It's just the way it changes ...

Springtime trips to Teignmouth and Shaldon in South Devon to mark the birthdays of one son or both have become almost an annual event (pandemic notwithstanding). Yesterday our party comprised just me and Son the Elder, Son the Younger currently working and residing up north in Coventry.

It was also the first time we'd been down to our hallowed ancestral grounds since the death of both of my parents, with whom we'd spent so many holidays there. We discussed how this felt on the way down in the car, and decided the main emotion was one of gratitude for the happier times of our childhoods, many of which happened there. 

The darkness of summer was already evident in Smuggler's Lane in Holcombe, with the first Hemlock Water Dropwort beginning to flower on the edge of the stream running down to the sea ... 

... and, judging by the noise from the trees overhead, a rook, dead and tyre-flattened, poor thing.

We pressed on, past incipient clumps of thrift and sea campion ... 

... and up around the steps beyond the railway bridge ... 

... to the sea wall. I never tire of this approach, or the view to Shaldon and beyond, even though some of the South West coast path books advise cutting this section of the walk out altogether because it's so urbanised and spoilt. (This is a fair point when you compare it with the wilder, wildly beautiful sections of the path, but Son the Elder was carrying 31 years' worth of memories with him, and me 60, and this makes all the difference.) 

Yesterday even the ordinary was beautiful to our eyes. 

Chips on Teignmouth front for dinner

Teignmouth dock was devoid of ships, something I hadn't seen since before the miners' strike, when Polish coal was imported through smaller, non-unionised ports and changed their fortunes, in stark contrast to the mining communities, though I might be reading too much - Brexit, war in Ukraine, etc - into this. 

We had to wait a turn for the ferry to Shaldon, which was loading passengers hard by the jetty rather than in its customary spot at the end of the slipway. A holiday maker ankle-deep in water some feet out from the steeply sloping beach suggested that the tide had done something interesting to the contours of the beach that were still underwater. 

Once we were out in the estuary it became apparent, if only for a moment, that we were actually in Turkey or on the Adriatic ...

... at least as long as you kept looking in the right direction. 

Once in Shaldon we decided to walk around the Ness the back way, which turns the long steep drag up from the Ness Hotel into a descent, and is thus more comfortable for me these days.

Even so, we sat on a bench around the back of the cliff-top zoo for a breather, where we were joined by robins and blackbirds that are clearly very used to humans and have little fear of them.

The trees on top of the Ness have only been there since the late 19th century, but some of them are looking pretty venerable these days.

I don't think I'll ever quite get used to the absence of the red-painted mine that used to stand at the Ness Viewpoint, and which we always put a few pennies in for charity - I think it was the RNLI. Though it's there in my head, of course.

Back in the village we had a drink at the Clipper, and then Son the Elder walked back to Teignmouth across the bridge, while I took a return trip on the ferry, passing a few favourite crannies on my way, remembered from earliest childhood, when we used to stay locally in various B&Bs and chalets.

Over on Teignmouth back beach the earlier issue with the beach and the ferry had been revealed by the falling tide. 

It was a bit like being in the sort of dream where a place is really familiar but the lie of the land is wrong. 

My meeting point with Son the Elder was the bench in Northumberland Place, where we hoped to get an ice cream from Amanda's, and this allowed me to wander through my favourite part of Teignmouth, with its narrow side streets and glimpses of the estuary. 

A shaft of sun was shining directly on Keats' House (which might or might not be some days but definitely was yesterday).

Amanda's isn't called Amanda's anymore, but you can still get ice cream with a dollop of clotted cream on the side so that's OK.

We made friends with a pied wagtail while in post-ice cream recovery.

Poor foxes

I see sea slater on the sea wall

Back at the Holcombe end of the sea wall, we sat for a time while I investigated my pockets for treasure. Clearly my eye was in for sea glass yesterday, rather than stony representations of the cosmos. 

Then back down the steps, up the hill to the car and home. A gift of a day.

It's beginning to look a lot like Brexit ...

