
So I creep towards conservatism.
Maybe it is time to get back in to the gym....

Best Served Cold

About three weeks ago a woman who lives far lower down in the valley took a swipe at me with her car. In her defence I guess she was in a hurry.
A lorry driver stopped to ask me directions and, as I pointed him in the right route, Ms Road Rage mistook the cause of her hold up.
She leant upon the horn of her car to draw our attention to the fact that she was there. She probably alerted the rest of the committee of The Llechwedd and District Sheepdog Trial as well.
As the lorry pulled off I stepped out from behind to apologise and explain, only to be subjected to a tirade. Abuse directed at people who felt it was perfectly acceptable to chat with their mates in the lane and hold up the world.
I didn’t really have time to reflect on the fact that this was a little unfair at the time as she proceeded to emphasise her point by driving straight at me, and accelerating to the task.
I was able to sidestep but in being brushed aside by her car the wing mirror came in to contact with my thigh and snapped off.
By now the poor woman, and I feel she must have had problems earlier in the day besides a few seconds hold up, was incandescent with rage at my inconsiderate stupidity.
A further helping of Anglo Saxon aspersions on the level of my intelligence and the nature of my parents relationship was cast from the window of the car. And then with a flourish she rallied off in the direction of The Old Walled Town.
I was a little bemused at the time and later realised I was in shock. I was uninjured and didn’t think about phoning the police until the next day. By which time of course there wasn’t much point. I also rationalised that anyone that out of control was bound to feel full of guilt and remorse.

And so I have done my best to cheer the poor woman up since .
Every day, sometimes twice a day, occasionally three times, I have given her a cheery beep on my own horn as I pass her house in my car. First thing in the morning and last thing at night……

Batchelor Pad

“Do you want that ironed?”
In an instant the reflex inner voice whispers Double Take
The alert level shifts to Defcon 4.

Then I remember that she mentioned wood last night and the inner voice debates Round House, curiously appropriate in the circumstances. She Of The Townhouse has been threatening to work on one of these for some time.
The boy and I leave for the workplace.

I do what I do.

All day there is this nagging doubt in my mind as I listen to the background chatter. Not the repartee of the staff room I hasten to add. I meant the secret word triggers in the stream of consciousness. She is up to something but I lack intelligence.

Eh? Oh stop being silly, you know what I meant.

All day long I feel the threat of thunder from a clear blue sky.
As I come in through the door Asbo gives me the most hangdog of expressions. I can tell he is feeling that he has let me down.

Upstairs I find that my bedroom has been invaded by a low tech wardrode. A wardrobe made of recycled scaffolding planks and an old hessian sack.

As usual she has made an incredibly good job of it.

A Sign Of The Times

As I exited Aisle 13 today, my eye was taken by a sign that some mischievous imp had less than subtly altered. Amazing what you can get clubcard points on nowadays.
You will note of course that I have been careful to obscure the name of the supermarket to save their blushes......

Industrial Light And Magic

Dave and I contrived many great schemes while drunk, and by the cold sober light of day you could see the tumble weed blowing across them easily enough.
The computer game where all you had to do was press the ‘any key’ and the smurf would be crushed by a large falling weight was one. Though years later I did turn that one into a reality.
We never did figure out what level two should be.
Picking on English walkers high up in the mountains was another. Sharing coffee and small talk we would establish their provenance and then feign complete geographical ignorance.
“London eh? Isn’t that somewhere in England……”
We always felt that done with sufficient straight face it was bound to be a winner but they never asked us back.
Ah well.

One sure fire winner though is a little secret that I shall let you in too now. This sleight of hand is bound to impress and, I can say with some confidence, is a sure fire hit with the ladies, or indeed with the gentlemen should that be your persuasion. It involves no more than a few quiet and well timed moments under just such a starry sky as it is our good fortune to enjoy on Hallett’s Mountain this very evening.
Gather close and don’t breathe a word to the others.

Flashing overhead at a giddy pace there is a network of satellites devoted to providing telephone communications and other electronic jiggery pokery. These are called the Iridium network. You probably haven’t heard of them unless you have been involved in some fairly extreme expeditions or sail far out of sight of land. Perhaps if you haul sledges across the Antarctic. Maybe you are a lone round the world yacht person. In that case the Iridium network may well be your lifeline and source of companionship.
For the rest of us…well rest assured they are there a few miles above us.
And they are shiny. They have at least one very flat shiny surface. A flat shiny surface that every now and then catches the sun.

