The Old Sterling Ten Pound Note (obverse)
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The Sundays of my youth were quiet days,
primarily because in those far off times our country
still regarded the first day of the week as a rest day.
Most of the shops were shut and public transport was at best intermittent.
The roads reluctantly opened themselves up to a dreaded scourge, ‘Sunday Drivers’!
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Bent, bowed but breathing
Shrouded in uncertainty
Spring waits in the wings.
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We had enjoyed two glorious days of sunshine in Pembrokeshire. Drawing back the curtains of a room that had boasted a clear view of the sea the night before, it seemed that the morning would bring us a different view of Wales. Heavy sea-mist clung to every bush and every blade of grass was bent beneath the weight of water. I forced protesting feet back into the confinement of walking shoes. Like it or not, I would need the secure grip they offered on the slippery path. The rain fell doggedly… not heavily, just enough to stoically resist any attempt at intrusion by the sun and ensure that we would be thoroughly drenched. It would make photography difficult, with a constant search for some dry shred of clothing to clear the lens, but there was something entirely fitting about the mist.
The coastal path we would be walking is beautiful in the sunshine. The waters are crystal clear, with every pebble visible through the shifting sparkle of blue and turquoise. In the mist, you walk outside of time in a landscape full of mystery. Islands, barely seen through the veil, seem to hover as if magically suspended and you get a glimpse of how the oldest legends were born… and why Wales is hailed the birthplace of so many of them. Every so often a window would open through the mist, revealing the promise of beauty, just for a moment, before swallowing the tantalising vista. The cliffs became a place of ghosts and forgotten voices that whispered in the rain.
The mist softened the distance between the leading party and the few of us walking at a slower pace, making each cluster of souls an island in the brume. For once, I was reluctant to hurry on and catch up, in spite of the rain… there is something quite unique about the sea-silence that seems to gather at the edges of the heart, waiting to share its secrets.
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A poem from Jane…
Threads loop about the cooling drying stalks,
wreathed in rain-spangled spider web
from thistle head to oak summit.
They tie me to the stray that stalks
and perches on the windowsill nights,
looking in.
Threads pull skeins of birds into tight flocks,
slacken as they soar, balloons,
weightless through the clouds,
hauling in the stars
and laughing gull laughter
at the falling rain.
Threads loop and necklace drape
about faces never seen,
drawing words from voices never heard,
but hearts have no need of faces, voices,
and the threads that join them, taut and tight
as gossamer in the rainy meadow,
need never break.
I was determined to write a short post today, documenting the journey so far. The fact that I have not done so may be down to how damnably busy being in hospital keeps you, or it may just be that I am lacking energy for other reasons,
I was always brought up with the mistaken conviction that fresh air, good company and conversation, and plenty of good, wholesome food was the way to good health.
Now, on a hospital ward, Covid limits the prospect of healthy exercise and fresh air. And fair enough, the company you get on a tiny ward with half a dozen mixed cases can be excellent, mediocre or overpowering. One of those things.
But something as basic as the comfort of good food should be possible.
Even hot food might be nice.
Or something toothsome, tasty or even hot…
But heigh ho… we can’t be greedy. It is a lot to ask a company paid a few meagre millions to feed a whole hospital on hot food. Some of it even resembles what is on the menu, for goodness sake!
As long as you are not much of a cook, or an eater.
And, where visitors once picked up any slack with home baked treats, sneaky chocolates and trips to the canteen … Covid has knocked all of those off the menu, including visits from your nearest and dearest. Unless you happen to be at end of life.
So, most of my healing calories come from the pill pots that contain a cocktail of painkillers enough to down a small army, but which have ceased to touch the jaw and shoulder pain tonight . Bugger .
For once, I wished I wasn’t driving. I wanted to stop every few minutes and get the camera out… the whole area is very beautiful, but the road between Nevern and our next stop in the Gwaun Valley is exceptionally so. We were driving in a convoy though and it was fairly obvious that, had we stopped, we would be hopelessly lost. The narrow roads winding over hill, down dale and through the trees was not a place for loitering… and anyway, our guide had promised us cider.
We had been told to expect an unusual pub and that was a fair description in this day and age, when even the old inns are being taken over by chains, decorated in bright colours and given a modern twist. Bessie’s, officially known as the Dyffryn Arms, looks more like a home than a public house. Owned by the same family since 1840, Bessie herself has been serving ale through the serving hatch from the kitchen-cum-bar for over thirty-five years.
The cider was excellent… and much appreciated after the long, hot day. We sat outside by the side of the lane, surrounded by honeysuckle, bees and wildflowers. The rest of the residents of the tiny hamlet also seemed to be sitting on their doorsteps enjoying the early evening sun and a companionable hour was passed.
