What’s to say

It has pretty much rained daily now for weeks.  I am rather glad plans for a trip to Cumbria and surrounds were put on ice because the weather had been pretty poor this year generally.

So far apart from a few simple outings into the woods in the area my autumn/winter has been reduced to reading other people’s blogs, watching Ray Mears and reading some excellent books.

Going somewhat “stir crazy” within the confines of bricks and mortar but with the wind and rain lashing at the windows continually there are worse places to be (outside being notable on the list of worse places to be).

The Ditch Monkey seems not to have posted for a while, so no idea what is going on with his project of living outdoors for a year.  His last post in mid-Sept spoke of hunting season and the potential he will have to retire to safety to avoid being shot while that goes on.

So here I sit living the outdoor life vicariously through other blog posts.  The well worn maps are out around me and kit is being refined, cleaned, prepared for further adventure.  The idea of being covered in mud from head to toe just fails to appeal while England are beating South Africa in the cricket.

My favourite Jack Pyke thinsulate beanie lies dormant on the desk in front of me, it is almost an accusation but the pile of books is more likely to get the attention, it doesnt ever rain forever.

Old dogs

The weather broke clear and it was time to go to the woods.  Nov 5th, bonfire night in the UK and that means roasted chestnuts.

Roasted chestnuts of course means a trip to my favourite wood in the area and the sweet chestnut trees contained within.  Some recent winds will ensure there are plenty on the ground to be collected.  Last year was disappointing, not sure this is going to be much better, but live in hope and accept what you get.  It is a very quiet wood, very rarely see anyone else there so hopefully the wildlife will not mind me taking a pocket full of chestnuts to commemorate the day.

The eldest dog is off to the vets as well today so there is an additional reason for going.  The “just in case” reason.  He has developed a nasty barking cough, it has the sound of windpipe issues in a breed known for windpipe collapse.  He is also rather old now.

There is a slim chance he does not come back from the vets.  There is a higher probability the days of anything more strenuous than a romp around the garden is going to be curtailed.  So for all these reasons it was time for a walk.

The recent rain has made the ground underfoot “claggy” and standing water was in evidence when I got out of the car.  Nothing too concerning although my trainers are being pushed to comfortable limits by the mud.  The farmer has ploughed up the footpath along with his field.  The path is marked well enough at either end on the landscape and better etched in my mind.  A simple matter of stomping out a new path.  It felt good to be breaking in the path for the season.

Two of the dogs were breaking in their own paths, the youngest stuck by my heels.  Brains beyond his years as the other two fools kept half an eye on me as they meandered about on their chosen routes.

The lack of path is only temporary, there is always a well defined path through the farmers crop, no complaints there.

Ahead of me a rich canopy of trees, more than I expected in green leaf.  Getting under the canopy and the relatively hard ground will be nice after clod-hopping.  All around is stillness, there is not even wind enough to stir the leaves.

The footpath always leads me to the exact same spot in the wood, there is a clear boundary between wood and farmland.  The same view greets me each time I enter the wood but every time it is different.

 

For years I have tried to square a circle.  Should I continue to return to places I know and love or go and experience new places and perhaps love them.  What makes this wood better than other woods and if I do not visit other woods am I missing out on something?

This usually comes about when planning an extended trip and more often than not my beloved Dartmoor is the place I end up.  There is always the nagging feeling I am missing out on a “new” experience by just going back to Dartmoor.

Today with my old dog and his two younger companions I realise it is not the place it is the memory.  This wood is a favourite because I know it and it is always showing me something different.  My experience and memory of this place has growth rings as surely as the trees.  It is the same with Dartmoor, it can always show me something new and add to my knowledge of the place.

Today it is autumnal leaves dusting the path, in the spring it was a carpet of bluebells.  In the summer the ferns grew and you could barely see the path and much was hidden from view.

The trees that blew down in the late 1980’s lie, living where they have been lying for 20 years.  I remember them vertical, the shock of seeing them blown down can still be conjured up without difficulty.

There are many beautiful places I would love to see, but I am not going too.  They would be brief experiences, treasured no doubt, but with no great depth to them, not like this little wood I know so well.

Today as I went through the wood deciding which bit of fallen branch would be suitable for a ceremonial burning on the greater bonfire of Nov 5th another fellow with a couple of dogs came into view.

I had selected my two foot long bit of branch, wet through, I was imagining the sparking and cracking it would do when put into the flames, certainly very suitable for bonfire night.  A number had failed scrutiny for any number of “not quite right” reasons.

The two groups of dogs circled each other determining if this was fight or friendship and the man and I pretty much did the same in a more subtle manner.

There were the positive elements, a dog walker in a wood that takes a bit of getting too.  From his point of view though I have just picked up a stout looking branch, that cannot be so good.  He looks down at it.

“A branch from my favourite wood to burn on the fire tonight”  I say.  You can feel the tension leave the scene.

“You from around here?” he asks.

This tends to mean how many generations are planted in the local graveyard.  Anything less than three means your an “in-comer”, although this has changed a lot recently as the towns spill out, imagining themselves to be in the “country” as long as they can turn it into a townscape as fast as possible.

“Family been here long enough to see plenty of changes for the worse”.

The chap nods his head, yep we are on the same wavelength.  We have a pleasant chat, two blokes in a wood with 5 small dogs.  He has been coming to the wood for 40 years, he has the edge on me.  Remembers a time when people regularly visited the place, now he was surprised to see me.  Just as surprised as I was too see him.

Autumn was his favourite season in the wood, although he liked them all.  He liked it more than spring.  I could understand his reasoning, but it is going to take some thinking about to decide if I am in agreement.  There is a lot to consider.

I knew I had been accepted as a kindred spirit when the fellow said how wonderful the autumn colours had been and what great photographs he had got when he had been out with the local hunt.

Hunting is one of those flashpoints, you don’t mention it unless you want an argument or know your on pretty solid ground.  Countryfolk hunt, townies don’t.  If you are a countryman against hunting, then you only think you are a countryman is pretty much how the logic runs.  That or you don’t have enough generations in the local church.

It was nice to meet the man and another memory ring has been grown in the wood.  I wandered about happily, collecting a few sweet chestnuts and taking some photographs.    There were places where the ground was heavily strewn with chestnuts in their prickly outer casings.  Walking through was very slow as the dogs picked their way along very gingerly. 

Water was running in the little stream that goes from one end of the wood to the other. The first time this year I have seen the water running in it and it was good to see.  A lot of the year has been very dry despite the rain, which makes the sort of sense these things do when you experience them.

It was time to turn back and go home, a vets visit is looming over us.  I expect to be returning with the old dog but there is never any harm in getting another walk under his collar.  His sister used to walk with him when he was a puppy.  She has been dead two years but I am sure she still walks with him in this wood.

 

Footnote:
I waited to post this as I did not want anyone wondering the fate of the old dog.  He returned from the vets and has some pills which may help him.  Bottom line, he is an old dog, but as fit as can be expected.

Time flies

Well it has been a lot longer than intended between posts.  Partially because weather has housebound me and what little time the weather has allowed has been consumed with working outside in it rather than recreational activity in it.

Working outside is a treat itself.  It pays less than the desk job but those are the breaks.  Fortunately the weather in England is rarely severe enough long enough that it becomes life threatening.  The really bad days you just stay indoors.  Usually all you get is unpleasant weather, there are exceptions of course but that has more to do with the circumstances in which you get caught out in the weather rather than the weather itself.

Anyway autumn is well and truly in full flow and a number of days of significant winds has meant the leaves on my garden tree have gone.

Losing the leaves is always a shame.  The tree has a hard time so exposed to the sea as it is.  Often they are wind burnt long before the real warmth of the year can save them in spring and they are “untimely ripped” from branches in autumn.

There is a positive side to it though, those leaves weigh a lot and the tree is now more prepared to stand against the winter winds it will face.

On the way to the local library (Ray Mears Northern Wilderness) I kicked my way through large piles of fallen oak leaves, damp underfoot from the rains they were slippy at the point they meet the pavement.  Sign of the times my mind wandered to the “health and safety” aspect of it all.

Within a hedge as a I walked along were the bright red berries and leather shiny prickling leaves of the holly bush.  Christmas reminder just after Halloween and the witches riding their broomsticks and directly before Bonfire Night.

Bonfire Night and the huge piles of “scrap” wood which will be burnt is quite the celebration.  Burning Guy Fawkes gives the game away as to whose side we are celebrating.

I am sitting here admiring a wooden spoon I have just been sanding down and feeding oil into, it is now  sitting on my desk.  It is nothing special, just a small wooden spoon but there is something magical about it because of its material.  It is a “human” material, you can carve your own spoon and it becomes a reminder of the landscape you have walked over.  You cannot do that with metal or plastic spoons, not in the same way at all.

Hopefully this weekend I will find time to get to my favourite wood and see the last of the autumn display and collect a few sweet chestnuts as I go.

Communication

Floating about on a boat doing no more than not a lot in the name of fishing one of the main pleasures has always been that of being out of communication.

