So I leave after an interview that had me stressed for the morning wondering why I put myself through these things..as I enter I see there has been a ritual at the snake, a garland of ivy, seems to have been disturbed and an ivy bush torn from its trunk, I already know of P the Wall who clears and another walker with a hacksaw who disengages vines from trees but this one is a gratuitous attack and has another made the semi circle for a different purpose….
So I walk on westwards passing the trees where the vines rise to meet them where sinuous screens and little vegetative caverns are formed, I pass the tree still holding out a green bag with an offering of poo in it, and the alder in the stream, proceeding to the wall of the hand of God I see some more intriguing placements (this place is very much haunted in my imagination by the story of being lifted out of the water), some long branches stretched out and pointing to a little podium that I am immediately inspired to to try out, thinking again of M and her dancers, how sweet I imagine for a dance in a tutu, like one on a musical box
I pass a big rock recently cleared and standing out as an invitation to take a seat, I pass on past the line of dead elms. I go on towards ‘Scotland’ the bracken and the colours telling me I’m here, lots more alders in the water, I remember I had seen a track, newly beaten out, that leads down to the other side of the river and I follow it. I spend some time watching a blackbird bathing on the shore under the protective branches of an aspen, then move back along the path past the hatch with its cage and rushing water below, I see again the strange formation in the grass running all along the lower Noth face and creating miniature environments in its overhang. I go on up around the buddleias, still carrying their dead spear heads and I decide to take the middle road to the oak and look down on Ceder alley dumping ground, I enjoy the way the paths visually loop in and out of each other on their different levels. I pass the grove by the bridges and wonder what one of them mouthing to me, all eyes and orifices.
