Madeleines on the way to York, a noble truth written upon a blackboard ...

We drove from Low Wray to South Ferriby via York, spending the afternoon there - when we passed Gargrave, I remembered how I'd visited Malham Cove with Richard - 

Somehow, in a pub, or at a party, we'd met a girl from Tallahassee - she called me pilgrim - her mother was renting, or owned, a small dwelling not far from the Cove - the girl from Tallahassee's name was Mary - we did our best to charm her - she invited us to spend some time with her at the Cove -

A gang of us went up, including Geoff - Geoff wore a flying jacket and sported a spooky Fu Manchu moustache - I drove Richard's new yellow Datsun up the M1 - 

One evening there was a party in a nearby farmhouse - for some reason I didn't go - Richard told me what happened - some dark woman offered to read everyone's fortune - Geoff passionately refused - a fracas ensued - there was a stuffed owl, under a glass dome, placed upon a bookcase - 

I can remember the icy stream, flowing past the corrugated iron shieling - there were tall thistles in the fields - Mary's mother smoked very long thin cigarettes - we all thought we were poets, vagabonds, seers, singer song writers -

Road signs were my Madeleines, I thought - memory was like an Instagram, enriching the present - 

I then recalled the words I'd seen, written upon a blackboard, in Wray Castle - even at 88 you can see new things - 

 

Losing shame and cleverness at Hill Top ...

Oh happy living things! No tongue
Their beauty might declare: 
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unware.

The selfsame moment I could pray:
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

From Part the Fourth, Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Coleridge


I never made a point of reading Beatrix Potter when I was a skinny boy - I can remember being unsettled by Mr McGregor - I had a horror of being baked into a pie and eaten -

Bizarrely, I then preferred my hoarded war comics - I sated myself with drawings of square jawed Tommies, biffing krauts, or swinging from parachutes - the comics had titles like Bulldog Breed - I then moved on to horror - the first Arrow horror paperback I bought was The Lair of the White Worm - its cover depicted a well head, blue vapour issuing from its depths - I was transfixed by this lurid tale -

Since then, I have read crazily, like a  library cormorant - but I can still remember, when I stare into the darkness, my night time terrors - there, surely, is Arabella March, lissome and cruel -

When we visited Hill Top, I recalled the terror of Peter Rabbit, hiding in the watering can - I imagined myself, scurrying madly through the dangerous garden -

We'd driven there from Bowness on Windermere - the long farm house was hard to find - the low ceilinged rooms were crammed full of dark furniture, photographs and sad oil paintings - oldsters with shining eyes waited for their turn to enter the house - squads of elfin Japanese girls aimed their I Phones - an American woman praised Renee Zellweger's portrayal of Beatrix Potter in the film -

I walked around the garden, alert for the invisible menace of Mr McGregor - I then saw a tiny mouse, frozen with dread - it crouched upon the path, with its neat tail and exquisite paws -

I felt full of pity and love for this helpless creature - all of the cleverness and shame left my heart -

The insouciance of ducks ...

I have never had much fondness for ducks - whenever I loiter upon Wareham Quay, scowling over an article about Iain Duncan Smith, insolent ducks assail me - they demand choice portions of pastries, or crumbs of artisan bread -

I know that Sophie and Paul are duck friendly - when they lived on the houseboat at Nine Elms Pier, they had dreams, I think, of bringing up a hatchling - when they went to Detroit, to explore the urban prairies, they stayed at first in an urban duck farm -

But as for me - I regarded ducks with suspicion - there was something about their insistence upon largesse which troubled me -

All that changed, early one morning, outside the Duomo - I was on a mission to fill our plastic jerry can with water - I stepped out, into the calm glade - a bold duck was waiting for me -

He nimbly sidestepped me, peered into the Duomo, looked up at me - he had such an insouciant air, such chutzpah - that I was overcome with admiration -

I imagined such a duck, swaggering into a salon, if ducks had salons - perhaps they did - perhaps there was an anatine Madame de Stael nearby - this duck would command respect with his courtly presence -

I put my jerry can down, and offered my doceur - perhaps a triangle of toast would suffice -

Losing my way on Loughrigg, or finding it ...