Twenty years ago this was pretty literal, you got on the boat cast-off and that was it.  There was the radio but that was basically there to let it be known you were sinking or in some other manner in need of help.  The assumption being, “no news is good news”.  Loved ones might not have liked it but that is how it was.

Off you went and after a day or so of floating about you got into the swing of things very much like hiking, the pace of life dropped as you became accustomed to the restrictions this mode of travel imposed.  Most obviously on a boat space was the restriction, in the same way weight is the thing when hiking.

If you were only gone for a week or two, there was no real thought of phoning home, you might make dry land, but usually you were a good distance from a phonebox and it was not a high priority really.

Now it has all changed, you always have the mobile phone.  It does not matter if you never use it, it is there and it really does change the dynamic.  For one thing if you are away for more than 48 hours it is almost impossible to be part of the modern world without the need to communicate with someone within that  timeframe.

The mobile phone breeds a dependency.  Rather like instant replay in rugby seem to have removed referees ability to think for themselves.  Gone are the carefree days in which a ref makes a decision on the spot, for the most part now its TV referral time, five minutes indecision in which things are often unclear and a decision is made which commentators then say was probably wrong.

Mobile phones looked like freedom, turned out they were the very opposite.

I was musing on all this when I went for a stroll along a quiet stretch of coastline the other day.  Well it would have been quiet but for two women.  One went past me at power walker pace, one arm cocked in salute.  She did not have time to look right or left or acknowledge my existence in any manner, she was too busy yammering loudly into the mobile phone clamped to her ear.

A few miles from the nearest house, she has gone for a walk, although it looked more like an exercise routine but rather than enjoy the sights of a wonderful sunset and the sound of waves she was involved in a high level board meeting.  Well maybe not, unless she was a judge on the X-Factor because this is what the conversation was about.

All about normal then.

Five minutes later something was going on behind me and I turned to see what it was.  It was another woman, this time walking about the same pace as me.  She too had the familiar salute of a mobile user.  I have no idea what the conversation was about, it was just a tedious drone from the distance I was at.  They were not talking to one another because from what I had heard both these women were holding one sided conversations.  They never actually stopped talking, indeed they seemed barely to dare take a breath in case the person on the other end got a word in edge ways.

From the fact they were both jabbering so determinedly into their phones I assumed they had instigated the calls.  They had gone for a walk, which would take at least 40 minutes and while doing so had felt the need to phone someone and in the one instance I knew had to unburden their thoughts about the X-Factor to some poor soul.

The second person was walking slightly faster than me, but not fast enough they were ever really going to over take me.  So now I had to quicken my pace a little to get some distance so I did not have to hear either of them.  I did not want to slow down to let her pass because our relative walking paces was not different enough and I had no intention of being the creepy bloke than stopped and then walked behind a woman.

I only saw two people on this stroll along the coast and both of them were jabbering into phones with what really must have been un-necessary conversations.

Noise pollution in all its forms is a growing problem and I guess over the next 20 years it will be more so.

And if you are wondering, yes I had a mobile phone with me.  I never leave home without one.  It is pay as you go, the five pound credit has lasted 4 years so far, one person on earth has the number (and that is not me, I don’t know the number).  There is a time and place for chatting on the phone and for me it is not usually when mobile.

Gone Fishing.

Not been so active recently on the outdoor front, as the indoor element of my existence seems to have taken precedence.  Rather tiresome, especially given the, now fairly, common “indian summer” which seems to follow on from the English lack of actual summer.

It is the usual adjustment to perceived seasonal changes.

Trees are turning golden, but I am hoping they are going to wait on for another few days so I can get out and see it all happening in the great outdoors rather than checking the tree colours from a window.

Cricketers are always complaining they have to play too much cricket.  My heart bleeds, they seem not to care about me.  Collectively they play one heck of a lot of cricket, think for a moment what that means for someone that likes to watch.  There are endless matches, they run almost 24/7 and while a little under half the actual players are sitting in the dressing room earning money, I am sitting watching them, spending money.

It is worse being English as I have to support a team that is going to lose.  Even my trusty 50 over stand-ins, Sri-Lanka struggle.

Earlier this week though a combination of improving weather and a bit of free time, which was not only free but brother and I were actually capable of doing more than sitting numbly in a chair hoping to gather the sort of energy needed to lift an arm, inspiration therefore for a fishing trip.

Every fishing trip has a long list of reasons why we are not going to catch anything.  Tide is wrong, fish don’t bite when the tide is doing something or other which it usually seems to be doing.  The season is wrong, usually some type of fish has gone somewhere else and we are waiting for another sort of fish to turn up.  If by some miracle we are planning a fishing trip when fish are about, the tide will be wrong.  If time and tide is correct the weather is so awful the best we can do is hope we don’t (a) run aground (b) throw up/end up out of the boat and in the water.  If tide/time and weather is with us, usually the current isn’t and the boat swings about alarmingly and it becomes impossible to actually stay in contact with the line to determine if there is a fish on the end of it or not.

So those are the problems faced before catching a fish which will either be (a) inedible (b) to small.

I am no optimist so clearly fishing is not the reason I go fishing.  It is just about being out in another element and spending time with my brother.  Leaving the land and floating about on the sea also sets the mind free, the worries of everyday are left on the land.  When you are on the sea the main goal is to not drown, it is pretty simple.  Not quite as simple as it was 20 odd years ago when mobile phones meant 24/7 contact is now expected.  Not answering a phone within 5 rings is now a reason to call out the emergency services nowadays.

The day before the fishing trip the weather was just about perfect.  The start of the fishing trip in the harbour, it was perfect.  The voyage too the fishing ground it all seemed fine.  It just started to go a bit wrong when the anchor was hurled out and secured to the seabed.  Wind and current were working against each other, which seems to be an all too common occurrence.  The bit of the boat above the water wants to go in a different direction to the bit of the boat under the water.  So we spent happy hours, side on to the waves being bunged about while not really knowing if we had a bite or not.

We stuck at it in the spirit of “fishing” for about six hours.  At first we caught some fish of the too small/inedible varieties.  This was something of a surprise as there were not a lot of fish in season at the moment.  My brother is a keener fisherman than I, he actually professes to like it for its own sake.  Cannot deny he does seem to fish far more than would be deemed necessary by most people.

Eventually though the realisation set in that the elements were going to beat us and we were only going to strain something battling against them.  With that we slumped into our seats and bobbed about with the current, with acceptance often comes happiness.

Being on the water is quite wonderful, being in it is not, a lot of effort is expended on keeping that balance right.  To see the coastline from the vantage point of the sea is great, a novel and interesting view, it gives a whole new appreciation for land and its real value to us.

Eventually though the magnetic draw of the one day cricket tournament overcame the pull of sitting in a boat being randomly rocked about so standing was difficult while not catching fish.  Homeward bound, and as usual almost the instant the anchor came up and we stopped fighting the elements things became a lot calmer.  An interesting life lesson, drifting is easier, but you end up on the rocks.  I wonder what it is teaching.

At the halfway point the conversation turned from how bad the fishing element of the trip had been to how it will be better next time.  It is a conversation we always have.

Really though it was great to spend some time with my brother doing nothing more than not-a-lot.

A walk in the woods

I have not been feeling so well last week or so.  Nothing serious, just one of those seasonal things.  Perhaps my brain pulled into an odd shape by the tidal forces of sun and moon as the equinox draws near.

We are heading towards that time of year the clocks get turned back, you don’t hear it called “winter time” in these days of spin, but given we are leaving “summer time” behind I think we can make up our own minds about what happens next.

I was meant to be finishing off blog entries for various other walks but somehow the changing season has fractured my connection with those walks and it is getting hard to return to that time and place in which they occurred, it feels like forever ago.

Among the books I am currently reading, Roger Deakin Wildwood is uppermost on the reading pile.  His much deeper and considered view of woodland is no doubt going to affect my interpretation of these spaces.

Roger does not subscribe to the power of the “lone tree” but rather prefers his trees in clumps.  As nature intended presumably.  He cites the fact groups of oaks will assist an ailing tree as much as they can, sharing nutrients to help their friend in need.

Dog 1 has developed a rather unpleasant, but thankfully as yet rare, coughing wheeze.  It has the feel of something that will end his days, I am dreading it.

So while the days are fine and the going is good, we are on something of a “greatest hits tour”.  The other week we had a wander around The Naze and the tower.  Very much gentle ambles for the aged.

Today, early autumnal colour is the plan.  Autumn colour is not something to arrive late for, its gone by then.  Any number of elements can conspire to bring a premature end to the colour.  Some years it never gets the chance.  So I give it every chance possible to show off.  I noticed the tree in the garden going brown at the edges so it was time to visit favourite wood.

The blog contains a previous record of a stroll earlier in the year.

Then it was carpeted with bluebells, they are long gone of course and during the summer were replaced by a thick waist high carpet of ferns which obliterate everything.  Spring and autumn seem to be the best wood walking times, the most dynamic seasons.

The field which leads to the wood has been harvested now, waiting to be ploughed over, I can see some golden hints in the trees, but autumn has yet to take full hold.

