31/5/06

In DP's Bar, Dylan plays loud on the stereo - two local men in their 70s sit at the bar drinking bottled ale and making recommendations - on the wall photos of local celebrities (mostly from the old TV series Crossroads) and a huge pencil sketch of a semi-naked Marilyn Monroe; in the corner a pile of board games for drinkers to sit and play - the windows are full of maritime detritus: odd concoctions of nettings and dried fish, a stuffed crocodile, buoys etc - Tim is in the bar tonight, sculptor and boat maker, he has just finished building a 46 footer called Ganymede - he grew up in Hertfordshire, studied Building in St Albans then moved here to Aldeburgh by way of Barcelona - he tells us of the raves and outdoor parties that still go on out here, huge affairs still organized via phone and text messages etc. as they used to be way back when - he talks in detail of his dub reggae collection and in particular his love of a remixed 'Dark Side of the Moon' - the bar closes but nobody is asked to leave, indeed a few young locals turn up and tap on the locked front door and get let in with familiar 'hellos' - Dave, the barman, comes over and sits with us - bespectacled and bearded, maybe in his late 20's - Tim asks him to play his Hoover at which we are momentarily baffled until he brings over the metal length of suction tubing from a vacuum cleaner, with the cleaning head still on, and starts to blow into it - it makes the sound of a didgeridoo, and he blows with the same circular breathing technique - we laugh in amazement, he continues, changing the tonality and playing on - who would have thought something like this existed in quaint old Aldeburgh?

25/5/06

A SNAPE 'MYTH'

Solid line of reed beds broken below by verdant river bank - stray scent of evergreens - an old couple move serenely through this toward the wooden sluice posts; the pair appear isolated in the vast landscape - whitening, bleached - behind me a Marsh Warbler calls - and the mysterious 'boof' boom of a Bittern is a mellow, subliminal horn seemingly emanating from the earth itself - a cornflower spider on my thigh - I sit where one stone meets another; gentle blue mouths and heliotropic distensions - the native merchant recovers his boat and winnows the hemp ropes - 25 people move in a landscape toward him and his controlled crossing point; when tomorrow comes the banks will once again be receiving the rains and no passage could be made so it is today they must move or not at all - the temperature brings solace, no action diluted - the heat plays at last on skin, the awesome eye of bronze is with us and the far rhythm of muddy poets and singers can be heard playing a work song - thoughts come fast, some grim, some happy, molten, bright - patches of daisies criss-cross the meadow grasses, smattered like pockets of light - then some shadow, some impish turn through the reed screen, as if seeing into another world - the breeze parts this, turns and burrs the flight path of Swifts and melancholy Shelduck - the merchant moves across the water and the passage begins -

23/5/06

Huge degraded curtain, over twenty foot high. Once a luscious, velveteen red now blackened with age and the gilt edging corrupted, unraveling. Beneath the curtain, which still hangs a good eight feet from the ground, is a screen with the Japanese style silhouettes of young men and women in an 18th century bawdy house. The characters flap wads of money and raise cut-glass decanters.

A rake's progress has begun. He enjoys and fears it.

Aldeburgh -
May 2006

22/5/06

In the cathedral space of the Maltings - torrents of rain sound on the high roof; a constant, lullaby hush, an aural backdrop and compliment to the music here within -
now it floods the marshes, the reed beds and river stretch become spectres in the downfall; reach out and they'll be gone -
the chorus move across the stage as one, 28 people singing together in this cavernous place, warm red brick, ochre beams - the scars of it's past reflected in paler marks or odd lineaments of filled space where the bricks change pattern and position -
echoes of laughter, the steps of pilgrims; the dry smell of malt still in the being of place, in the wooden slats, the proofing, the vents -

21/5/06

No wonder Crabbe and Britten wrote of the citizens of Aldeburgh shunning Peter Grimes and turning him into an outcast; they are a sour people. Cold, snooty folk who evidently feel they are something special or select. Rude too. Even the alcoholic newsagent whom I buy my newspaper from this morning can't bring himself to smile or say 'thanks.' Say anything at all - he gruffly takes my money and his lips do not move from their sour line. Then there's the seventeen/eighteen year old waitress in the Cabin café who shows me utter disdain when I ask for a cup of coffee - 'is that all?' comes the shrinking reply in the plumy accent and she thrusts the tea down on the table and gives me a look, supposedly withering. Like I care what she thinks of me. You would think that living in such a beautiful part of the world such as this might bring joy into their souls; seemingly not. What is odd for me is that both Keswick and Aldeburgh are almost exact copies of each other (they are both of similar size, they both possess an old Moot Hall, a similar variety of shops, are located in differing but equally stunning landscapes) and yet they are mirrored in such a different vein. I want to call them Cane and Abel. Heaven and hell. Keswick's people are warm and welcoming; Aldeburgh's are stultifying and suspicious and so very English. Pity them; they have after all had to run away to a corner of the land and there they will remain. Prisoners in their own mirror.

