The railway station platform in the woods and the Weedking ..

After sighing over sad editorials in The Independent on Sunday, I turned to the travel section - I always found solace in the depictions of boutique hotels -  

That day, however, I read the article describing a walk around Powerstock, a village north east of Bridport, dreaming in a remote valley amongst chalk hills - 

My eyes were drawn by the magic phrase revelatory landscape -

So, a week later, Penny and I were crossing a silent meadow, climbing over ancient stiles, making for Eggarden Hill - 

We followed a path through a wood, full of dancing shadows, past coppiced hazel - we glimpsed a stream, flowing over bright stones - unseen birds sang nearby - 

We came across a stone house, festooned in creepers, by the side of the stream - 

It was a house, I thought, where you might sleep to waken in a different world - 

We found a railway station platform in clearing - it was like something lost in a dream - grass grew where there were once bright rails - old fallen leaves were deep underfoot, wrought iron railings were being swallowed by trees - 

I thought of the Weedking in Thacker and Earnshaw's Musrum - perhaps, any moment, I'd see him, or the wolves -

That wicked fable was hidden somewhere in The Old School House, perhaps in the whispering attic - 

13.00

31 October 2014

Powerstock

Note 

Musrum, by Rev'd Eric Thacker and Anthony Earnshaw, the Jonathon Cape 1968 First Printing Edition