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The Daily Echo has not, you will have noticed, been running at full speed for the past couple of weeks.
In fact, few things have been running as normal. Me least of all. About the best I can do is hobble a few steps.
The day we were supposed to be heading off for adventures in Scotland, I had a phone call from my GP. After listening to the results of that morning’s X ray, it was decided that travel was the wrong option.
I spent my birthday in the scanner, and had nothing to do but wait for the results.
Ani blamed herself, thinking that the black mass in my lungs was a fur ball. She even nearly had a bath.
As I have mentioned before, it was cruelly ironic that one of the most important bits of our planned trip north had been to meet up with my friend, Mary Smith, herself documenting her journey with her recently diagnosed lung cancer.
Monday, I ceased being able to breathe and, sirens blaring, was rushed to hospital for more tests than the national curriculum and an appalling diagnosis in record time.
Without going into detail, there is a lot of nastiness going on in my chest and bugger all they can do… except loads more tests… apart from making the last bits both a tad easier and further away. If I’m lucky. And if the tumours … yes, two of the buggers… attacking lungs and heart are amenable.
I am still in hospital and may be so for a while. I don’t like the idea, but the alternative isn’t exactly enticing 😉 More tests, scans and biopsies to come, and hopefully a little good news about the time we might buy.
Because there is far too much we want to do for me to go out without putting up a fight.
And anyway, I cannot have the small dog blaming herself 😉
Thank you to those wonderful friends who, knowing something wasn’t right, got in touch to find out what, offering whatever support was needed, it matters more than I can say. Especially now, when serious illness, the possibility of losing your nearest and dearest… or even your own life… must, thanks to the Covid monstrosity, be faced alone.
Dear Don,
Unfortunately, today’s control seems to be rooted in finding the best entrée into the psychology of marketing and manipulation, forgetting that psyche originally referred to the soul, not the wallet or the popularity polls.
Etruscan Hydra. Image: Wolfgang Sauber CCA3
“Death’s at the bottom of everything…” a strange way of putting it, even if they do end up in the sewers. Although it would be true to say that death is the backdrop against which life is played out. Without it, would life hold any value for us? We dismiss the infinite all too readily in our society these days, while the tantalising glitter of transience catches our attention and becomes an object of desire.
By the way, I do not have a penchant for mainstream thought, Mr Sams! Like Coyote, though, someone has to show what not to do… and mainstream thought does have a tendency to show where not to stand….which is as good a starting point as any.
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It is a magical place. You are in no doubt of that as you walk along the path to the site. Hoary stones nestle in the hedgerow. Bluebells, those delicate woodland flowers that bloom only in spring, are blooming on the hillside at midsummer, scattered through the grass as if giving warning that here, time holds no sway and to step into the enclosure is to step out of this world’s realm and into another.
Your first sight of Pentre Ifan takes your breath away. I saw it first many years ago, on a day that invited no other visitors… we had the place to ourselves for hours and time to get a feel for this sacred space. And, although many things here may be debated and pondered upon by minds scientific or spiritually inclined, there is no doubt about the sanctity of the site.
It is the gigantic head of a bird that greets you, its beak held aloft by stone as insubstantial as a feather, looking out over the valley. It is not just the stones that ‘get’ you, it is the place itself. Little wonder, when there are so many tales of the Fair Folk being sighted here, especially as the moon rises on a summer night.
Some tales tell that they are red-capped and resemble small soldiers. Others, less forthcoming but more believable, speak of insubstantial beings, impossible to capture but who converse with those rare few who can see them.
Pentre Ifan was built around six thousand years ago and is the oldest of the tombs we visited on this trip. The site sits within its enclosure still; even though the perimeter stones are largely lost within the edges of the oak wood and the hedgerows, the shape of the space can still be traced. There are all the usual debates over the purpose and construction of the site, but it is always referred to as a tomb. Here, I can see that, though not because of the archaeology. Very few artefacts have been discovered here and no finds to show that it was ever a burial chamber, which, in itself, seems a little odd for a tomb. I wonder if the stones were part of the death rites, rather than a final resting place? Or perhaps the death was more symbolic… a ritual initiation… a re-beginning for the shamans.
One legend about the place says that it was a druidic college. Pentre Ifan was not always its name either… it was once known as Arthur’s Quoit, Coetan Arthur, like the first site we had visited. But Arthur, as a legend, is a mere babe compared to the age of these stones, and I wonder why the warrior-king who sought the Grail was so often associated with them. Perhaps folk memory remembered something we have now lost and saw in these stones a portal to a different mode of being.
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Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 