Also, my neighbours have started parking their massive van between me and my view of three mountains, the light moving on the hillsides, the clouds coming together and dispersing and the birds wheeling, and I am ready to Go Out And Hurt Someone.
(My neighbours are currently expanding their patio so they've got a nicer sitting place with their view, so they can't park their van there any more. Can they park it in their alley? No. That's where their caravan is. Can they park it in front of their house on the side without a view? No. That's where they park their big moving van)
So instead, I'd like to share with you the soundtrack for
Worzel Gummidge by the Unthanks.

Worzel Gummidge is part of the
Haunted Generation trend of extremely unsettling 1970s British television for children - and it often has a pastoral/folk horror edge. It's about a scarecrow that comes to life. In 2019 it was remade at Christmas, and it's...unexpectedly wonderful. Just wonderful.
It's reassuring and beautiful; it's for children, but has got the political edge that is always essential when talking about the Land - in this case, talking about the climate emergency, and casting actors of colour as the protagonists, affirming that the mythology of the land is that of any who care for it, not a rural pastoral fetish for bigots. It's quite creepy. You can tell, I think, from the way the show is constructed, and some of the cast, and the very fact you'd remember Worzel with any fondness - it's made by haunted generation people, by people who believe a bit of horror is healthy for children or at least, an important part of a childhood.
Steve Pemberton is former cast of
League of Gentlemen, the show which in part spurred the folk horror revival; and Mackenzie Crook has since been interviewed by environmental charities about his passion for the natural world.
There's a sincerity to this - a deep sincerity. I watched a very good youtube video about how modern films are too quick to laugh at themselves - following the tradition of Joss Whedon and Tarantino, a post-modern self-referential wink at the audience that undermines their own weight and drama. The video compares
Dr Strange unfavourably to the films of the 80s, which wore their heart unashamedly on their sleeve:
Rocky is their example; my go-to is John Boorman's 1970s
Excalibur.
Excalibur does not have a sense of humour, but it is otherworldly and powerful for it: telling the story of Arthur, the once and future king, the boy who pulled the sword from the stone, who rode with the knights of the round table. No grit, no cleverness, no post-modernity - just pure myth and wonder.
Worzel Gummidge has dancing scarecrows at midnight doing magic in the corn. Flocks of crows clustering in the hedgerows. It has the Green Man, quite unexpected, but some of my favourite imagery of the man I've ever encountered - drawn straight into my personal mythology.
(Again, harking back to the 1970s tradition of
Robin of Sherwood, where the pagan implications of the greenwood company protecting the folk from the nobility was backed by the literal appearance of Herne, the god of the green. Here,
Gummidge goes all in with its pagan sensibilities, by depicting the Green Man of the ways as present and part of Worzel's otherworld)
Underpinning it all is this incredible folk soundtrack by the Unthanks (whose
Magpie you should also listen to, and learn). It's very soothing, I find. Just as the show is soothing. I cannot recommend either the mini-series or the soundtrack strongly enough.