Within the wood itself it actually looks like winter has grabbed hold of it, there is a lot of stark and bare branch now the ferns have died back.  It is a strange space, I have it too myself as always.  It is not far from a road, but far enough, ten minutes of walking is enough to shake off most people.

I was determined to get a good picture of dog 1 on his own and with his pals.  The big hope was to get an image which encapsulated part of my feelings towards the wood itself and also take a half decent image of the “secret water”.

The pollarded trees and sweet chestnuts creaked in the wind, leaves were falling from the canopy to join the many on the floor.  We all know the paths so don’t need to see them to know they are there, hard earth packed by generations of wandering.

The walk is slow, old dog slow, which is fine.  Loads of images are taken of tree trunks, a tangle of them stretching into the distance, this is ancient woodland.  It has been managed, once more seriously than it is now.  The great storm at the end of 1980s uprooted a lot of the trees but they were left where they fell and most have started a new horizontal lifestyle.

 

It is a terrible tangle really which can only be made sense of within an immediate range.  By the middle distance it is just chaos, there are no distant views, just patches of sky struggling through the wood.

A few butterflies pottered about in the secluded dells, a splash of green among the brown identified the place which is optimistically labelled a pond on the OS map, a small stream feeds it, or does it drain it, but it has not rained enough for this to be running today.  It is a hot day and getting hotter, the canopy shields us from the worst of the excess.

Dog 1 wanders in his silent world, looking back to make sure he has not lost contact with us, if he does at least he has the good sense to stand still, we always turn up in the end and he knows it.

The leaf litter was not quite deep enough to kick it about in childish memory.  This is a “must do” for me.  My most memorable walks to infant school, as an infant, was kicking up clouds of fragile leaves, I would be knee deep in them, wading along the pavements to school in my short trousers.  A lost world, kids in short trousers walking to school along roads so tree lined leaf matter could lie over a foot deep in places.  Some days we would walk the dog over a hump back bridge, a stream filled with watercress ambled unconcerned beneath it, considerably older than the motor car it was, and remains, an accident black spot.  Back then it was just a place you had accidents, now it is a place of endless signage and hand-wringing concern.

Popping out from under the canopy, the day had heated up sneakily, the fields had been ploughed over, waiting for the frosts to break them down.  Next stop “secret water”.  There is not a lot secret about it, its on the OS map, but it is so surrounded by trees it is something which has to be sought.

It is a place of weeping willows, ducks and quiet.  The water is not actually used as reservoir for the fields which gives nature more of a chance.

All four of us sat at the waters edge for a while.  A fly landed on its back on the water.  It made frantic circular ripples in the water as it fought in vain to break the meniscus.  It was too far out to rescue which was a shame, even a fly’s life is more important than to die so pointlessly.  Maybe it will be eaten and give its death some validity.  I take some pictures of the event wondering how high up the brain scale the insect would have to be for me to affect a rescue.  It is not about evolutionary scale, for all I know the fly could be the pinnacle of evolution.  Peace and quiet is a matter of scale that becomes obvious watching the fly.  Earth looks peaceful viewed from the moon.

Homeward bound now, it has been a nice old dog stroll.

A final picture of the woods before we left it.

I hope it is a better year for Sweet Chestnuts, the harvest was a positive disappointment last year.

As ever failed to capture the essence of the place in photograph but it was good fun trying.  It just gives me an excuse to return, as if I need any more encouragement.

Tower at sunrise

In a recent dog walk I was lamenting the fact there was no way to take the photograph I wished too of a landmark tower there.

Well I made a special effort to get there by 5:30am to catch the sunrise.  Sunrise always has an element of risk to it, as the day is far to young to know what it is going to be yet.  Still the weather had been settled enough and I was guessing it would hold good for another 24 hours.  The unearthly hour also meant there was a good chance I would have the place to myself.

I was wrong on that count as a couple of people were setting up one of those wind kite things.  They look fun in a “rather you than me” type way.  They were doing their own thing and fortunately were not in my way, the kites flying could have made some interesting images but the transit vans and all the paraphernalia to get them up in the air was not really going too.

The tower was built in 1720 by Trinity House as a navigational aid for seafarers.  Suggestion is it had a lit beacon on the top originally.  It stands 86 feet high.  It is now a Grade II listed building, which has an irony about it given the restrictions on what can be done to it, its future will be lying at the bottom of the cliff, toppled because government is unwilling to save the coastline it sits on.  It was on the buildings at risk register until it was purchased and renovated and opened up to the public for the first time in its history in 2004.

I got the picture and was darn glad to head back to the car, its getting colder in the mornings now, seasons are most certainly changing.

Green Fields and Pavements

Green Fields and Pavements by Henry Williamson.

Probably best known for Tarka the Otter, there exists a Henry Williamson Society.  The website is at pains to state it is non-political.  It has reason to be nervous his politics are not something to dwell on, but they are difficult to put to one side.

He was a fascist and with that knowledge you are always reading between the lines of his text.  This book is a collection of newspaper articles written between 1941 and 1944 on aspects of a his rural farm in Norfolk.

A complex and flawed individual.

Reading this book, and I intend to read others, was prompted by a desire to fill in some blank spaces on the map around Norfolk, as I intend to go there for a few days.  It is nice to feel some depth to the soil beneath your feet, and populate lanes with characters gone, and largely forgotten.

A common theme is too much tax, how much more profitable farms were in Napoleonic War and how cheap imports were ruining Britain.  It is a common enough theme, just set in a different time frame.

Some of the work in this book is hack stuff really, you know what is going to happen to “Cheepy” the little chicken long before the end of the tale, it really is one long cliché.   The other recurrent theme of town not understanding country and the illiterate farmer grates when there is not sufficient gap between pieces and other news crowding it out.  These are afterall newspaper articles hammered out after a long day at work on the farm.

At its best though, and the work certainly has its best, it brings to life a lost England written during a time when perhaps England was going to be lost.  The pages really sang when Henry went to Devon, East Anglia was very second best and even the most dull reader of the newspaper at the time surely would have noticed.

His hopes for a future England as expressed in this book (which has no overtly unsavoury politics) were never going to materialise, it seems a shame he had to live till 1977 by which time it would have been clear how far from his hopes things had gone.  He died the same day that the film crew killed his most famous creation, “Tarka the otter”.

When I was on Exmoor, “The Tarka trail” was a well worn bit of heritage industry which I made every effort to avoid.  Norfolk is not so big into the heritage industry so hopefully there are some ghosts left in their natural environment not made to dance and prance for an audience.

His literary output was prodigious, his politics and the active part he played in it probably means he is not as widely read or recognised as he should be, it casts a shadow over his work.

The Henry Williamson Society website

Dog 1 goes for a walk Prt2

Dog walk part one is here.

Breaking through the brush line the world of the open plain is obliterated, this is a far more enclosed space where you can walk through tunnels of green before emerging into areas more open.

Before the war this was a links golf-course, the government bought it with the onset of war and that did for the golf course.   The clubhouse was by the tower.  Traces of the course can be imagined in the landscape that remains, a few old photographs give hints.  An OS Map from the 1950’s shows buildings huddled around the tower, the modern shop/eatery/catch penny must have some sort of lineage to the club house/war buildings.

Among the summer growth, pillboxes that had the sense or good fortune to be built further inland.  One is sinking into the ground under its own weight, another is an odd design with a large frontal opening for the traverse of a large gun.  Now all they see are the brambles and they are no protection against the erosion.

That makes three different types of pillbox on this walk as the ones on the beach are off a different type.  Design and location were not accidental, so it is interesting to see the variety.

The 1950s OS map shows how much land has been lost, the modern OS map shows a footpath which was once a cliff-top walk, it is now very firmly a public right of way marked on a sandy beach.  Earlier maps going back to 1881 shows a coastline bristling with breakwaters, it is all gone now.  Low tides reveal an industrial landscape of mud and defence, not a place to walk.

The cliffs formerly 70 feet high are losing height rapidly, rushing to the beach, geology rather than erosion being the motivation.  Soon I am at sea level, a sand bar the only protection.  Out to sea are the twisted remains of breakwaters, timber lines march out to defend the land, but the sea has out-flanked them, gone around the back, the breakwaters are now surrounded by invading sea.  Pye Sand is the biggest casualty, Pennyhole Bay is not so much a bay but a tract of water, more name than possible destination.  The tides are wrong today, I don’t fancy my chances of going any further, the wind is strong and an equinox spring tide is near.  This is the sort of place you can find yourself in trouble if you are unlucky and it is not the sort of bad luck you come back from.

As compensation for loss of land, a modern sewage works has been placed where the 50’s map shows Rifle Ranges.  These must have been in use by the army, replacing the ones they took over from the coastguards in the late 19th Century as they disappeared underwater, a common theme.

Of all the places I have walked this year the comparison of old maps has a finality about it, land lost to the sea is not coming back, at least land lost to urban sprawl can still be walked, indeed more readily than the farmers fields they once were if less visually rewarding.