20/5/06 - Aldeburgh, Suffolk

Confronting silence and solitude - the evening here is without dreams; how can there be dreams in the shadow of a reactor?

Instead there are rocks beneath my feet and the hollow ringing of the wind in the chimney - restless because of this, I go searching for mysteries where the village ends and the coast takes over, where the last vestiges of people are felt in the tapping ropes and masts of moored boats and a vacant, shadowy Martello Tower - after this there is nothing: Oystercatchers call lonely in the reeds and at the mudflat edge; the silver inland tributary holds only silhouettes, memories and ghosts - it is a desolate, pining place; it aches for a different history - instead it has the mark of secret Cold War experiments, air that once invisibly exploded and that crackles still with residue and sonic artifacts; a place of no return - where the remains of bombers shot down in the war just tip the surface of the water at low tide - out at sea the forlorn lights of merchants in the shipping lanes and a pale, red beacon - all else is close to emptiness - is that the mystery I find? An odd nirvana; a living sea worn void?

In the upper reaches of the beach, close to the high tide wall, I find a message still in its bottle; it says:

'We were clever lighthouse keepers; we watched over words before the war began. Sour in the rain we still upheld the traditions of discovery out here alone; protecting grace from what is rotten within. May you do the same.'

There was no signature.

17/5/06

South bound journey - ten hours by bus - these things:

- the gossip magazines with 'shocking' headlines of naughty affairs behind lace curtains between policemen and middle-aged housewives, faces 'blurred' out to save identities - they could be anyone really, and in all likelihood are just models posing; still, the grannies find it shocking as they flick from page to page;
- a young man boards the bus at Preston, gnarled face and lank hair, he takes a seat across the aisle from me, his leg shakes constantly for the entire journey, his knee bouncing up and down - only briefly relieved when he gets the opportunity to smoke a quick fag during the occasional stops en route;
- after a few hours I am missing the hills around Derwentwater, they had begun to feel like friends already, each ridge becoming familiar and with its own defined identity - the landscape a deep reflection of self, elements of a psyche;
- 'Sunset Walk' is the name of the card I bought yesterday to say 'goodbye' to Pol, it has a lush image of a duck in silhouette walking an orange beach, glistening in a low tide - because our sunset walks had become such special events in recent days, moments of shared space and silence, intimacy and enjoyment usually ending with us at the river's edge where the Sand Martins have begun to nest, waiting in the lee of overhanging trees on the opposite side of the river, hunkered down there on our haunches waiting, watching, gazing skyward when the birds gathered overhead; then playing on the rope swing, pushing each other and laughing;
- lone faces gazing from windows in Walsall flats surrounded by the many England For The World Cup flags and the satellite dishes - these men are perpetually waiting in there, counting the days to summer - and after its gone, what then?;
- 'Hell Fire' logo T-shirted fat boys gang on the retail park road in the middle of the afternoon, on the outskirts of town, chins covered with post-pubescent bum-fluff, chomping on chips and signaling at cars;
- bricked up lower lever windows on three tower blocks - and each balcony has been smashed off and bricked up with breeze-blocks and bone-like filler to deter squatters - odd, surreal;
- in Digbeth I realize how much of the country I know and have connections to as we pass little Allison Street - cobbled, Victorian, tumbledown - where myself and Pol shared a breakfast exactly a year ago - I have traveled so much in a year - what nomad is this?
- tall 'rasta' climbs aboard bringing with him the sweet smell of skunk weed in the aisle -
In London I notice on the tube that everyone is reading 'religious' matter - is this a snapshot of London's recent preoccupations? Books on monasticism, Ayn Rand, photocopies of the gospels - is this in some response to 7/7? Portable faith on the underground, a collective defence against the inevitable? By the doors a young Muslim watches a trailer for a Quentin Tarantino movie on a portable digital viewing device in his hands, no bigger than a paperback book - there is some blood and guts there on the tiny vid-screen - I wonder if he is aware of the irony - then he scrolls through other images and playbacks of an award ceremony in Hollywood fascinated -

11/5/06 - 14/5/06 - Cumbria

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEYS?

