If You Feel A Little Glum

[haptalaon]

Brain's too fuzzy for actual work, so I will continue to talk about my holiday.

After Pinvin, the next stop on the route home was Hergest Ridge. This is Hergest Ridge:

I think it's one of the most beautiful place names there is, and that's a lot coming from a man who lives a short drive from 'Lord Hereford's Knob'. Hergest. Looking it up, it appears to be landweird:

from Hergest (Herefs) a Welsh place-name of uncertain etymology locally pronounced /hargist/ perhaps from hir 'long' + cest 'belly

but what it means is a flute passage followed by horns that sound like foggy mornings, and the slow grand sweep of the hills, part of my own mythic map, somewhat in search of my father. I have never thought to look up a picture of Hergest Ridge, because it has a look in how it sounds.

I daydreamed about going there throughout the pandemic, less because of this album, but because of the final track on Ommadawn

I like beer, and I like cheese
I like the smell of a westerly breeze
But what I like more than all of these
Is to be on horseback.

I like thunder, and I like rain
And open fires, and roaring flames.
But if the thunder's in my brain,
I'd like to be on horseback.

So if you you feel a little glum,
To Hergest Ridge you should come.
In summer, winter, rain or sun,
It's good to be on horseback.

Hey and away we go! - and I did feel a little glum, so I daydreamed about the Ridge, and Caerleon, as places I would go to as soon as I could. I can't wait to use 'On Horseback' on Radio Astercote, I'm waiting for the perfect moment.

I spend a lot of my time evoking little England as the memorypalace of my magical life, but the drive was an incredible detour of astercotish timber-framed farmhouses and trees overhanging the road and stone horse troughs and in particular, the incredibly oldstrange Pembridge - the impossibility that places like this actually exist, and a struggle to get to the Ridge in any kind of time due to wanting to stop at every little church and coach inn. In particular, I wanted to stop and photograph all the odd English signs - like a poster for a pub that was closed, and anything with a warning or marked danger, or anything cosily patrician; road-signs, pub sighs, welcome to our villages.

I timed the album more or less exactly to the drive, rolling into Kington in the late gold of the afternoon. Kington feels expensive, and I felt scruffy. I cannot explain the simple delights of walking into the Visitor Information Center. Again, it's that particular fascination with The Little English Village as an image. Many Pagans daydream about what it would be if only they had their own Land, but I think it's only me who sees myself on the Land as running the post office/sweet shop.

At long last, I got to photograph some signs:

(I think that Beware of Walkers sign is my favourite thing I have ever seen)

I bought a ten pence pamphlet about myths and legends of the area, and gained some crucial advice from the volunteers. Mike Oldfield had a house on Bradnor Hill, overlooking Hergest Ridge - the album wasn't about running away up the hills, like Stephen at the climax of Penda's Fen or Gwyn in the Owl Service, to get some space to think. It was about the view of the ridge glimpsed from your garden window as you have breakfast as a 9x Platinum artist at the age of 19 and wonder what the fuck to do now. I imagine him pottering barefoot across the empty grass with a mug of tea, watching the mist rise.

Additionally, the volunteers informed me, Bradnor Hill has a golf course on top so you can drive msot of the way. I had been driving six hours had had spend the previous two weeks on a wool mat in a forest thick with sound. I was in no mood for a hike. I was delighted.

And there it was, like an immense purple wave devouring the land.

I staggered about forgetting what to pack and leaving things on the car roof and wishing dearly I knew the layout better, so I could kip in a gorse bush - but too tired to pack up or carry my camp gear to attempt it. Travelling as a disabled driver makes you as deeply aware as deeply resentful of the surviellance and control of public space; simple amenieties like the desire to drink, sleep, or wee when the body is telling you to do so become impossible. What a world it could be for the wanderer were we not confined. I'd been zig-zagging all day, avoiding pay-to-park and seeking out pissable glades and anywhere to nap. I got three meters onto the golf course, then retreated to the club house for a much-needed coffee. A black cat hopped across my path on the way down the hill. From there it was another hour's drive to my secret sleeping spot, close to home.

The weather said it would be fine overnight, but it felt like rain - so I moved upwards from my spot to an area which had a sheltered edge where I could rig a tarp to keep my kit dry. I have a hooped bivi & I wouldn't recommend it. I think any time you're private enough to get away with wild camping, you can get away with the extra 10 grams and two feet to have a place to stash your gear. I lugged my cook set to the spot but with the additional time spent building a rain shelter, and darkness coming, and being very tired, I was in no mood for extra work.

I watched the stars peep in and out. There are the most incredible sounds out there, and it is not at all clear what those huge low thumps and distant bellows are. The wind is distinctively thin, like you can visualise these long narrow streaks moving about, like giant grey cloud snakes whirling above you. I was overdue the Rites of Funeral by several days; I was soaked; and yet I felt competent too, like I was better at packing up and navigating the weather than someone caught up there at random. For one thing, I had known the rain would come. And then it was time to get home.

Comments

[annofowlshire]

This is beautiful.