To emphasize the loss, even as I tried to capture the fragile environment by camera a growing pile of smoke caught my eye just a hundred yards or so up the beach.  Realisation was slow that I had just witnessed another collapse of the cliff, it had fallen without noise or ceremony, just sighed onto the beach.  The Red Crag which sits on top of the uglier but stronger London Clay is so fragile it crumbles to the touch, you don’t need to touch it too know.  It is barely more than sand even before it hits the beach.  I had just witnessed the collapse of cliffs that were lain down 2million years ago, a comparative newcomer given the London Clay is 54million years old.

For a moment I felt like going to investigate, the area is world famous for the fossils and the continual erosion can bring some exciting finds.  Early fossil hunters finding tusks 6 feet and more in length, although I suspect the discoveries were in part via assisted erosion.  I took a few steps forward but something held me back, it felt like grave robbing, collecting teeth, it seems to be Walton’s claim “they collect teeth”.  Anything less than a 6 foot tusk would also go un-noticed by my untutored eye.  I left the cliff fall in peace, it could keep its secrets.

The beach is littered with bits of tree, clay coloured shells, every chance of being ludicrously old, there are no shells on other beaches nearby.  I feel slightly uncomfortable, treading on fragile remains and then a surprise.  Coming around the last of the cliff, jutting out of it in direct contravention of stratification huge timbers with great rusting bolts protruding from their weathered boards.  More evidence of failed fortification, quite a shock, alien in its unexpectedness.

I have to say the smell is quite unseemly, everything is decaying in the sunlight, behind the last vestige of dune a shallow pool has dried out.  The mud is cracked, someone has walked over it imagining it to be as firm as it looks.  From the depth of the tread, this was a mistake, the adventurer will have gone home with shoes filled with stinking mud, trousers slapping cold against his legs.  You don’t wash that mud off, not even in the sea, not without effort.

It is like a miniature salt pan, I like the illusion and try to capture it on film, it has something in common with the Jaywick prairie, a grand landscape in minature.  How long before this rest-bite for migratory birds is overcome by the ravenous waves.  This bit of the coast represents first landfall for many and has come to the aid of struggling migrants over the centuries.  It’s importance noted, crooked signs extol the fact, but not so vital that it needs saving.  It exists as forgotten land, not good enough to build on, not significant enough to save. it will just be left to disappear, the only thing it ever does which makes news.

I turn now homeward, the sky has been threatening for a while and the first spots of rain are coming down.  Heavy slow drops you know are the start of something more. 

I make a promise to return, reclaim this space from memory, dog 1 has had his outing, I do hope he has enjoyed it.

The Essex Way 5

Great Horkesley to Fordstreet - 15th August

It has been a few weeks since I set foot on The Essex Way.  “I got lost” would be about right as a recap, but if you have not read it, it is here, in all its glory.

Geography has a bigger effect than I anticipated, basically I was reluctant to move forward until the section I had missed out had been cleared of unknowns.  This was one half of the equation, the other half was the bit missed out is rather urban and dull, combining an awkward sort of length.  I set about another walk to try and break the impasse, go to another county, another river system, the Orwell and Stour walk.

It was no good, the mental shackles which stopped me moving forward could not be loosened, the missed section was going to have to be walked before any more progress was made on the Essex Way.

I put the car journey into the GPS, this was to be a belt and braces approach, there was no desire to repeat the unhappy wanderings by car of last time.  There was a slight moment of nervousness when a road I needed was closed, signs for a diversion were in place.  These signs usually begin with good intentions but at some point simply lose interest in helping the traveller and dump them in the middle of nowhere.  Fortunately these were newly placed and remained relevant.  I arrived at Great Horkesley as intended.

This is a village just north of Colchester, built along a Roman road, which takes its straight line very seriously.  Hardly a surprising  only a few miles out from the Roman capital of Britain.  If Roman roads got curves here there would be no hope elsewhere. 

The A12 is doing a good job of containing the sprawl that is Colchester but  I do not rate the long term prospects of Great Horkesley remaining a village, if anything new housing estates are stretching out trying to reach Colchester.  More fool them.

There are some dramatically thatched houses along the road, many sporting the obligatory security signs.  The WI Hall, which is no more than an ugly shed has a large sign on it warning everyone they are under 24/7 CCTV surveillance.  Jam and gossip has never been safer.  People I meet look warily at my camera, concerned an image might be stolen from them, their rights invaded while happy to be under the gaze of 24/7 big brother examination.  Safe cameras in the hands of the faceless, unsafe cameras in the hands of a smiling chap with a couple of dogs, mad world.

This whole section of the Essex Way is compromise.  I promised myself that for being a good lad and walking the pretty tedious official route with its pavements there would be a more rural return journey.

Parked in a cul-de-sac so loved by estate designers the walk begins.

Dogs 2 and 3 are on the end of a lead.  In front of us looms a large wall, blue, ten foot high made of plywood I presume, probably fencing off another bit of farmland soon to be taken over by housing.  It’s ultimate fate may well rest on the current recession, ie neglect.  For some reason the desperate need for housing totally falls away during a recession, current housing stocks suddenly become adequate again, houses fall in price, what seemed like insatiable demand turns out to be no more than an imagined profit.

I am soon in countryside, an orchard greets me, regular planting the trees grown to make apple picking simple, they are not ripe for scrumping so they were safe from even temptation.  A little further on, I bump into a couple going the other way, they look to be walking The Essex Way in the correct direction, all maps and official-air.  Striking out across a newly ploughed field the drum of A12 cannot be denied, trees mask it from view but not ears.  It annoys me more than it should these clashes of urban and rural.

A gaggle of cyclists blur past me, all lycra and intent, most too busy to acknowledge the fact I stepped aside and bundled up the dogs too allow them past.  The modern affliction, the more wheels the more significant, the faster, the better.  In their haste perhaps they imagined they had more right to the way than I did.  I order up punctures all round for these guys from whatever god deals with this, the Romans would have had one.

Armoury Farm is my first map destination, an unusual name it must have an obvious connection, Colchester is a military town from its inception, it now seems to be a livery stables.  Some bushes nearby have blackberries, juicy taste explosions, I feel I’ve earned a few.

No sooner am I settling into my stride than tarmac makes an appearance, already the outskirts of West Bergholt is reaching out to greet me, even as people are picking blackberries, making sure they get their share of the free bounty.  I walk through head down, this is not my element today.

The Essex Way passes a Church which can only be described as functional in design, with an ugly extension stuck on the back much like a prefab.  The grass in the cemetery was waist deep, my lasting impression of West Bergholt, the dead need the living to keep them alive, the dead deserve better than to be in a wasteland.

There is a treat in store, West Bergholt old church, near the Hall.  The village has moved away, keener on crossroad commerce the village left the church and hall isolated.  The church is no longer a working church and fell into disrepair, sidelined by the building of another church, it was finally decommissioned in 1976.  It was saved by a charity and when I went past was open to all and sundry.  An open church has been a rarity and I relished it.  Just inside the door was a 13th century font with a 15th century oak, iron bound chest sitting in close attendance.  A merrily painted church organ was near the altar and before that a 17th century coat of arms painted on a wall.

The church is medieval, made up of recycled Roman tile as is the fashion near Colchester, the area devoid of natural building stone.

The graveyard, it was full by 1900, the real interest being many of the graves being ring fenced by iron railings.  A rare sight as so many railings were uprooted in futile war effort  The pretence was we needed the iron, the reality was we just needed the morale boost of “helping” so we destroyed beautiful iron railings all over the country.  The initial intent of the railings were to deter grave robbing, but from the dates on some of the gravestones, it looks to have continued as fashion statement.

One area has a whole series of graves in an enclosure, behind them a husband and wife exist in his and her enclosures, an odd arrangement somehow.

The church has a somewhat colourful history which can be read here.

Around the church is a sense of slow decay, barns in disrepair, outbuildings growing into the weeds, to repair them would almost be out of keeping now, it seems fate is sealed, decay is their future.

I leave the caged dead and the slumbering decay and strike out across working fields, the church has raised my spirits but it is a mixed message.  A well looked after and maintained church open to the inquisitive but the community it served has moved on down the road.

The fields are busy but all around buildings are in decay.  In the distance, what must have once been a farmhouse is wire fenced off, blank windows gazing out across the dancing crop, the roof open to the skies.  Once the roof has gone deterioration will be swift.

In another direction a collection of cows are hanging around farm structures, it has a timeless feel a scene unchanged, postcard England.  But as the track curves around, giving me a better view, the buildings become more and more weathered, functional for a cowshed, but not forever.

Across the fields can be discerned the line of the River Colne, it is no more than a stream at this point, the hint is the line of pillboxes.  Reinforced concrete structures designed to hold the line should the promised invasion have taken place in the 40’s.  Without anyone caring for them they look as serviceable as they were 70 years ago, now with a layer of camouflage grass on the tops.

There is a line of them here, all interconnecting fire.  The sound of an old aircraft makes me look up, a strange twist of the timeline, some World War 2 aircraft go overhead heading to a show perhaps.  Time has become jumbled, it is only vaguely linear.

The River Colne is my companion now, although it is more sensed than seen with the crops still high.  My destination is Fordstreet, which will link up the two severed ends of The Essex Way, I will have filled in the missing link.

