SMALL FEE

i do the teaching for free...
it's the preparation i get paid for

THE GAP IN THE WALL (PART ONE)

It is a pilgrimage that has gradually coalesced in my mind since Whitsun, the time of a fortuitous encounter at an ancient hilltop fortress on the Welsh border. That May dawn, awoken by a painful crick in the neck but energized by a cafetière of dark earthy Aceh mountain coffee, I had left my family sweetly asleep under canvas to scale the high mound that looms dramatically above the Llangollen valley to wander among the atmospheric ruins of Castell Dinas Brân, which crowns the summit. I had bided my time over a steep but rewarding climb, only to find my pleasant solitude rudely interrupted by a fellow early morning visitor, an older gentleman who, like me, bore the stubble of a couple of days away from home comforts. Little did I know as we exchanged our first words that this fellow would inspire not only a mediaeval-tinged ditty about the site, but a journey forged northwards to an equally exciting frontier post – Hadrian’s Wall.



Laurence Shelley is, among his other talents, a self-published writer, the author of Off-the-wall Walking, a quirky, engaging and frequently hilarious account of his attempt to hike the Hadrian’s Wall path coast to coast from Newcastle to Bowness-on-Solway. That cloudy Whitsun morn, as we chatted like old friends, I quickly realized that I had found a kindred spirit – a fellow embracer of the chances, coincidences and serendipities that the tumbling dice of life throw up from the gaming table. Having dipped enjoyably into the copy of OTWW that Laurence had kindly sent me as a gift after our chance meeting, I knew that his book would accompany my pilgrimage to the Wall like a good wine accompanies a delicious feast.

Two months later, the family now safely ensconced in Korea for their summer holidays and my plans and preparations for the trip complete, I sally forth under a frowning August sky, excited to be on my way at last. As I cross the local park, a flock of Canada geese grazes beside the lake like great dinosaurs on a Silesian plain. A distant dog-walker reprimands her hound – or is it her young child? A little further on, a pernickety Jenny wren hops out onto the wooden bridge just in front of me in search of a tasty tidbit. To the left and to the right, regiments of Himalayan Balsam clog the brook waiting to be uprooted and left to rot on the banks – a wavy pink brushstroke across the morning’s green canvas. Down on the Bristol Road, I await the arrival of the Number 61, grazing on tart blackberries from the hedge, where cans of Red Bull and Strongbow gently rust.

Before long, my train is channeling unerringly north-eastwards between the towpath of the Worcester-Birmingham canal and a broad school playing field which hosts a multitude of bouncing crows. Quickly in and out of the dark unwashed armpit of New Street Station, we speed through Black Country dereliction and across the pock-marked Staffordshire plain. As the oddly-named Virgin Pendalino fills up, picturesque Cheshire canals gradually yield to the loneliness of the high Pennines, enveloped in a shroud of mist and fine drizzle. Meanwhile, the buffet service is suspended ‘for health and safety reasons’ as the carriage aisles become un-navigable due to excess passengers, their over-sized baggage, and their restless offspring. Typically, I hadn’t bargained for the beginning of the Edinburgh Festival and, without a reservation, I am more than a little fortunate to keep my seat all the way to Cumbria.

As we draw into Carlisle Station and I get up to leave my seat, I find my exit temporarily blocked by other passengers queuing to spill out onto the platform. As I wait for the human traffic to move, I happen to glance down at a book resting open upon the table of the gentleman in the seat in front, who has nodded off in the middle of reading it. I do a double take for what I see astonishes me! There in black and white is a line drawing of an attractive cottage in front of the backdrop of a ruined hilltop castle eyrie. The caption under the illustration reads: ‘The house of the ladies of Llangollen with Dinas Brân in the background, sketched by James Plumptre, 1792.’ Alighting giddily on the platform, something makes me turn and glance up at a plaque on the side of the railway carriage I have just left. The name of my train: ‘Virgin Warrior’.

TRAVEL

Travel through time and space
To a very different kind of place
A mountain Shangri-La
Haunt of puma and jaguar
Where no one knows your face

Travel by idiom
To an ancient civilization
Among the traders and the slaves
Where the deities hold sway
Set the course by the stars and the sun

Travel on a journey to places untold
A destination yet to unfold

Travel by avatar
Alter the essence of who you are
Cross the gender divide
A person no one will recognize
Travel wide and travel far

Travel on a journey to places untold
A destination set to unfold

Travel through history
Unearth your own archaeology
Reconstruct it piece by piece
Store it in microfiche
Preserve it in chloroform

Travel on a journey to places untold
A destination starts to unfold

CLAIRE'S BENCH

rest weary friend
and in peace
think of your loved ones

TERRA INCOGNITA

terra incognita
where the air tastes so much sweeter
in a land as old as time
where the tables flow with wine
where the warriors idly languish
and the women grant their every wish
in terra incognita

PUNCHLINE

i like self-depracating humour...
i'm just not very good at it

PILGRIMAGE

this morning i am northumbria bound
headed for the crags and peat bogs of border country
to an ancient roman fortification
which snakes across an undulating landscape
i will step back through the mists of time
climb the stone steps
worn smooth by the feet of legionnaires
and survey the lands where the baying barbarians were kept at bay

DISTURBANCE

i flash around the blind corner into eymore close
gathering speed as i ease into the morning commute
all ten minutes of it
just enough to get the heart pumping and the blood racing
as i execute the steep two-minute climb
from bournville police station
up to the brow of the hill into selly oak
but not normally quite enough to break into a sweat
and as i flash around the blind corner
in my peripheral vision
i spy a blurred bright green form
which takes startled wing from the grass verge to my left
it is a green woodpecker
fleeing this mad assailant
it takes off in my direction of travel
struggling to put distance
between me and its fluttering tail feathers
it rejects the branches of a hornbeam tree fifty yards on
swerving around it as it issues a loud warning cry
then up and over the houses it soars
and disappears into the wood which borders manor farm park