Over breakfast, the huge metal kettle spouting steam, we decided to climb Loughrigg - Wainwright praised the fell unreservedly - I gazed with shining eyes at his beautiful line drawings and delicate maps - I relished his quirky apercus - 

We bought some Snickers bars in the camp site reception - it was always warm and cheery there - smiling brawny girls greeted new arrivals, directing them to their pitches - gnarled walkers stocked up on Kendal Mint Cake - I resisted the temptation to ask for Kendal Old Drop -

We parked just before the bridge at Clappersgate - an icy river swept over stones, flowing into a deep  gleaming pool - a wooded islet was full of shadows -

We crossed the bridge, and dodged sleek Qashqais on the A593 heading for Ambleside - I could see expressionless faces behind windscreens -

We climbed up a steep path, between two high drystone walls - tree roots writhed beneath our boots, forming irregular steps - I thought of the short story by H G Wells - perhaps we would find a green door, set in the mossy wall - there might be panthers, with warm silky flesh, waiting to nuzzle us -

We went up, higher and higher, under tall, dripping, trees, then through waist high bracken - we could see the lake, nearby fells - a small plane flew low in the moist air -

Once upon the approaches to the summit, we were soon lost - we looked in vain for Lily Tarn - I remembered, too late, what Wainwright had said of the final phase of ascent - the maze of paths needs careful unravelling -

Climbing Loughrigg was a metaphor for living your life, I thought - all those paths, all those promises of beautiful vistas -

But if you disregarded the need to reach the summit, what joy you felt, in just being above the world, reading secrets in the clouds -

Thinking about Coleridge and poetry, whilst climbing Loughrigg ...

Reading Richard Holmes' wonderful biography of Coleridge, I often imagined the poet - I saw him, striding across the wild fells, scrawling powerful words into his notebooks, his mind a flaming meteor - high above the narrow world, he could seek out noble truths - 

I am still reading the biography - I am half way through the second volume - I don't want the book to end - when I turn round in my chair, I half expect to see, say, Charles Lamb, astounded by my I Phone - he's holding a bumper of brandy - 

What is this he's saying? - he's describing Coleridge, reciting his poetry - his face when he repeats his verse hath its ancient glory, an Archangel a little damaged - 

While we were climbing Loughrigg, we stood by a dry stone wall, and looked down at Lake Windermere - I thought of my own poems, and of those written by friends - 

I stared at the worn, mossy, stones - a sudden hope stirred within me - perhaps I, too, could describe a truth, or even a small part of a truth - 

Early mornings at Low Wray, glimpsing a shining world ...

I would wake up, in the Duomo, very early - opening my eyes, I would see the interior of our geodesic pavilion - there was the table, there was the now dormant stove - there were our boots, our cagoules - I would wallow, for a few moments, in the heated images of my dreams -

Dressing took an instant - I would fling on my clothes, the padded trousers which were a second, blue, skin, the clever fleece - 

The walk to the shower block took me under noble trees, past the pea pod tents of weird survivalists, coughing like consumptives, the sagging encampment of a young couple with a gleaming pit bull - 

If we went there during the evening, we had to take a lantern - there were no lights - outside the Duomo, we entered a pitch black world, full of unsettling movement and sound - 

The water in the shower was scalding hot, wonderful, fit for a voluptuary - 

One morning, the sun cast slanting shadows of trees over the dew soaked grass - I could see, through the trees, the lake glinting like rippled glass - it looked like a magical window, an entrance to a shining world - 

Canada Geese on Lake Windermere, souls flying across the night ...

Walking back to Low Wray, late one afternoon, we became aware of dark shapes in the air - above us, low in the sky, were powerful, shapely, birds - they flew in purposeful gangs, wheeling, circling,  just above the slate blue lake - we heard their strange cries in the gathering twilight -

We were returning from Wray Castle, taking the path along the lake shore - the trunks of the oak trees were like knotted torsos - a faint wind barely stirred the lake - some fallen oak leaves floated upon the water -

There were sheep in the field behind us - I thought of the anguished temptress in Under the Skin - this was a place where she might ensnare a hapless vodsel - 

Suddenly, rays of sunlight emanated from a rift in the purplish black cloud - they were like search light beams, sweeping across the darkening fields - I looked up, hoping for a UFO - the sheep were quiet creatures in a dream -

Then we saw the birds - they were, we thought, Canada Geese - we wished that Penny was with us - her sure eye would identify these winged strangers instanter -

We stared at the geese, now resting upon the water - we spoke in wonder of the migration of birds - they were like our souls, I thought - I pictured the time to come, when our souls would fly through the night, singing their true song -