Fordstreet church was the increasingly regular disappointment of the locked church, complete with signs explaining how everything was secretly marked so stealing it would be useless.  How the lives of 99% that live by the rules are blighted by the 1% that will not.

The dogs and I sat on a low tomb in the shade of a tree.  I hoped the occupant would understand I meant no harm, although by the looks of the mischief tree roots were doing to his resting place he had more pressing things on his eternal thoughts.  The day, hot and humid, had taken its toll and there was at least as far to walk again to get back home.

It has been a treat to navigate through what truly is a green and pleasant land, for all the signs of rural decay there is much worth saving and savouring.

As it actually turned out, I was wrong.  My return journey was pleasant but had no features to really recommend it as a walk beyond the usual trundle.  Far more interesting had been the official Essex Way and the cost of a bit of urban stomping was well worth the cost, it was not as much as it appeared to be on the map.

Technorati Tags: The Essex Way,walking,Great Horkesley,West Bergholt,Fordstreet,church,graveyards,world war 2,defence,pillbox,river colne,colchester

Waterlog by Roger Deakin

What a delightful book.

Roger draws inspiration from “The Swimmer”.  This the tale of a man that decides to swim his way home via his friends swimming pools on a hot day they only get in America.  To my shame I know it as a film that maybe only the 70’s could produce.  Burt Lancaster stars, and it was made in 1968.  The source material is a short story written in 1964 by John Cheever.

Waterlog begins with Roger swimming in his moat.  Class conscious it is not a good start, but all is forgiven when it transpires this is a more rustic version of a moat which people seem to have dug for none defensive reasons around parts of their homes in Suffolk during the 17th century.  Already a sketchy walk idea is emerging for me.  Roger bought the ruin in 1968.

Soon Roger is swimming in the Scilly Isles and I expect the book to take the form of a traverse across England.  It does not, instead he splashes and leaps around the map over the process of a year.

The writing is wonderful, I am easily carried along by his enthusiasm, his world is very much my world.  An interest in the arcane and fairly pointless, the discovery of a sunken boggy bit of ground that would once have been a Victorian swimming hole is a delight.   The fact he has a set of I-Spy books dating back to the early period of the series initial success as points of reference just strikes the right chord.

Roger quietly defines convention and slips into the wild water at every possible convenience.  His travel down the River Test is a rewarding read.

What struck me was the amount of wild swimming that was stilling going on relatively recently, and presumably still does.  I will look more carefully at the knotted ropes hanging from trees on my riverside walks.  Indeed my whole perception of this third element has been changed.  I am no swimmer, it was rather beaten out of me in cold outdoor swimming pools, under the title of “swimming lessons”.  Horrible things in pools that were past their best.  More swimmers than non-swimmers drown is the statistic in my head, it seems unreasonable to leap into any body of water unless totally necessary.

Roger has no qualms, he seems to have been born with rather too few fear glands and at times his behaviour borders on reckless.  Even by his own admittance in the text some of his exploits were less than wise.

Many of the swimmers he meets are of the more elderly generation less used to mains water I suspect and so more at home in the village swimming hole than we are now.

It makes you realise we have lost something, but Roger’s wilful disregard of what amounts to social convention makes you realise that just below the surface these things are still possible.  We allow ourselves to be badgered into compliance.  Those rent-a-cops with their day-glo waistcoats largely spout nonsense and hope an official air will carry the day.

His recollections of the sugar beet factory at Bury St Edmunds chimed with mine and I laughed at a forgotten memory when he mentioned the misting machines used to mask the terrible stink of sugar beet processing.

He reminded me to cherish the quiet places, revel in the orchards I see from time to time, they are a disappearing landscape.

The book has short chapter structure, very much like the dips he takes, it is filled with forgotten history, recollections and detail.  It is a book I cannot really recommend enough.

His voice was so strong and immediate and his swimming strength so obvious, it was like a punch in the stomach to discover Roger Deakin had died in 2006, age 62.  I actually only discovered this on about paragraph 4 of this blog entry.  I wondered who was going to look after all the things he cherished at his homestead, the birds in the chimney, the life in the moat.

To discover someone so full of life and then find they are in fact dead.  It is so much more dislocating than the end of “The Swimmer” could ever be.  I felt like I knew him, he was that sort of writer, that sort of man.

Here is The Guardian article relating to his death.

Dartmoor Magazine.

As I was stepping out of the door on some miserable errand the real world enforces much too often the latest Dartmoor Magazine was sitting in the hallway, still warm from posties hand.

Remember the days you would wave to the postie on crisp cold mornings, the shared bond of the early risers.  Experiencing the day before the sights, sounds and air had been processed by millions of others, used up in the process, stale long before rush-hour.  A new day, just for you and the postie.  The milkman long since consigned to fading memory awaits the heritage industry to revive him in nostalgic adverts, postie will follow.

Now the early morning post has disappeared.  The lie was they were getting rid of the second postal delivery of the day.  More properly they were simply getting rid of the first post, now the mail arrives pretty much when it likes, 10am to 2pm is postie primetime.

Now postie is a faceless someone, an ever changing someone I no longer recognise.  So it is with the dustmen, must be 20 years since the dustman was a regular enough face to have a chat with.  Now it is just another stranger leaping from a huge machine wheeling a plastic bin large enough to hold a body to the back of the cart where the contents are forcibly hurled.  Now the only reason to converse with the dustman is when you have made some sort of error in apportioning the detritus.  Paper where plastic should go, the system grinds to a halt, dustmen perplexed, more than his jobs worth, no possible way can a recycling bin intended for plastic be moved when it contains a bit of stray paper.  The dustman as eco-warrior saving the planet by refusing to collect rubbish.

The human equation no longer adds up, the world is increasingly built on machine scale, we are at best cogs, at worse lubricant for the system.

Life.

Dartmoor magazine would be waiting for me when I got back, Autumn addition of the quarterly magazine, the cover image invites you to wander the landscape, which I do mentally as my body guides me through the days chores.

The internet is great, but the physicality of glossy A4 has to be experienced from time to time and this is the time and place for me, my only magazine subscription.

This year there has been an interesting series about Princetown Prison and this issue deals with Princetown more generally.

It reports on a reworking of Sherlock Holmes, which is part of an autumnal TV series “Tourist Trail” and how tourists relate to a literary landscape.  Seems this was recorded in mid-June and they had authentic mist and drizzle.

Although the magazine is Dartmoor focused, it has so many starting points for walking themes and different thinking between the lines, it is about everywhere.  Anton Coaker, has a regular column as a traditional hill farmer, he has a great chatty style and is thought provoking.  Anton has a beard you just have to stand and admire, its not one of those celebrity efforts, nor the designer stubble which is harder work than shaving.  His beard is the real deal, it has the appearance of being hacked with a pair of garden shears from time to time when more dinner is finding its way into the undergrowth than the mouth.  It is a statement of individual freedom so few of us possess and fewer still dare exercise.  More power to your chin Anton.

This quarter he talks about farm gates.  Not something I have really given much thought too over the years, other than how to get through them efficiently and securing them afterwards.  I knew reading it was going to cause trouble.  Sure enough, I was soon on the internet trying to plot walks that would encompass potentially interesting farm gates, photographic images forming in my head.  Now I am sitting here, cursing inwardly, wondering how many great farm gates I have literally let through my hands without giving them proper acknowledgement.

My neglect of this previously unconsidered element has been brought home by a search of my photo archive.  There is one legitimate wooden farm gate image.  It was a series of gates which must have been some sort of animal pen.  The gate was in an advanced state of decay with a sign requesting its closure, the irony being the only reason for the image.

Just to give a quick plug to one of the sites which rekindled my interest in Dartmoor as a walking location.  These gates appear here.

The gate was really on its last legs, probably replaced now or given it had no real purpose perhaps just a pile of wood.  There is one other gate image on a roll of film that has lain undeveloped for a decade or more.  Again on Dartmoor, it was a garden gate at the kennels which housed the local pack near Pew Tor.  That has been replaced, I saw the new gate a few years ago.

I congratulate anyone that can just let these things pass through their minds without undue concern, normal, well adjusted types.  By this I do not mean the lumps that think a good time is watching EastEnders then talking about it as if it was (a) real (b) mattered even if it was real.  These people are mal-adjusted in a special sort of way, the fact there are more of them just means it takes longer to come to the realisation it is not normal.  No, I am speak of the people that can read about regional variations in gate design, discover there is previously unrealised function in various forms and after a nod of the head, perhaps a “that’s interesting” move onto more important things in life having maintained a proper perspective.

I simply fail the test, perspective distorted, this farm gate revelation rates right up there with just about anything the nightly news is going to offer (if I listened to it).

Many years ago there was an episode of The Time Team, they were digging up a site which made no sense.  It was a cornucopia of treasures without rhyme or reason.  Experts were puzzled, but the suspicion mounted, these were treasures plundered at some point, maybe recently.  Experts asked to come in validate the goodies which could then be sold for healthy money.

