In the footsteps of poets, the pawprints of dogs

It was a fine, sunny morning and a trip outside Bristol was well overdue, so we decided to try Poets Walk at Clevedon again, following our abortive visit there at New Year. After all, it wasn't a bank holiday, and it's still January, for heaven's sake, so there wouldn't be loads of people there. Except there were and once again Salthouse Fields Car Park was full, though this time we did find a parking space near the old Church of St Andrew's. 

As I mentioned before, I'm not convinced all these people meandering around Poets Walk can be actual poets. Maybe there should be a rule that when you phone to pay your car parking fee, you also have to upload your latest poem. It could then be subjected to Turnitin to make sure you haven't just submitted 'In Memoriam' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and if it then passes muster, you get to park there. Seems fair to me. 

That said, I think most of the visitors were up on the front rather than on the cliff walk as it wasn't too crowded at all. We walked up onto Church Hill and took in the views. The tide was a long way out and the offshore sand bar visible. 

Looking back to St Andrew's

Stinking iris in Salthouse Woods

We cut through the woods and up the coast path, past the Lookout. 

The celebrated views of the town were clearly visible through the bare branches of stunted cliff-top trees.

Cwtch had a run off the lead on Wain's Hill. She hadn't been there before and was really happy. It was harder for us because the last time we were there was just a week before our previous dog, Ted, died. He was so tough and resilient, we didn't even realise he was ill. I felt a real pang in my heart as we walked over the ancient hill fort. 

Back at the Church we paid our respects to the Sheela-na-gig (bottom right) and a very noisy crow on the tower (top left). I expressed dissatisfaction that cockcrow is a thing and crowcrow isn't, even though crowing is clearly associated with crows, what with them having secured the onomatopoeic name for themselves at least as long ago as the mid-13th century. The Northerner quite reasonably pointed out that cockcrow is primarily a time rather than a noise, and if our ancestors had ordered their day by crowcrow, they'd have got in a pickle. 

In the churchyard, Emma Amelia was quite clearly a beauty of Pre-Raphaelite distinction in her prime ... 

... and Hyacinth is in evidence too, despite it being on a windswept cliff. 

 

Looking back over the churchyard

 

A bit of out and aboutery

My dog, Ted, got me over my complete lack of confidence when it came to driving, by insisting in the early days that we went out at least once a week to visit new places, so I've decided to keep trying to get out as often as I can in his honour, even though it's hard right now, not just for reasons of grief but also Covid-19. 

Arnos Vale is somewhere I wanted to get to before it closes again. The IsamBards did a poetry walk there in early spring and we had another planned for Midsummer's Day but ... well, you know the rest. 

I missed wandering there through the summer, and now it's definitely autumn. 

It's also a bit more overgrown than usual. It took Will and I a while to find my grandparents' and infant great-uncles' grave, even though I'd committed its whereabouts to memory. More or less. 

Must get over there with some shears, we said, even though the grave is sinking between the roots of an ash tree. 

In some places the cemetery's like a painting by  Henri Rousseau.

Tyger! Tyger! 

I love this wild patch in the heart of Bristol. 

I also love Clevedon, so we popped down there too. First stop was Clevedon Craft Centre, which I last visited 12 years ago.

Then on to the beach, where we sat in the sand and scrabbled for sea glass, which was mostly too new and sharp-edged to be worth collecting. 

It was a lovely interlude, though ... 

... on a windless day. 

Out on the pier, I could see Church Hill, St Andrew's and Wain Hill, where we'd been on our last jaunt with Ted, when all had seemed well. Impossible to think that visit had been less than two weeks earlier.

There's somewhere else I've needed to go badly all year and that's Dartmoor. I didn't want to risk letting a whole year go by without setting foot on it. 

I didn't want to go without Ted either. 

In the end the Northerner and I decided to have a short walk and film my three Dartmoor-based poems from The Shadow Factory, as it doesn't look like we'll be having a proper, in-person launch any time soon. 

Except that when we arrived it was clear the conditions were against us.

And walking up steep Cox Tor in the teeth of the wind was attrition.

I staggered as far as the first outcrop of rock on its summit and howled and howled for my dog.

But I still had to get to the cairn with its trig point, a short distance that looked as wide as an ocean, rippled with waves from the Ice Age. 

It was so windy, even the landscape seemed to be coming unhinged. 

We made it as far as the big cairn to the north. 

There were amazing views in all directions, here over to Brent Tor, with West Devon beyond.

There were some very steep sections on our descent to the car.

Coming in the opposite direction was a man with two border collies. One had classic black and white markings, like Ted; the other as dark as a shadow. There's no way of knowing what went through their collie minds, but the dark one headed for Colin and the other for me, and they licked our hands, and swapped about, and they were just beautiful and so gentle. 

It was a slightly strange and special moment. If there's a message there, it's a loving one. It was always all about love. 

 

Poets Walking

The summer holidays are almost over, and apart from two road trips to Nottingham to see my mother (and nothing else) (though she is quite enough), I haven't been anywhere at all. This is partially down to coronavirus and partly because there's been a lot to do close to home. So as yesterday dawned fair, the Northerner and I set aside a few hours for a trip to Clevedon, and a wander along Poets Walk, the historical background to which is here.

When something is actually called 'Poets ... ', I'd like to think that's who it's intended for. Back when poetry groups happened in real life, not just via email, I'd always feel a bit aggrieved when I got home from our poetry groups suitably early on a Friday (Poets Day) to find the parking space outside my house had been taken by someone who'd also Pissed Off Early because Tomorrow's Saturday but who probably hadn't written so much as a verse since they were in primary school. 

Obviously I don't really think Poets Walk should be reserved for poets, but it was busier yesterday than I'd seen it before, with all those other stay at homers.

By no means crowded but cliff paths aren't great for social distancing. 

We found a little more space for ourselves and Ted by walking along the edge of the iron-age hill fort on Wain's Hill, with its wonderful views down to Sand Point, Brean Down, Steep Holm and Flat Holm ... 

... before dropping back down to the path above Clevedon Pill, where my great-uncle Joe used to keep his flotilla of boats for hiring out to tourists a century ago. 

Then a quick visit to the World War II pillbox pimpling the face of the far older fortification. 

It's a good place for a look-out, across the estuary to Cardiff ... 

... and back up it.

Poor female blackbird

We wandered around the edge of the Glebe to visit the churchyard.

St Andrew's Church was closed ... 

... but we paid our respects to its resident sheela-na-gig, green man and chough corbels.

... before repairing to a bench to watch a rabbit foraging among the graves ... 

... and a massive car transporter make its way up the channel to Avonmouth.

We rejoined Poets Walk for a short distance ...

... before deviating to skirt Church Hill.

A last view of St Andrew's nestled between the two hills ...

... and an olfactory interrogation on Ted's part of the last two remaining 'Tennyson posts' that constitute the 'Darkened Heart' sculpture erected in 1994 with lines from In Memoriam.  

Then down the hill through the woods to the car park ...

... and home in time for a socially distanced cream tea with the IsamBards, courtesy of David and Alex. 


When shall we three meet again ... ?