Running a bar in a 1920's cinema - The Alhambra - one of the main venues for the Keswick Jazz Festival - all that's Trad (in this venue at least) -

It starts slowly, the audience gathering dust as they queue at the doorway, entering with meager smiles and a sense of broody suffering - none are younger than 50 (with the rare exception) - a large American woman in an XXL T-shirt with sweat stains and a white-river logo across it extolling American pioneers complains about certain doors not being open exactly as they were last year; she huffs and puffs through each word carrying too much weight, then moans about 'the Brits' loving a queue -

Grouchy male pensioners - Scousers, Yorkers and Geordies mostly - with bleak faces now sun burnt red and flat mouthed, grunt in single syllables as they file up to the bar looking vaguely embarrassed and wondering why they are here at all; asking for an orange juice for the wife, no ice - if any decision has to be made otherwise they wander off to check that they are doing the right thing before they return; its kind of endearing in some, cute and respectful of their 'other halves', but in others it's like a total loss of self-will, an inner deflation through time and marriage - the happiest, chattier folk are the Scots who've traveled over the border for their short break here; they crack jokes and actually get round to saying 'thank you' to me when I've served them -

All enter the auditorium, this collective of age (what is the collective noun for OAPs on a day out - a 'complaint' of OAPs?). For the next few hours they sit and clap their way through a number of 'All Star' or 'Hot Five' bands playing identical Dixieland and Ragtime - the clarinets shuffle and the banjoes smart - it all blends into one happy-go-lucky rhythm, nothing to separate band from band - The band-leaders talk in the same hushed, self-important tone; crack sly jokes at the same moment in each set, dishing out little anecdotes and winks - it is like a form of aural sedative, a familiar place where the audience can go to relive memories, conjure up the past, if only even the same moment with the same band doing the same number at last year's festival (and the year before that, and the year before. . . . etc etc).

The pianist of the next band, due to play out the late afternoon session arrives in his tux. His wife, an attractive middle-aged woman with long dark hair, wearing fashionable 'combat' trousers and a low-cut top, waits outside as he discusses the get-in with the venue manager and sound engineer. She wants to get away, to travel. She looks bored, tired of the endless circuit of small-time gigs and treks across country to play in backwaters. She is no longer sure if she wants to be with this man, with the predictability of this routine. She loves him certainly, but what more can he offer than this? She craves a freedom that this life will not allow for, to be able to set out on her own; if not for ever at least for the next four days, for god's sake. Escape. Novelty. Experience. After all, one backwater is pretty much like the next, no matter how beautiful they may be - There's a tame kiss goodbye delivered with averted lips and she leaves to wander round yet more shops, and simply to wonder. It's all there in her eyes. He wants to say something. Do something about it - but he can't. What alternative does he have? This is his life. This circuit, this sub-culture, these people, these bands - everyone knows everyone; everyone loves the music. And the musicians love each other most of all - a wee band of Trad brothers - though not without their own competition - some have played with names such as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, others are shadows who have only recently touched the jazz circuit and yet maintain a serious, moody musician's air where its not necessary - yet more are just ageing men with hair dye coloured a kind of pale ginger, slick full of Brylcream and the smell of the cigarettes from a list of pubs and Labour Clubs -

And the audience: the numb, quiet eccentricity, the straw boaters beneath which rest bottle thick glasses and huge beards; ruddy faces and vacant, sleepy eyes. Portly rustics and downsmen who cannot deal with screwtop bottles but love their warm sandwiches. All here. The Brits in full summer eclecticism. An elite of the moss and the vale and the dry-stone. They mock each other and love each other too. It's an orgy for the Middle English behemoth and his wives. This hybrid mass of liberals and old fashioned pseudo-fascists all basking in this brief resurrected glory of a past long gone. Beneath which the tattered, stained remnants remain - the Masonic badges and crosses of St. George worn on greasy lapels, the RAF tie and blazer. This could be a front for a huge right-wing rally rolled out to the sound of Trad Jazz - the descendents of Oswald Moseley sat on the back row in tweed suits and Lord Haw Haw as your MC.