Things just did not add up, the finds were oddly distributed along the time line.  Did the Romans really stick their coins back together with glue?

A bit of barbed wire ran under an ancient sword, the sword was genuine,  so was the barbed wire, but in the scheme of things barbed wire does not run underneath ancient swords.  The crew had an expert in all things barbed-wire to hand.  This was heavenly news, barbed wire can be dated and geographically located with varying degrees of accuracy as long as you have the right expert to hand.  However ludicrous you can find an expert, a life affirming and life changing moment.

The only problem with this magazine subscription is its arrival creates a Pavlovian response.  365 odd square miles of wilderness, a lifetime of exploration.   I will never be a giant of the Dartmoor landscape, history will not remember me like it does William Crossing.  The problem is I could still end up with a massive pile of mouse chewed paper representative of my life’s work which is only considered so much fire lighting material.

How much life do you apportion to your interests and in what order, time can only be spent once.

Here is Anton’s website.

Dog 1 goes for a walk

The Naze.  Part One.

Dog 2 and Dog 3 are always strolling about, but Dog 1 usually remains at home.  He is getting on in years, 13 0r so of them.  His heart is still good and he will walk all day, but has gone deaf.

Walking on leads has never been a strong point, they do not get enough practice, they don’t need it.  Obedient, they remain with me and they are actually less trouble off a lead than on it in many ways.  Less time is spent straining at the end of it, or tying themselves in knots, problems every multiple dog owner is more than aware off.  The downside is, hearing is an integral part of knowing exactly where everyone is, without it Dog 1 has a tendency to set his own pace.  Effectively when Dog 1 goes for a dog walk, he is taking us.  If he wants to stop and sniff around, that is what he is going to do, no amount of shouting is going to bring him to heel.  If we stop, he is just going to keep going till he remembers to turn around and see where we are.  The issue being by the time that has happened a bend has often restricted sight-lines.  His deafness has lead to unintended disobedience and so his walking has become restricted.

Three is also an awkward number, only having been given two arms, with a hand at the end of each, it makes difficult picking up and generally looking after everyone.  On normal dog walks this is fine, it runs on rails, everyone knows where they are going, no harm beyond the unexpected is going to befall anyone, but the veteran of many walking holidays is getting left behind more often on the more adventurous travelling.

It breaks my heart really, he is my favourite dog, the most pampered of the lot, he has earned the right to be.  His image marches back years in the photo archive, younger and younger versions of himself strolling about in a variety of weathers and locations.

Today was going to be different though, a stroll designed for him.  Preparations were made, dog 2 can hear the sound of the dog walking coat go on at 30 yards so was running about in small circles.  This is the hint for dog 3 to start leaping about.  Dog 1 watches carefully, he knows what it means, but he has also learnt over these last 9 months or so, it no longer concerns him.  He went out onto the landing, as he does, just to see what was going on and began to realise something was different this time.  The joy as his lead was picked out of the tangled snake on the hook, he jumped and barked, charged down the stairs, charged up the stairs, barked, jumped.

Into the car, roadtrip, even more excitement, this was not just an unscheduled run-of-the-mill excursion.  We were off to a place special to Dog 1, a place where he went as a puppy with his sister.  His sister has been dead for a few years now, and so sadly missed, dog 1, actually staggered and nearly feinted at the sight of her lifeless body, it looked for a while like he was simply going to die broken hearted.  This place was the most special to her, actually squealing with delight when the car crunched on the gravel and the squealing did not stop for quite some distance.  It was a rare treat, too rare, now she is dead, the squeal haunts the area and the trips are even fewer.  One day I hope it will return to its natural state, a place my dog loved to run and where I imagine her spirit spends plenty of time.  Does dog 1 recollect, they never forget a face.

We are at the Naze, a bit of unprotected Essex coastline, the only question being when, how fast and what will be the consequences  when it disappear into the sea.  Years of campaigning to try and save it are only matched by the years of failing to do so.

Also I am hoping to take a photograph of a flower, an ulterior motive .  I can wander into the garden and take a picture, but I want a picture of a flower which has survived by its own wit and merit.  This strange compulsion having been put into my head by a competition one of the flickr groups I bombard with more determination than skill.  This month the competition is to photograph a flower, there is no prize, there is no acclaim, the effort is the reward.

The day is set fair(ish) clouds are bustled along by a stiff breeze which makes anything but the most bolted on headgear an entertaining proposition.  All around hands reach up to keep hats on heads.

Walking past a neat row of bungalows sitting close to the cliff edge, one house has a drained swimming pool.  The pool looks neglected, time has drained it off purpose.  I am reading Waterlog by Roger Deakin and have become more attuned to seeing the watery element in our landscape.  An odd discovery as I spend so much time by it, but it is always more foe than friend.

At the end of the houses is a wall, much older than the housing.  The wall ends with column (right word please) and on that column a weathered ball, the sort you see in country houses.  It is the last physical existence of Mabel Greville.  A grand house built on the cliffs in 1882.  It survived till 1984, at various times a retreat for the over-worked, a children’s home, a college for domestic service (the soon to be over-worked) and finally it ended life as a convalescent home.  Now it is gone, just an old wall and a breakwater named after it.

Stage One of the walk is dominated by the Naze Tower.  Built in 1721 by Trinity House, it is believed to be the only one of its type in the world.  A landmark to shipping entering Harwich harbour.  During the Second World War there were serious considerations to blow it up as it also was a rather useful marker for German aircraft, it appears conspicuously on German maps of the time.  The sea is eating into the coastline at around 2m a year, so the tower has a finite lifespan, by the looks of it one that will end before I do.  Some alarmists claim 20 years, I hope to see that, but it might be a metaphor for my own collapse by then.

The sea is encroaching in one direction and commercial venture in the other.  Most images show the tower in splendid isolation, it crops the ugly teashop.  The resultant tables chairs and sprawling humanity are not so easy to crop, best wait till they have gone.

The carpark nearby, also crowds the tower, it has not been given the space to breath it deserves.  I leave disappointed, there is no angle a photograph is going to do this justice today, the other angle reveals tedious warnings about the dangers of falling off the edge of a cliff.  Lets hope the tower still stands next time I see it and I can solve the puzzle of the photograph.

Marching on, leaving the car pound behind, we cross a grassy area much enjoyed by dog walkers, we get across this part as quickly as possible, it is featureless, we are heading towards a line of bushes.  Below on the sand are the remains of pillboxes, the waves lapping over the top of the seaweed coated concrete.

Originally the pillboxes were on the cliffs, part of a significant defensive system but have proved no defence to the sea.  This area has various concreted roads, part of a secret missile installation during World War Two, radar sat on top of the tower.

Way, way out to sea, a church lie under the waves.  An exceptionally low tide uncovered it once in the 20th century, perhaps the last time it will be seen.  Local tradition has it the bells can be heard on stormy nights, impressive, as the church had no bells when the sea finally claimed it.  It is a romantic conceit and I am more than happy to play along, I know it is not true, but equally in my heart I know it is true.

The sea claimed it in parts, the sea is rarely in a hurry, it has been around a long time, it sets its own timescales.  In 1748 the church tower collapsed, made of stone and wood, it had perhaps been standing for 500 years by this time.  The population were not going to let things go that easily and an extension was actually built onto the church despite the collapsing tower and clear evidence the sea was going to take it.  In 1798 roof collapsing meant the building was considered unsafe, over a period of 7 years it slipped into the sea.  The porch being the last to go and defiantly weddings were held in the porch to the last.  The cemetery was also lost to the sea, coffins sticking out of the cliffs.  Rumour has it the wood was used for odd jobs around the town and the occupants teeth came in handy as replacements for the living.

A fair bit of Elizabethan Walton slipped into the sea.  Everything has an air of waiting its turn, pipes and concrete jut out from the cliffs, much easier to see than the fossils the place is famous for.  Well famous in the circles in which fossils are famous.  At low tides the beach is combed meticulously by people searching for sharks teeth, a strange crouched pastime I see no attraction in at all beyond the discovery of a first tooth.

We reach the bush line and I relax a little, the prelude complete, the walk can begin.  So far no sign of a flower that will stop dancing long enough in the wind to have a reasonable likeness taken.

Race to the Pole.

Race to the Pole, James Cracknell & Ben Fogle.

I enjoyed the TV series, “On thin Ice” so it seemed a vaguely natural extension to read the book.

Only “vaguely” because books about TV series always have that whiff of “cash-in” especially if  celebrity is involved.  But I couldn’t resist and as the local library hands them out free, as long as you return them, all that I invested was a bit of time, least I could do.

First impressions all negative.  A cheery James and Ben on the front cover, names above the faces.  Blurb on the back about how three is a difficult number for a team.  Well they seem to have solved that when writing the book by dropping one of the team, the least famous one.  This echoed the TV coverage in which the best the good Doctor could hope for most of the time was to be remembered vaguely as “the third team member”

Why, I don’t know, but it cannot be denied.

The book takes the style of James writes a bit and then Ben writes about the same bit from his perspective.  Something I first encountered in a book about the TV series “Long Way Round”.  Three people, two remembered.

