Cumbria - 2

Cumbria - 1

Last full day in Keswick – memories/nostalgias:
Sand martins nesting in Portinscale – whole family cycle: arrival, mating, hatching, growth and furious feeding, fledging, new flight, the air filled then with over twice the amount of birds that came, then their departure one day just gone, empty nest holes, the air calm and quiet –
Pol on stage in After Miss Julie, letting a different aspect shine through – the quiet, calm performance filled with far more mystery and tantalising charm than she is normally required to muster – her high point, bravura performances in Private Lives and Loot, shining, full of feverish comic energy, unstoppable –
Ospreys fishing and first seen among the onlookers at Dodd over Bassenthwaite Lake, the rapid commentary of shared sighting there and then, tears in my eyes at the beauty of the birds and the shared experience of strangers captivated by nature –
Sitting in the incessant heat this summer gone, under the dense maples at Green Gables, watching the Robins move for worms, listening to the tree-tops, aware of the chameleon face of Cat Bells across the lake altering moment to moment with the rush of light or moving clouds, my body and fingers aching from the shearing of a Yew Tree, paring it back to it’s cleared trunk and then up into the foliage, bringing it back to life –
Goosanders and a dipper so near at hand –
Being woken in the middle of the night by the flood warning and having to rise and move the car and discovering that half of Keswick was awake, battening up doorways, laying sandbags, saying hello to each other in the full knowledge of the potential shared difficulty ahead, and listening out for the tell tale rush of water, through the constant wind, expecting to wake up in a puddle –
Discovering Loweswater, walking it’s banks –
Red Squirrels at Whinfell in the cold, clear winter mornings –
Driving up over Uldale heading straight west into the brightest, descending winter sun, almost blind on a straight road through the wilderness, the entire sweep of the Solway Firth over to my right –
Workington – it’s glory almost anathema to itself –
The constant, beating sigh of rain on the roof –
The tree in Penrith, in the town centre, full of Pied Wagtails flitting here and there, chattering away, hundreds of them coming and going, congregating, like nothing I’ve ever seen them do before -

The desire to win – is it so bad? To have the thrill of potential there, the knowledge that you have achieved something great for a while. And why is it that some are dubious of that? Seem shocked if you profess to that desire?

The howling wind and the rain swirling in night-time vortices along the hard road home, beating wings, thrumming from the major key – all sent to test tired eyes and wary hearts. A more quintessential Cumbrian night you couldn’t have asked for. Leaving the warm hearth behind, well the last dying embers at least, a dark marble fire. Crashing through the aquaplanes, stumbling on headlong, the brief flash of a haunted owl above the road.

One flame. One question. The deliberations of a mind. Nothing resolved. But then perhaps that is how it should be?

- - - - - -

Another nightmare – horrific tale of paranoia and violence in similar circumstances to the one described earlier. Some post- or pre- apocalyptic world, peopled with a pseudo-police force/militia called Nex run by a man looking like Gene Hackman (!?). Nex is closer to the Flying Squad of the ‘70s, more gangster than legal charger and they deal in repression of ‘subversives, immigrants’ etc – the usual rote of motive. Nex are chasing me and two friends – a young tourettes inspired lad with bleached hair and a baseball cap (not Pete from Big Brother surely?) and a woman of similar age with a striking pale face and long, dark hair - through some factory/warehouse location. It is night. We have managed to find a refuge in a familiar part of the factory. The Nex henchmen are trying all the doors to get in but finding they are locked from the inside they rattle and beat them with sticks and boot kicks. A young Asian kid comes up to us, he knows the factory, maybe it was him who let us in, and offers to take the woman’s baby to safety – so she has a baby hidden under her clothes, a silent creature tied into a makeshift papoose, warm and safe. The woman agrees, knowing that it would be for the best if Nex actually find us. She hands her treasure over and the Asian kid – let’s call him Rav - promises to look after her. Nex boss (let’s call him Hackman for now) arrives on the scene, stands outside looking at the facia of the factory, sucking in the details, playing his eyes for clues until he spots movement: a tiny shaft of shadow moving over rhythmically, a hand or, even smaller, a finger playing nervously against a knee. It is Pete’s energy unable to halt, something has to move otherwise he’ll bark out a word. The stress, the agony.

Nex swing into action from a nod by Hackman, pincering the door off it’s hinges quietly – no smash and grab, no giveaway. Nex find Rav first, crawling silently over crates with the baby strapped to his back. Rav frozen in torchlight. Rav getting up to run but his legs taken out by a rugby tackle. Rav lifted up from the ground, legs flailing like a lost insect. He’s only a kid. Thrown outside with the garbage. Hackman stands him up then aims a swift flying kick and the baby crashes out of the papoose onto the cold, hard concrete. It doesn’t take much to know death is instant.

The Nex henchmen find the three of us cowering. We are lined up sobbing.

They have a go at Pete first.

Uldale - Cumbria, Jan 07

Pol in Uldale - Cumbria Jan 07

The sun is barely making it’s way over the fells, still dark below and hard to make out the details of the river curve, the marginal sand-bags left over from the flood warning, the hidden crown of Skiddaw – there are some folk about gently making their way into church, passing time on the wet pavement glistening in the streetlamps like the skin of a mollusc when the lonely figure shuffles across the road, clutching a copy of the Sunday Sport, some eggs and a pint of milk. His complete bald head so pale it shines in a similar manner to the wet ground upon which he walks, temper clean, some washed deity springing forth atop his shoulders. His oversized pyjama trousers flap studious in the wind, sticking to his shins, calcified there by age – armour, shell, you name it, they’re never known to come off; and above, his short sheepskin jacket bulbous from chubby waist up. As he walks he ferrets his eyes all over: the church front, me standing waiting for my early lift to work, the gathering congregation. When he spots them he stops, holds back from getting too close, mouthing and mothering under his breath but still audible, like the odd mewling of a young otter. When he knows he is alone again he moves, hugging the blue shadows, walking beneath trees like a latter day Quasimodo or Uncle Fester. Homeward, to close the door before the world has truly woken.

Eyes in Carlisle that may follow you; eyes of the lads keeping check on difference, sussing you out, sniffing your soul for what? Who knows?
Who is more paranoid – them or me?

The brightness of Caldbeck, sweet Caldbeck and Uldale - high up where the sunlight is raw and the entirety of Solway can be mapped out below; the straight road over, still Roman marked, blisters in its exposed seat here. The joke is with the Crows, high-butting the wind full on. No escape. Whistling.