One pissed 'blazer Johnny' staggers in, handle-bar moustache and eyes rolling, a Cheshire grin and money still to burn. He orders two bottles of Cumberland then starts to chat up one of the stewards, a thin old bird who says she's 'up for anything but not for that' - no. She dreams of the Chippendales as usherettes, waltzing through the Alhambra bare-arsed serving ice-cream from trays; and dishy bus drivers in short sleeved shirts winking at her and 'gorgeous'. 'Blazer Johnny' keeps trying, elbowing her gently and bragging in over-loud tones about how much he can drink yet still 'keep a good woman, know what I mean?' Nudge nudge, wink wink. His athlete's foot is burning him slightly, and his dinner will repeat on him soon; the game old steward turns her back on him and winks at me as she wanders off, sort of flattered but not taken enough. Johnny gives up with a bomber's shrug and stumbles into a wall, laughs, straightens his tie and enters the gloom of the auditorium where the swing is swung.

The following evening and an Anglo-Italian trumpeter with some reputation and one of the headliners, is swaggering at the bar, red wine and sidelong glances at his fingers which now appear double - he's already pissed before the set begins, a jam session afternoon has led him here to perform a try-out set with a new singer who stands next to him in her low cut dress and crushed voice and distracted mind - they talk about Benny Carter for solace, between nervousness and the DTs - the set isn't going down well - her voice isn't up to it (she blames it on the piano but I reckon it's the fact she just can't cut it), but then neither are the audience, the swing, be-bop and late night tunes played here are not to the taste of these grey spectres watching, it shakes them from their slumbers after all and they start to leave in droves - the rows are virtually empty, whistle down the wind between aisles and you have to feel sorry for them up there trying their hardest to entertain the remaining dead - the musicians drink more, drowning the embarrassment of a bad move, the trumpeter shaking his head and brushing the woman's arm, half concerned caress, half come on -

"What's in a Flake 99?" I am asked by a young Scot pointing at the ice-cream board, picture and all (which kind of answers his question)

Those blighted bodies (and minds) -

Speaking of which, in walks a strange figure - a Swedish musician, his hands bound in white felt gloves, slightly loose fitting; he carries a white cane and wears thick glasses, presumably he is partially blind. He has no hair, the skin of his face is red and flaky, burnt in the same accident that scarred his hands I suspect. He wears a peaked cap and his eyes look sideways even when he is walking forwards, another product of his injuries. He orders two beers and drinks them both quickly then heads into the auditorium to perform; he repeats this on each break between sessions and does not seem to be any more inebriate than before - he is huge despite being physically crooked, his voice and presence reflect the hills here and the temper of his Nordic homeland - The Saga Man I want to call him - something tremendously bleak and everlasting -

On the final day the cinema's projectionist returns - a more sour-faced human being you would not wish to meet - ex-army, maybe TA, served in Oman or NI and never wholly returned, left something behind - everything about him nowadays is dragged down by gravity: the bags beneath his eyes sag, the grey moustache and hair, the dour mouth and his tight limbs all have the inevitability of the downward - He looks at me as if I am a suspect in some eternal plan to make his life more difficult and asks me looking down his nose:

"Where's my round table?"

"I have no idea."

"Well they don't walk by themselves, do they?"

He turns away and mounts the steps up to the projection room. His retreat beneath the Art-Deco skylights and the old gas pipes; where the noises of war inside him can be baffled by the music of escapism and the faces of idols (the same ones he has cut out of magazines and stuck to the sloping ceiling in there: Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Janet Leigh and more now become flaking paper and collaged together into other film stars - the eyes of one and the hairline of another, the Greta Marx Temple Cruise line) - he nervously picks at the foam in the seat by the projector, exposing it beneath the upholstered material like a wound, pale and flaking - and that huge projection machine is his weapon of defence, his cannon of light - up there nightly, the hot sweaty room whirring, spliced together in the dark and for a few hours (like the rest of us) he forgets - I guess that's why he's been so arsy, after all the festival has ousted him from his sanctuary for the past few days - tomorrow he can return, safe, warm - the congealed memory of service turned fluid and loose once more -

The final night is cold and wet - the bottles are thinning out on the shelf and the town is emptying - the last phrases of music can be heard rising in the small hours, a clarinet of course - As I'm clearing up a woman in her early 60s comes to the bar, browses a moment or two at what's on offer and says to me "I'm looking for something to suck."