When this happens in your line of sight it is like the sun being reflected from a large window pane on the far side of a valley some miles away. All of a sudden where there was nothing there is suddenly a dazzling bright flash. The sort of flash that would amaze the observer if they just happened to look in the right place at exactly the right time; causing them perhaps to stand in jaw dropped wonder at the heavens above.

Fortunately the flashes, or “Iridium flares” as they are known are, though little known, incredibly predictable. Predictable even down to the very second they occur.
With just a little knowledge and an accurate phone set to buzz a few seconds before the critical point one can surely impress the object of affection.

You can point to the sky and command attention to the exact spot where an otherwise inky prospect will suddenly catch reflected fire.

Hey it works for groups as well but come on……..

Try it yourself here.

Catch you on the other side one day Dave…..

A Lesson Learned?

I realise with alarm now that it was nearly 25 years ago. In a bid to make my then house more habitable, particularly in the winter, I decided that I would plumb the depths of central heating.
I took out a loan from the bank for an amount that frightened the life, but that met the expectations of avarice expressed to me by a triumvirate of local plumbers and Gritish Bass. For the sake of a round figure I settled on two thousand shiny pounds.
And then I started to spend it hand over fist.
My sister and I hoofed it of to Ibiza.
I bought my first British Bike.
Much conspicuous consumption occurred.
To the point that my once ample sum dwindled to the point that I had enough money left to buy a stove, and the requisite pipework, but would not be able to afford the expertise of an experienced installer.
My solution then was to do it myself. Undaunted by my own lack of expertise, buoyed by the enthusiasm of youth and mindful of the promise to the bank about security of investment, I installed a central heating system.
It took me six months. Lots of trips to the library. Visits to the solid fuel advisory service where eventually certain experts would hide if they saw a man with a helmet approach the door.
But in the end the result was good.
Winter became a whole load more tolerable.
And that was an end to it. Never again, I swore, would I be so foolish. Had I employed the aforementioned experts the whole would have been completed in weeks rather than half a year. Many of the naive mistakes could have been avoided, and I could have rested far easier at the end of a day, rather than returning home from a demanding job and then having another one to take up the next eight hours. I was young and perhaps a little foolish. It was fun in some regards but …… but…..
Well you wouldn’t want to do it again.
……except. Well the thing is…..
It has been a bitterly cold winter up here on Hallett’s Mountain. I have been tempted. She Of The Townhouse has been banging on about how nice a Rayburn would be in the kitchen. How it would provide hot water and drive a few radiators.
So here I am again. In the absence of expertise and mastering no wisdom of years I am contemplating opening a chimney, rewiring much of the house, hanging radiators, putting a new tank in the loft, reorganising my kitchen space, installing a Rayburn, laying a new floor….
After all, how hard can it be.

Pins In A Map

Dear Reader.
In case you wondered where I had gone. I have had the flu. Its been a quiet week round here apart from the coughs and sneezes. I have not felt like writing.

The memories that I hold most dear are manufactured. If not to a greater extent then certainly in the detail. If you are pretentious enough (as I am) to write, then you find this to be so. If you turn over your own baggage with any attempt at honesty then I am afraid you will find the same. Others recognising the skeleton on which you hang a tale will inevitably chip in with things that you miss and yet to them were significant at the time. And so you check back on the details.

Look for the date.
The significance of the day.
The weather.
The time on the clock.
Where the sun stood.
How green were the leaves on the trees in my valley.

And while the memory holds strong you realise that it cannot be so. The picture that you have painted over the years is just that. An artists contrivance.

When admiring a watercolour it was explained to me once; by the artist at her task. The cottage scene was set in mind but the purple headed mountain needed moving left two or three miles to achieve the required harmony.
So looking up there it was. In admiration of the rendition I had lost the grip on reality. Perhaps that is overly dramatic. Rather I should say that I recognised that my disbelief had been suspended by the cunning of the artists hand and eye.

As I return here time and again to explore my own past and to put some pins in the map I realise that all I can ever manage is an occasionally pretty fiction. Like the artist, in looking to improve upon the composition, it is hard to maintain the agreement.

Yet I don’t think this is a bad thing.
Crumbs! Imagine if we had more than this. Had it all to hand. Ready for the microscope. How would we stand up to the full reality of aspects of the earlier day without some kind of filter in place.

Better then to smile wry with the artist and, if not agree, at least look to the trick.
So then. Don’t worry if you step along this road beside me.
It is, after all is done, a story.