I nearly missed the junction for Brighton today, and the reason I did was because I thought I hadn't been on the M25 for anywhere near long enough. In fact, I even wondered if I'd entered a dissociative state or magically fallen asleep for a time without crashing the car, because one moment we were fresh off the M3 and the next the sat nav was urging me to get into the second lane from the left and keep right at the fork. Then I realised I'd actually been driving at 60 and 70mph, that I'd hardly noticed those horrible rumble strips, and in fact there weren't that many cars on the route that's normally akin to the eighth circle of hell. A bright side to the it's-not-a-petrol-shortage shortage, after all ... as long as you have some. 

We were off to the south coast to celebrate my daughter's birthday - a meal and a fossick on the beach for interesting pebbles and sea glass. Except that almost as soon as we were on the M23, it began to tip with rain. 'Never mind,' I announced to my sons, 'we'll still go to the beach, if only for five minutes. Can't drive all this way and not see the sea.' 

We had a cup of tea at my daughter's partner's flat and drove to the Marina. It was still raining. In fact, it was bucketing. We chose our preferred eaterie out of the 2o-odd lining the quay and skittered towards it through the wet, only to be greeted by the news that there was a shortage of food. 

Bypassing Wetherspoons - obviously - we tried another restaurant. And another. And another. By now we were drenched and very hungry. Somebody mentioned Bethlehem and no room at the inn. At the fifth attempt we struck lucky and munched our way through pizza and olives, but we were damp and cold and the shine had been taken off the occasion a little. 

Returning to the car park we saw wind-whipped waves breaking over the Marina wall, and decided against a walk on the beach after all. 

Back at the ranch, I dropped the offspring off at the entrance to the flats, went to find somewhere to park, and squelched my way back, dreaming of a nice cup of tea, only to find them huddled in the entrance. Turned out my daughter's key was with her partner who'd headed to the station to pick up her friend (also Jenny) who was coming down to celebrate the aforementioned birthday. 

Eventually there was just time for tea before we had to head for home, a truly horrible journey characterised by continual rain of sufficient heaviness to require the fastest windscreen wiper setting all the way from the coast to Swindon. And whilst I know I can't blame that on Brexit, there's no chance of moving somewhere warmer and sunnier now our freedom of movement has been removed. 

On the plus side there was petrol at our local Sainsburys. It could always be worse. But not much. 

Bollocks to Brexit

I'm pleased and honoured to have two poems in this newly published anthology, 'Bollocks to Brexit', which features work from writers across the UK on what Brexit is and how it is affecting individuals, families and communities.  

We live in horrifying times and for a while now I've wanted to channel some of my outrage into my writing, but I've been hampered by the fact that I'm not really a declamatory poet and I don't write invective. With the two poems in Bollocks to Brexit, I found a way of making a political point by referring to earlier historical events in one, and a late mediaeval painting in the other, and this helped to underscore how progress isn’t linear. The Brexit Party MPs emulating the Nazis by turning their backs in the European Parliament the other day was further confirmation of how we are repeating the mistakes of the past.

For more thoughts on politics and poetry, you can read an interview with me by editor Ambrose Musiwiya here.  

  

Arnos Vale Cemetery and Paying Homage to Robin Tanner

It was off to Arnos Vale Cemetery on Saturday, with the friend formerly known as 'Er-Over-The-Road, for a talk by Jane Duffus on The Women who Built Bristol. 

This gave us the chance to walk around the cemetery a bit, which was looking particularly photogenic.

With so many of the graves seeming to founder and sink under the weight of vegetation, it could have provided a handy metaphor for the state of this nation ... 

... although we tried to focus on resurgent nature as an act of reclamation.










'Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove'

An old friend

The eyes have it

The modest, tucked-away grave of George Müller, founder of the Ashley Down orphanage

My first bluebell (and chiff-chaff) of the year

Laocoön and his sons (detail)

Before we returned to the far north of the city, we popped over to Ryde Road, round the side of the local shopping centre, to pay homage to my favourite Arts and Crafts etcher, Robin Tanner. Although he spent most of his life in North Wiltshire, Tanner was born in this house (no 5). 

This Quaker, pacifist, advocate for the education and creativity of children, supporter of refugees and supreme artist-craftsman died aged 84 in 1988, despairing over the policies of Margaret Thatcher. 

I could cry to think how he would feel now, as we reap her bitter harvest.