Interesting to note that my watch stopped at 1.44pm on Thursday afternoon and then started up again of its own accord this evening - I suspect some Trad Jazz influenced 'Bermuda' Triangle had descended on the town and removed us from the rest of the world for four days -

Honest -

10/5/06 - Cumbria

The tracks and pathways and back-roads I've traveled and explored so far and then marked on my map in a fluorescent orange pen have taken the form there of a spread-eagled man - Mostly at the northern end of the lake, the head encircling Applethwaite and How, the stubby arms out round Portinscale and Swinside on the left and up toward the stone circle at Castlerigg; then two distinct journey lines south either side of the lake giving shape to the body or torso - a gingerbread man?(see entry 4/5/06)

May 2006

6/5/06 - Cumbria

Frizington, Egremont - villages and towns forgotten - on the road toward Sellafield and the coast - the desolate petrol station long abandoned, like some version of the wild west, a pioneer/frontier town long turned ghost town - red and black signs of destruction, Council aware - the gandering push-chair lumped in the rubbish skip - forlorn steps - uniform pebble-dash and concrete housing built 1962 - a shop on the corner with grilles over the windows, another further up with an open door and half empty shelves - these places exist in a time-trap - if Sellafield ever goes meltdown these places will bear the brunt, becoming even more of a wasteland than they already are - yet people live here still - what goes on here - Saturday afternoon and there is no-one about, the odd pram being pushed slowly up the street by an old man - countless flags of St George flutter - I am fascinated by these places; they are darkly historic, floundering in reality, unwilling to partake of the modern world, they have grown inward -

4/5/06 - London

A consecutive date - 4/5/06 (numerologists would have a field day) - I'm sitting in a quiet café in Greenwich by the main bus stop on the high street - it's close on 10pm and the Korean lady who served me coffee is reading her paper at the counter and waiting for customers, waiting for the pubs to exude them, waiting for the human spill - it is the first truly hot evening of the year, the temperature has soared and London feels different for it, more exotic, a pretender for a day - football fans are chanting: 'going down, going down' or some such - women are dressed in next-to-nothing; the street breathes in the mixed perfumes then lets them out with a polluted, ageing splutter -

Tomorrow I'm moving on, I don't know when I'll see London again; I'm not too bothered, but I am aware that it is a moment to recognize: one's passing into a time of change, another relocation -

A young couple enters from the street. They ask for 2 gingerbread men, pointing to the piles of sticky cakes and pastries in the window - when they've been served they leave giggling - she is evidently more in love with him than he is with her - maybe she's hoping the gingerbread men will have some kind of voodoo quality, edible fetishes that she can place together in a mock biscuit-style kiss and that this will be mirrored between her and him - maybe -

The Korean woman is joined by her sister and they sit and eat supper from plastic cartons at a table at the rear of the café, vegetables in a rich gravy - the front door stays open - they talk fast and loud, furiously debating something important - the sister keeps gesturing at the wall and ceiling with her fork - The walls are painted pale yellow with pink on the skirting boards and beams like being inside a giant candy house; and there are chocolate-box repro paintings hanging here and there in heavy gilded frames: cottages beside streams, Swiss chalets in make-believe mountain pastures with dreamy wisps of smoke blossoming from chimneys, all painted in a heightened palette as if someone has turned the colour contrast up on a giant reality TV - Maybe the women are arguing over the décor? Maybe one wants to redecorate, bring in the chrome and glass Mediterranean look?

Someone shouts the word 'interactive' from the street and a car passes playing music through huge bass bins, drowning out everything else for a snippet of time and a beat -

The two women start to count coins on the table top, still chattering - three Korean teenagers, all girls, walk in and say hello - they are dressed in short dresses and carry identical shoulder bags, bright plastic, red - they talk for a while with the two older women each looking a little nervous - one, the daughter of the woman serving, is given a light-hearted telling off for being late and the three of them run up the stairs in the corner - a man's voice is heard barking out something above, it must be Dad, and then more laughter and the two women down here also laugh whilst sliding coins across the table top into open palms -

I contemplate my journey tomorrow; one of the longest. Travelling pretty much the whole length of the country. Out beyond the suburbs; out beyond the Grips; out beyond Sparkside where once upon a time the planes came in. It's going to take most of the day but I'm looking forward to it. To the sunshine; to the long drive alone; to the alleys and roads and cheap seats and advert hoardings breaking to spaces no longer measurable by simple, linear timetables and finite mileage and the gamut of routine. Something extraordinary.