The book though is a great addition to the TV series.  Where the series was weak, the book is strong.  The book had soon dealt with the pre-race messing about, their first team, Jonny Lee Miller etc and got his replacement, all this by page 30 odd of 250ish.

One thing which came out from this was Jonny did not like being filmed at all and it caused quite some serious concerns/friction, none of which was really evident on the tv show, beyond one incident.  The difference in writing and broadcasting is shown up again and again with these little revelations in the book.

The other thing I was interested about was how James was going to come across in the book.  In the TV series, for me, he did not do so well, which puts it mildly.  Always quick to find fault in others and any fault within himself was down to someone else, a lot revolved around James in James’s mind.  Most everything that happened to other people was only useful in that they would better understand James it seemed at times.

By the end of the book I was not any closer to liking him, he is a difficult person to like, but it is not my job too, so I can leave it there.  At times James is self-aware, understanding he has said the wrong thing, done the wrong thing, but has a reason why, although he meant to, never put it right then and there.  Hindsight is useful stuff, especially if you are trying to rebuild an image.  However the fact is he got to the pole with the team and he must have played a significant part in that.

Ben is the winner in this book, a sort of everyman, or at least a person with a life within the realms of possibility.  While James was falling apart, feet in tatters, lungs filled with fluid, frost-bitten finger, making poor decisions, bullying the team, Ben was simply putting one foot in front of the other and seeming to be rather enjoying himself.

Dr Ed Coats is impossible to read, he is only reflected in his team mates views.  They both have good words to say about him and clearly he was more than a third of the team.  I suppose James would have reached the finish without Ed being in the team, but it is not a forgone fact.  At the halfway point James was in a really bad state and potentially could have been pulled from the race.  I think the race Doctors would have been partially persuaded to let him continue because the third team member was going to be a Doctor continually on hand.

The way the book was written meant it was very choppy in style which was a little tiring, the ever changing voice and the repetition of detail.

There is a lot in the book about the actual race, unlike the TV series.  The TV series probably had limited film to work with, Ben was the cameraman on that bit of the leg and had plenty of other things to worry about.

A worthwhile read if you liked the TV series, it filled in some detail, gave more of an insight into tent life but there is another story to be told yet one feels.

Dartmoor 7 : Nun’s Cross Farm.

Previously on Dartmoor : Foggintor Quarry area

Re-supplied and fortified My journey to Nun’s Cross Farm could wait just a little while longer.  The fine visitor centre in Princetown was well worth another visit.  The dog was welcomed in and had not abused such a warm welcome so why not a second visit.

In a former life the visitor centre was the hotel Conan Doyle stayed in.  Later he writes Hound of the Baskervilles, an ever present thread to my Dartmoor wanderings, often the very real soundtrack as my mp3 player has the audio book in endless repetition.

Conan Doyle, after a series of deaths of those loved and close retreated into the fad of spiritualism which had been given a boost by the slaughter in muddy foreign fields, 1914-18.  The same slaughter that is remembered by Dartmoor granite memorials around the country.

Stepping into the centre, the immortal Sherlock Holmes leans precariously on the stairs.  A shop dummy, dusty eyeballs, only determined imagination can turn him into a mercurial genius.  Nothing quite as bad as the Monks on display at Buckfast Abbey, but that is a whole different tale.

Conan Doyle did not stop with spiritualism, he believed in fairies, as evidenced by the photographs taken by two small girls at the end of their garden.  It would not have taken Holmes long to see through the cardboard fairies.  The world was still asking the sisters if the Cottingley Fairy photographs were fake 60 years later.  Eventually the sisters confessed, they were fake.  The photographs were fake, but there were fairies at the bottom of the garden, they had seen them.

The fuss is over five photographs.  Four were hoaxes, the fifth, one of the sisters maintained was genuine.  Your laughing, but deep down, you want that fifth image to be real too.  I will ask the Piskies, if anyone knows they do.

Princetown has claim to a few “highest” records, even if they are somewhat parochial in nature.  Highest town on the moor, highest railway in Britain.  A record somewhat tarnished by the closure of the railway in 1956.  Can you hold a record for something that no longer exists?

The path to Nuns Farm Cross is well defined, it starts between the two pubs near the roundabout, 40 yards, your on the Moor.  The path is a white scar on a green carpet today but I suspect the colours are weather dependant.  It is uphill, almost instantly you are looking down on the town with all the pretensions to height.  The higher you go the more dominant a feature the great granite bulk of the prison becomes.

This prison being the place from which the madman Seldon has escaped in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

South Hessary Tor is before me and has activity beside it, a large group of people milling about.  Britain’s finest are training, all guns and gear.  The OC is telling them something, it might be navigational in nature.  This green and pleasant land is not what they are training for, the armed service have a purpose beyond Northern Ireland or worrying about holding back the Russian bear for a few minutes before it rolls over them.

The path sets me on a collision course with the group, it is something I cannot easily avoid.  The guns loom large in my mind, the authority they naturally represent.  It is a natural enough reaction, who wants to walk through the middle of an armed gang?  But it is not my real concern.  Dog 2 is already going ahead, he is very keen to collect as many pats and tickles under the chin as he possibly can.

The setup is perfect, the soldiers are strung out along the path, some sitting, some crouched, others standing.  The first soldier tickles Dog 2, it seals the fate for the rest of them.  Down the line dog 2 goes, not moving until he has collected the pat he feels is his due.  The ice is broken before I reach the group, now I have to walk the line, nodding, grinning, greeting, feeling I should say more to thank these people, tell them they must be bonkers, glad someone is still prepared to pay the price, feeling awkward and English about it.  No words do justice to my feelings, so I say nothing.

The path stretches onwards, the views all around me are wonderful, the sun is hammering the moor, I am very keen to get my first glimpse of Nun’s Cross Farm.

A series of stone boundary markers lead the way, paths criss-cross, to my right Burrator reservoir can be seen.  A great flat disk of fallen sky.  Devonport Leat is visible heading towards it in the foreground.

The Leat is on my list of things to be seen this trip, its a man-made water course afterall.  In a previous visit I walked around Burrator Reservoir, that was a wonderful day, it could not be repeated if I wanted too, so I am not going to risk trying.

My trips to Dartmoor have been blessed, the odd snatched week here and there from March to October and all more than the expected quota of sun.  One year I was soaking up the sun a week before the ten tors was abandoned because of hideous weather.  I cannot decide if it is more extreme weather patterns or more extreme reaction from health and safety.

My footfalls stir up grey dust, either side of the path are dark peaty pools, lucky me, my complaint of it being “too warm” is a great complaint to have in England.  Dog 2 investigates the peaty pools religiously, he is thirsty, the dog bowl is fished out of a pocket.  If he sticks his head in the bowl, he wants a drink, if he doesn’t it goes back in the pocket, he sticks his head in the bowl.  It is an old collapsible drinking bowl bought many years ago, a survivor of many walks, it has lasted longer than the shop it was bought from.

In the dip of two hills, bookended by single trees, the grey straight lines of a dwelling.  Nun’s Cross Farm, it can be seen from quite a distance, the cross nearby can also be seen, a cow stands guard.

The Cross, Siward Cross, is older than the farm, it is possibly the oldest cross standing on Dartmoor.  It first gets a mention in 1240, making it the earliest recorded, it is older than that.  It is also the largest cross standing on the moor.

In 1846 the shaft was broken when the cross was upturned for no more reason than it could be.  Two years later it was thankfully repaired.  The alternative name is Nun’s Cross and is now more commonly used.  Nun being a much used word within this area, Nun's Cross Brook, Nun's Cross Common, Nun's Cross Farm, Nun's Cross Ford, Nun's Cross Ford Mill, Nun's Cross Hill, Nun's Cross Mine, Nun's Cross Mire, and Nun's Cross Warren (Legendary Dartmoor ).

Beckamoor, or Windy Post is my favourite of the Dartmoor crosses, but this grandfather of them all is a good second.  It is a solid citizen, human scale and guardian of much around it.

The farm was not so long lived, the land having been enclosed around 1870.  One main structure still stands and is now used by Kelly College as a centre for outdoor activity on the warmer evenings.

When I was there, it was just being opened up for the first time that year, it is very basic and not a place to venture into if you don’t like mice.

Within the farm walls can be made out the humps and bumps of foundations for various farm buildings, now fallen, all but obliterated.

There is an image taken in 1962 which shows the buildings just about still standing. Link to image.  A lot has changed in 50 years, and it is a reminder to always take a picture today, tomorrow it is different.

On past the farm the path marches relentlessly and I am carried along with its flow, the desire to see over the next hill and what lies ahead for other days exploration.

Quite swiftly the farm is out of sight, although I rarely look back at views, preferring what lies ahead.  When I do look back from time to time, I wonder why I don’t do this more often, but it never becomes habit forming.

Coming towards me is a gang of people, they are not army, they are not seasoned hikers.  They have the appearance we all had once, wear what you got and borrow what you haven’t.  Young people with ideas of being adult.  They trudge past with varying degrees of enthusiasm.  I know where they are going, but I hope to be wrong.

