Walks in landscape contrasted with stepping into the garden

Dear Monty,



A long-winded title on a very windy day.

I had an elemental walk above Talybont on Tuesday with my good friend, photographer and garden maker Charles Hawes, I have no photographs to show as I have blown up my laptop by plugging in a faulty usb cable! I do share the above sketch made from memory of the startling birches at Blaen y Glyn.
I share the account of the walk as written in my journal - along with a walk done at the beginning of the month on the route of the old railway from Swansea to Brecon. I also try to describe the comfort of coming from wilderness into the garden.


10/11/15

Mist
Tapestry of yellows, golds, browns and dark greens fading into light.
Orange grasses
Coal black tip
Mist and engines
Rivers burns streams
Muddy cattle
Welsh longhouse
Three oaks
Stalks of rosebay willowherb

Houses and chapel of Caerbont fade into the curtain
Abercraf
Caehopkin

Blond grasses mix with copper
No more scent of sulphur in the air
The bright air

Neil walks with his dog into oblivion
Forgotten
Embraced by God.




24/11/15

Deep clouds - mist - rain - sleet
Rainbow and shafts of light
Roads lit up like silver streams

The remains of snow streak the ridges.
No sheep to be seen on the high slopes
Water falls over a pavement of ripples fossilised from an ancient sea or lake
In reds and pinks

Cairns mark tragedy and achievement
Blasted off our feet
Inland away from the sharp escarpment edge

We then fall down the slope vulnerable as any boned creature
Shuffling down
Sliding down the glacier carved curve of the valley

Returning to the waterfall a tapestry of Rothko reds and
White trunked birch lit from below by orange bracken
Halt us.



Stepping through the gate into this small ordered space after walking in the landscape strangely brings an overwhelming sense of comfort and calm.

It is as if I need boundaries and order and a space that is within a human scale.
Perhaps I am a sheep brought into the sheepfold.


Paul.

















Comments

  1. Sorry about your laptop!!!

    Like image of sheep brought into the fold. Comforting. Xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. safe and protected.

    Your laptop is the first I've seen at the wrong end of the USB cable warning.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I stupidly plugged in a usb cable that I knew was faulty - result was a fried motherboard and a dead (but new) laptop !

    ReplyDelete
  4. Replies
    1. Thank you Amit for your encouragement .

      Delete
    2. Thank you Amit for your encouragement .

      Delete

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