The two Korean women are looking at me. The one who served me coffee starts to talk very fast and I can't make out if she is talking English or Korean. She is pointing. I look at the table and realize I've spilt my coffee and it has run onto the floor and formed a fair sized puddle in which I can see my vague reflection and the bloom of a wall light behind my head. I look at the two women a little helpless. I feel baffled as I don't recall doing this and I wonder if someone has played a joke on me as I was wandering my thoughts. I guess I must have twitched involuntarily or else fallen asleep and then knocked the mug off. Feeling stupid I open my arms in a gesture of limp admittance and ask for a cloth to clean it up. The sister gets up and fetches one whilst the woman who served me calls upstairs. Two things happen at once: first the cloth, grey and damp, is handed to me and secondly the man whose voice I heard earlier comes downstairs and bends over the banisters to watch me, along with the women, clear up the mess I've made, a concerned look on his face.

When I'm done I look up and they all smile at once, nod, take away the cloth and depart. The sister retreats upstairs whispering to the man whilst the first woman goes back to her newspaper at the counter. She seems to whisper something, talking to herself.

I clear up my belongings, packing them into my rucksack, the one that will come with me tomorrow, and as I'm doing so I spot a marble on the floor resting up against the pink skirting board. I pick it up. It is made of dark green glass with a sliver of yellow deep inside shaped like a shallow wave. It seems to wink at me like a cat's eye or something; maybe a snakes' is closer to the truth. The marble is warm. I roll it in my palm closing my fingers round it and shuffling it a little in there. It feels good. I decide to take it unsure if I'm stealing something or just removing litter.

As I'm leaving I turn to say goodbye to the woman at the counter and to apologise for the spillage. She smiles and nods. Then I notice a little face peeking out from the side of the counter, a little boy of about eight with very black hair and a grin wider than his cheeks. He must have been there all the time. In his hand he is holding an odd object, a bit like a stump of wood but forked at one end, between the tips of which a piece of elastic has been tied. It is an old-fashioned catapult; the elastic is well worn and dirty and the kid swings it gently so the material moves back and forth hypnotically - to me, away, to me, away, to me . . . .

I nod and smile. He looks up and smiles and I hunker down on my haunches and roll the marble across the floor to him - as I turn the woman puts something into a paper bag and hands it to me. I thank her and look inside - a gingerbread man is splayed out in there -

"For your trouble," she says; but her accent makes the final word sound like 'travel'.

I prefer it that way.

ECHO - London

Back in London and nothing that I write seems important. In the evening it feels swallowed and purposeless. I have to push to believe. I am aware that the half-life I have in the city may be the culprit. I find myself venturing into the heart of the corporate zone, Canary Wharf, at the end of the day say around 7pm and surprisingly there I find solace and purpose in all the subterranean glass and steel and polished floor tiles; early evening shoppers browsing Jubilee Place, the coffee shops still full and the bars heaving.

There is always the possibility of Cybele who I believe is currently looking out over the spit of land at Orford Ness. She waits with her entourage - The Radio Gods - picking up the old transmissions, smiling; accompanied by the curlews call. In a few weeks I'll be listening too. Maybe, just maybe, she will take my hand and lead me into the sea with them.

2/5/06 - Keswick

Our kitchen window is a portal onto the changes of weather over Falcon Crag and Walla Crag - I pad in there bleary-eyed, befuddled - the first thing I see are the low clouds over each, the highest cap and crest obscured - strange contortions of white and grey against the chocolate earth - some goliath - that great architecture of granite, mosses, heather - whilst below the great invasion continues; the silver car hordes, the 4x4 barbarians, and the coach-loaded troops all cruising for their packaged wilderness, lining the avenues and open spaces with their vehicles and sleeping expressions; beauty and the beasts - there is no liberty in this wilderness come Bank Holiday - here they disturb the Treecreepers with their dogs and stick-wielding children playing Lord of the Flies for a minute or two, dropping sweet wrappers whilst their parents smile and chatter in their newly acquired country-wear, designer labeled for the weekend squire - the brief flash of sunlight drawing them out like gnats -

- - - - - -

Robins displaying in the dense, all-pervasive rain. It glitters. It spits. Clouds shifting steadily eastward. And this bird throwing his head back and puffing out his breast toward a smaller female who appears only vaguely interested. The male repeats his action adding a thrust of his tail upwards for good measure - another male joins in the dance and these two enter a flurry of spinning combat low to the bushes whilst the female shoves off -

