Honey Hill in February
The newly turned wind was in the west and brisk. During my pause in woodland near Welford, two calls predominated. First, the call of the trees, a frenzied call of rattling dead leaves still clinging to the bough, of others racing along the path like rats behind the piper, or twisting up like animated ghosts, only to fall again and dissipate, of dead boughs grinding and creaking, of supple young growth lashing, of finer twigs soughing, of leaf and branch and trunk booming in one symphonic crescendo; and through this cacophony, the ever-present chaos of the Robin’s call.
I cycled from the River Welland at 423 feet to Honey Hill near Cold Ashby, on a level with the Trig Point at 689. A bridleway off the lane was too inviting to turn down, and so turn down it I did. A named right-of-way, this the Jurassic Way was gravelled at the outset, keeping me above the mud and pools resulting from months of interminable winter rain. I knew that this luxury would only likely last as far as the house I could see across the field, but that would be enough to allow me to cycle to a point where I could view the wide open valley promised by the OS Map.
Sun and wind danced together in the clouds, but for once without rain. Larks sang over the dark heavy waterlogged earth. The dead drab grasses waved at the feet of the hedgerows. Little pools at the track-side brought the sky down to the dark earth. Shapeless rags of snow-grey clouds wandered up from the west and for a short while obscured the white mountains of cloud, the blue sky, the hazy sun.
Shortly after the house, the view opened up before me. Looking down from the Jurassic height of Honey Hill I saw the wide vale of the Avon and its tributaries, this being the westward side of the Avon-Welland watershed. To the south west I saw the Jurassic heights, sliced in twain by the Watford Gap, with Barby Hill beyond. To the north west, the high land of Dunsmoor lay prostrate and violet through fifteen miles of witching air.
© John Dunn.
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From the archive:
Gnomic wanting
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Just a thought:
Usury through the central banking system is a far more efficient way of appropriating the labour of others than money-lending at interest by individuals. The multiplier effect of central banking meant that Usura, the new empire of money, could sweep aside all those who stood in its way and destroy all those who challenged it. John Dunn (Renaissance: Counter-Renaissance)
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