“Where are you going?” I ask every fourth or fifth person.  It is not me being obtuse or forgetful, it is because so far none of them know.  I do, but not going to give them any clues.

Sure enough my quiet wildcamp spot is overwhelmed with noise and bad language.  I am 24 hours too late to enjoy quiet reflection at Nun’s Cross Farm.  Kelly College is opening the farm up as well, another large group of younger children appear.  They are none too impressed with the language their young charges are going to be subjected too.  I am simply too darn tired to move, I pitch camp with the squealing going on around me, feet running past.  I am able to sleep in circumstances others might find difficult, a practised art which serves me well.  Even the dog doesn’t care, into the bivvy, asleep.

I had been warned this was a popular wildcamp spot.

My feet are treated to a wet wipe each, the sheer decadence of it is delicious.  It felt very nice to be pampering the “plates of meat” while a beef concoction involving rice and a pot noodle for good measure was being prepared in the trangia.

I am a curiosity for the children around me.  One group asking if I killed rabbits to live out on the moor.  There seemed to be a general belief I had not seen civilisation for a long period of time.  Less than 10 hours out from sausage and chips in Princetown it is difficult to know exactly how to react to this sort of news.

One group are troubled youths, their caretakers hoping a trip out into the countryside will somehow remodel them when they return to whatever urban existence awaits them.  Is there any evidence this works, or is it just an exercise in flushing cities of their human waste for a while.  Poor sods haven’t got a chance, it is touch and go with a good start.  Start bad and it is a hell of a slog.

In my bivvybag my MP3 player transports me back in time, Sherlock Holmes is hot on the trail of the giant hound.  There is strong suggestion Nun’s Cross Farm is the original inspiration of Merripit House.  The Fox Tor Mire which can be seen nearby the potential model for The Great Grimpen Mire.  I crank up the volume, if I cannot lose myself in the solitude of the place, I can drown out the present with the past.

And the Cottingley Fairies?

Well the Piskies told me the fifth photograph was studied in 1972 by the curator of the Kodak Museum.  The conclusion, it was a double exposure of cardboard cut-outs.  Both sister’s had taken a picture.  This is probably why one believes it is genuine, unaware it was a double exposure and eventually too old to change her mind.  Clever little people the piskies.

Air Show.

More of a destination than a journey.  I was transported to the show via the magic of the internal combustion engine (external combustion engines exist).  I arrived early, this is not somewhere you arrive on time, not unless you want to walk 2 miles from car to show.  I didn’t, not because the walk was a dread, but the traffic jam that would accompany the end of the show is going to be horrendous.

Clacton is built on the coast, this means a coast road, which effectively means, one way in, one way out, today cars are parked on both sides of that road for 3 miles and more, bumper to bumper, I do not dare investigate the small side roads.

Having arrived with plenty of time I did a little sight-seeing and picked a spot I thought would be a good vantage point.  Near the Pier, but careful to be on the correct side, the bit where the planes would be doing the stuff.  Carefully chosen, my bit of the railings included a thorny bush to my left.  I had no intention of being hemmed in by humanity, that bush was going to stop that happening.  Not inconsequentially the memorial gardens are behind me, a large impressive war memorial, the names of the dead from 1914-18 and 1939-45 on it, with a large sculpted winged figure above them all.  It was the right place to be.

I have no interest in planes really.  I did want to see the Battle of Britain memorial flight and I was looking forward to seeing the Utterly Butterly girls “wing walking”.  Being as the airshow was technically over water, it means the planes can come in very close, the presumption being if something goes wrong there is plenty of water to ditch into and in terms of impact absorption water is better than terra-firma.  Whatever the reason, you can wave to the pilots in the cockpits.

My main motivation for going to air shows is memory.  Many many years ago a friend had an SLR camera which really impressed me.  It was so complex it just had to be good.  He liked airshows and had numerous images of tiny specks on a blue backdrop.  I am re-living the boredom of it now.  Well I wanted that camera and I wanted to be able to take pictures of planes.  The other reason, you should never forget.

The camera thing has gone full circle and I use a point and click device with as few bells and whistles as I can get away with.  I am still trying to taking the plane image that is in my head.  For those that care this mental image has a remarkable similarity to the moment in “Empire of the Sun” when the fighter pilot flies low over the land, canopy open and waves in slow motion as he goes by, all sun glint highlights.

The show begins, I have picked a good spot.  I know this because all around me are people with cameras that could be mistaken for telescopes.  Tripods, monopoles, lenses bigger than thermos flasks.  Oh dear, I am in a nerd forest, the wrong nerd forest, goretex is my element.  Still we are all here for the same reason, taking the image which is in our heads.

I take an endless series of blurry blobs in the sky while imagining all those around me are taking a shot of a Japanese fighter pilot waving in slow motion just above sea level.  Still it is darn good fun trying.  My technique improves a little, but my anticipation is way off, the planes are simply not in the right place at the right time and an error in location is glaring me in the face.  The sun gets in the way of of photographing aircraft heading towards me.  A damn silly mistake, the first one a fighter pilot is told to avoid and often the very last mistake he makes.  Getting home, reveals I still have a long way to go when it comes to aircraft photography.

I know very few things about aircraft but it stands me in good stead.  What a Spitfire looks like is my primary aircraft skill.  I am surrounded by experts, they know it all and in loud voices are keen to let everyone share in their knowledge.  I don’t mind, but am learning rather more about the people than the planes, conversations are about where they last saw the plane (last week somewhere in most cases).

A plane appears over the sea, unannounced, it has caught the BBC Essex outside broadcast team unawares.  Maybe they were looking under their desks for some more joke sound effects at the time.  Actually I am being naughty, the outside broadcast was mercifully free of gimmick and even had co-commentators more used to being in the aircraft than flying a microphone, it added rather than subtracted from the experience, even if some toe-curling cliché was to be expected .

The so far unidentified plane has squared off wing tips.

“Ahhh, there she is” a voice thick with emotion booms from somewhere behind me.  “Spitfire, I would recognise it anywhere, its the shape of the wings.”  I am ahead of the game, its not a Spitfire, its a Mustang.  I know it is not a Spitfire by prior knowledge.  Recognising it is a Mustang has been pieced together by a sneak preview of the show guide earlier in the day.

The DJ sparks into life, “blah blah, cliché, cliché, Mustang, blah, blah.”

Stunned silence around me.  “The announcer says it is a Mustang” a trembling voice sneaks into the silence.

For the next few minutes we are treated to why the identification error was made.  It had everything to do with engine note, the Mustang did not have its original engine.  This redressed the balance a little, nobody pointed out the totally different wing shapes it would be too difficult to explain away.  Much better something as unlikely as a Mustang having a Spitfire engine as a replacement had been the root of the error.

The Utterly Butterly girls were not, they were now a brand of skin care cream girls, but other than that the same.  Still great, rather them than me.  The planes swoop and climb, my stomach flips.  The airstrip they take off and land from is not far away, for a mad moment I consider heading there, but it would be like peeping behind the theatre curtain, the magic is front of house.  They look glamorous and daring, free spirits of the 1930’s, I don’t really want to see them unbuckled, windswept and staggering like some over-exerted nightclubbers.

High on my list of things “I am unlikely to see” then hoved into view, The Swifts.  An aerobatic team complete with glider.  It is a 3 aircraft team.  The glider is towed behind one of them doing a series of very unlikely looking rolls.  This must take some serious skill my initial understated thought.  Then the glider and its tug fly up into the blue gaining height while the third aircraft entertains the crowd.  The next time we see the glider it is free from the rope and doing all manner of rolls and turns and lord knows what.  Timing is everything, getting back to the airfield a serious consideration when you have not got an engine.

The Catalina flying boat was a treat to see, huge graceful, mercifully slow moving, it did a series of arcs over Clacton pier,it was impressive.  I had built a model of one as a small boy, the dual nature of its landing capabilities enthralled me.  I had never seen one in the flesh, an unexpected highlight.

Top billing of the show is always going to be the Battle of Britain Memorial flight.  Hurricane, the last one ever built, “The Last of the Many” was the one flying this day.  The Spitfire that flew was restored to flying condition in 1997 after 50 odd years of being grounded.  Both planes had rolls in the Battle of Britain film.

The star is always the Lancaster for me, only two airworthy examples left, this the only one in England.  I dread the day it crashes as these things have a tendency to do.

Here is the memorial flight website.

The Red Arrows were to end the show, but not for me, I had seen the fitting end to the show already, so I headed back to the car.  Before going though I stopped in at a small public garden where there is a plaque too an Airman that died during the Second World War.

Going home I drove faster than usual, in the brief bits of tarmac that still allowed me travel over 30mph I actually do, I had witnessed too much speed.  It is quite a time since I bothered going faster than 30mph on the 70 or so yard stretches between pointlessly assigned 30mph zones with cameras hidden waiting to apply the points and hand out the fine.  I am daydreaming over the life and demise of T.E Lawrence when a motorcyclist thunders past me, quickly followed by his friend allowing judgement and luck to be the arbitrator of whether he lives or dies stuck to the front of the on-coming vehicle.