- - - - - -

Up to an outcrop of rock high above Derwentwater in the shadow of Walla Crag. Over to our right Bassenthwaite is bright in the descending sun. Deep within the mixed woodland behind us a woodpecker taps. A female mallard appears at the north end of the rocks, gingerly waddling her way toward us. It is difficult to work out why she is up here. There is no nest, little food, and it is a fair distance from the lake. She is not afraid of us and checks us out close up, presumably for scraps of food - only occasionally does she dabble where the rocks thin exposing mud and some tufts of grass. Then she walks round the little concrete information post marked with the heights and locations of the various surrounding hills and pikes and close to the edge, just above the tops of the trees, she waits quacking quietly. A few minutes later the male appears, flying fast up from the direction of the crag itself; he arcs across moving left to right, calls once and she flies after him. They fly together then in a huge circle around the outcrop once, twice, then they veer away and descend toward the lake where they fly alongside each other before coming back over our heads and landing together at the tip of the outcrop. The male watches us, upright and proud, displaying his verdant head and stout umber breast. Neither of them seems particularly disturbed by our presence and they continue their foraging. Far below a group of Greylag geese land announcing their arrival loudly. The sun appears from behind low cloud over Barf, the edges of Bassenthwaite and Derwentwater beneath Swinside turn gold for the shortest moment. Within seconds the dusk-calls start - a song thrush, blackbirds and chaffinch in the roadside gorse -

Beasts -
Keswick, April 06

ORNITHOLOGICAL CHECKLIST - Keswick, Cumbria

Siskin - 6 Chaffinch - 20+
Osprey - 3 Buzzard - 1
Treecreeper - 1 Swallow - 6
Coal Tit - 2 Lapwing - 1
Robin - 3 Kestrel - 1

ECHO 1/5/06 – Keswick

Watching Ospreys again at Bassenthwaite Lake – this time there is huge excitement. Not only does the nesting male leave his nest to set off across the lake, but he is apparently joined by another ‘rogue’ male. Potentially this means a second breeding pair could join the first and nest elsewhwere on the lake. Bearing in mind that ospreys have been extinct in the lakes for over 150 years, this would mark a serious achievement for the Lakes Osprey Project team who encouraged the initial pair to nest only a couple of years ago.
The two male birds sound each other out in flight over the lake; circling, then parting, coming together again. It is an awesome sight. These wondrous, elegant birds of prey engaged in mild aerial combat. Turning and turning; a flash of their white wing-bars and under parts. A lone buzzard then decides to mob the two smaller birds and the three switch back over each other, dropping rapidly, feinting left, right then parting dramatically in separate directions. All the time the nesting female remains across the lake with her 2-3 eggs.
Confirmation that there definitely is a second male on the lake sends ripples of activity and excitement through the birders watching and the project volunteers who call up the observation site at Whinlater and relay the information.
The moment is a shared one – 15-20 birders all watching through their binoculars and telescopes and rattling off a running commentary of what is occurring to those who cannot yet track the birds against the mottled landscape beyond; or even just for the simple fact that we want to communicate the beauty and excitement of this moment to each other; seeking out the flashes of white when the birds turn, the hovering, the dips, the path south towards the usual hunting ground.
I am overcome by the majesty of the moment and my view is obscured by joyful tears.

Later, early evening, on the western side of the lake, beneath the nesting place, we spot one of the pair again. This time we suspect it is the female given a break from her vigil on the nest. She sets to roost on a solitary wooden pole breaking the waters’ surface at the south end of the lake, where she waits before taking a loose flight to the shallows nearby. Here she bathes for about ten minutes, dipping her head into the water, splashing about with her wings then remaining motionless for a minute or two before repeating it all again. It is a most delicate, playful activity and surprises me in a bird of prey – but then why not? She returns to her roost and preens; she shakes and flourishes her wings, pulls at her feathers, cleaning and drying in the fading sun. After about twenty minutes and done, she flies out across the lake, heading slowly north in a low trajectory, wheels briefly with a mobbing crow, circles higher, hovers, descends about six feet above the surface, hover once more, then suddenly crashes the surface in a spray of whitewater and is away with a fish back to the post where, with a great display of wings and an arching of her neck, she begins to eat, pulling quickly at the warm, wet flesh.