I’ve felt much better today; my blankets remain dry and I'm not subject to the overbearing fatigue of the last few days. Mum's much better too; she felt fit enough to come with us.
We left for Foss Clough at about nine, parked the cars, and set out in sun and an already uncomfortable heat up towards Ansett. It was slow progress. We saw a pool filled to overflowing with toad tadpoles. Robert, who is like me, complained frequently about the heat, and after much suffering and sweating we reached Sedcott Falls, ate, and I bathed my feet in the cold brown waters of the Calver.
The next part of the hike was hellish; there wasn’t the slightest hint of breeze and the sun was merciless. As I stumbled up through the bracken on the slopes of Sedcott Hill, dogged by my usual cloud of flies, I complained constantly about the heat; it was so unbearable.
We finally staggered into Thornscar which was full of old ladies on coach outings who dominated the centre of the village, walking slowly from their coaches to either the gift shop or the tea place, talking in loud voices, all dressed identically. I can’t imagine myself old, but then everyone supposedly believes themselves immortal. I huddled in the shade of a building.
We walked back along the river to Foss Clough. It was still very hot, so we stayed awhile beside Foss Clough Beck and had our photo taken as a family. “One for the album” said Mum, fondly, and no doubt I looked my usual raggy self. We had a look around the church before coming back. The cemetery is full of Angrams and Arngills and Honeycotts, the names stretching back into the eighteenth century, beneath our feet the bodies of breathing, smiling, imaginative people who once looked out on these same horizons, entire family histories engraved in rock and remembered there alone.
It's a humbling thought.
The people in this area still cling to a kind of rugged practicality tinged with a kind of isolated oddness. We’ve had encounters with a few locals and they’ve all struck me the same way. On Sunday night as Andrew and I sheltered from the storm beneath a tree we were joined by an old wizened woman and her two sheep dogs. She oozed an old-fashioned eccentricity and spoke to us in such a low mumble we couldn’t hear a thing she said. She looked everywhere but at us as she spoke.
Our host at the caravan site is Mrs. Honeycott, and she seems the least like this of anyone I’ve encountered, and no doubt most people around here are thoroughly approachable. Robert remarked that the majority of people regard their urban lifestyles as the norm and all this rural slowness the exception, but really, the opposite is true, or certainly was so for many centuries. It’s as if we in the cities have forsaken so much that's worthy and of value, so much that gave us peace and helped us come to terms ‘with ourselves’ (for want of a better expression).
I’m not sure what it is I’m trying to say here, but in cities we're ruled by clocks and fret over things which are so unimportant and so inconsequential. Countless lives are expended in groping despair, in a misery of trying to find a lasting happiness that, I’m coming to think, just isn't there.
I think of Mum as I write this and I could cry as I remember her the other day sitting in the caravan. She's never at peace and the happiness she wants for us all so rarely seems to light up her own life.
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