Friday started early; there is always that sense of excited, nervous anticipation as the day of a workshop dawns. While our companions for the weekend were making their way from distant corners of the country, two of us were driving through crepuscular suburbs toward the open moors for a final morning of reconnaissance. The lightening sky lit the pathway through the fading heather towards what would be our first destination, a little bridge across a stream. We had, on our initial visit, intended to climb the hill by the obvious route, only to find the ground to be a boggy and impenetrable morass. The stream had helped itself to an offering of chocolate from my companion’s pocket…which he had retrieved and unwrapped before giving it back to the water. Retreating, we had been directed to follow the path to another crossing point and we had both remarked that it looked like the troll bridge…

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‘To the Stone which is also a Crone’…

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‘Says the Old-Man-of-the-Fort’…

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‘As the Cries Flow’…

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‘So does Time go’…

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‘Round and Round’…

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‘Up and Down’…

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‘But Never Straight’…

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‘To the Map-Stone’…

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Part Six of The Unseen Sea

Grandad Lucca is walking on the shoreline with his grandaughter, Jessica. The beach is made up, mainly, of pebbles, twinkling black and white in the morning sun, but here and there are wide patches of sand. It is on one of these that Jessica pulls Grandad’s hand, urging him to stop.

“Grandad?” she says in that lovely, innocent voice. “Can we play the circle game?”

He looks at the shining face, set amidst locks of golden hair. It is far too early in her life to play the real circle game, and he doubts he will still be around when it is not.

“Yes, of course we can play the circle game!” he says, kindly. “Do you remember how far we got with it?”

Jessica runs to get a stick she has spotted. Using it, she begins to draw a remarkably good circle in…

POSTCARD #222: Bangkok/New Delhi flight: An awareness of things as they are. The main event was the injection in the head and the constant (PHN) headache gone instantly. Wake up next day and it was still gone, gone as I write this, and it remains gone. So reassuring to know the transformation to ordinary things is possible, the car is back from the garage and out on the road again.

The release from head pain is still held back due to the pain of broken rib but so much easier to cope with now the headache has gone. Walking the miles in airports was thought to be a problem though, so Jiab convinced me to request a wheelchair. Wheelchair from check-in to the lounge then wheelchair to the plane, straight in and the first seat in C class section of the plane. Stewardess puts my bag away in…

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‘Skirting Sentinel Stones’…

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‘ And Ravenous Trolls’…

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‘Where Erratics Squat’…

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‘And Shaped Stones Stand’…

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‘Into the Old-Man’s-Fort’…

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Hello, everyone! Hope you all had a nice weekend 🙂 I’ve been away since Friday with little to no wi-fi coverage, so I’m a bit behind on blog posts and comments – sorry! There have also been a few new visitors and followers here, so I just want to say welcome, and thanks for coming on the journey with me.

My weekend away was at a Silent Eye workshop – I have a great interest in the ancient history of Britain, and this was a chance to get up close and personal with some wonderful monuments left by our enigmatic ancestors. And it was… intense. A lot happened, and I will be writing about it here, but I just need a few days for it to all ripple and resonate until it settles. For now, I’ll leave you with the above photo, taken at sunrise yesterday morning, and a poem…

Part Five of The Unseen Sea

The square in the town is bathed in the kind of mellow light that you get only at the end of summer. Jessica is playing, walking toe to heel, following the lines on the old stone, flags, which were rescued and restored from an historic water mill by the local authority as part of its millennium celebrations.

Grandad Lucca sips his coffee; bought, by his daughter, Alexandra, from the Costa nearby after they elected to stay outdoors to take the last of the glowing gold in the rare pure-blue sky.

“She’s really enjoyed being here,” says Alex. “We should come up more often..”

“You know you should,” says Grandad Lucca, sipping his coffee, “and you know you’re more than welcome, anytime.”

Father and daughter say nothing, each enjoying their coffee as the sun overhead fills their exposed skin with warmth and life. Father closes…

It is early when I wander through to the kitchen… the world is silent except for the little grunting noises Ani makes as I cuddle her good morning. I don’t speak dog fluently, but I have a feeling these short, low grunts are an expression of affection; you only ever hear them during cuddles and that is how we start our day, the small dog and I.

As the kettle boils I think about the headline I’d glimpsed about a twenty second cuddle being good for your health. I hadn’t looked up the science behind it, prepared to agree unquestioningly that cuddles are good for you. Just having someone close enough to open their arms to you, someone you trust enough to be able to hug back… that shows you have affection in your life and that has to be a good thing. Even if the arms, in this case…