Mistical Berrow

There was mist in Bristol first thing this morning, but the sun soon burnt it off and it promised to be hot hot hot. After a weekend spent stewing over an arts funding census return - well, at least the Northerner did, I just lay about watching old episodes of Game of Thrones - we decided to have a looooong lunch break and head for Berrow beach.

When we got there, I thought at first that someone had set fire to the golf course and smoke was drifting across the sand, but it was residual mist. 

The tide was very low so we made our way towards the wreck of the Nornen, which was its usual atmospheric self. 

All the while, it was getting mistier, which was strange as the sun was blisteringly hot (well, 31◦C, which is warm for this miserable little rock in the sea). 

There was a definite demarcation along the tideline, with the mist clinging to the damp sand and mud. Liminal, we thought, poetically. 

A beach patrol van drove over to us to see if we were OK and safely above the mudline. We were, but as the tide was due to start racing back in and it was getting quite difficult to tell which way was upside down, left to right or back to front, we decided it was probably best to head home, stopping on the way to give a hot and bothered Ted a drink from the tap in the churchyard. 

Sometimes four hours away from the screen can feel like a whole holiday. 

Brown Dwarf Star

The Northerner calls me into the back garden, where he's playing ball with our collie, Ted. 'I heard a thud and there was this baby starling on the ground,' he says. 'I think it must have flown into the window.'

I lure a barking Ted indoors and upstairs with a Bonio and shut him in his crate. As I make a makeshift hospital box from a mixed case of Somerset's Finest Thatchers Ciders lined with my newest, softest scarf, I wonder what the diminutive of starling is.  A starlingculus, perhaps, or starlingette. Or maybe a Brown Dwarf Star.

Back on the patio, the bird has its eyes shut and seems stunned. It's far from being part of that raucous band of juveniles that have just discovered their wings and come storming into our garden to squabble over the bird feeders before vanishing with a bang and a flap. 

I stroke its back with the back of my finger. After a while it opens its eyes and turns it head a little.  

The Northerner tries to get it to shift from one hand to the other, then gently raises and lowers his arms to let the bird feel the air beneath its wings, like you're supposed to do if you come across a grounded swift, but it just sits.

It has the tiniest bead of blood on one wing, and I fret that the other might be damaged as the way the bird's holding it isn't entirely symmetrical with the other. And is its foot broken? - No, it's OK, it's gripping a finger.

Then, just as we are debating in hushed tones whether we should ease it into its hospital box, it stretches its wings and is gone, sweeping down into the conifers at the end of the garden. One little star gone to shine in the evening trees.

Lucinda Williams, Bristol, 15th July 2016

A few photos from the Lucinda Williams gig in Bristol last night, which was part of the Americana Festival. 

The opening act were the Pierce Brothers, twins from Melbourne who were like the Proclaimers' souped-up and slightly scuzzy Aussie nephews, only better.  

I loved the way drummer brother - Jack - played drums on guitarist brother - Pat's - guitar ... 

... not least because it reminds me of my nephew, Dave, of Blackbeard's Tea Party, drumming on his wife, Laura's, fiddle.

Not to mention their all-round multi-tasking capabilities. I also love the notion of identical twins singing a song which goes something like 'Have you seen my brother?/Can you tell me what he looks like?' 



In between acts, the bloke sitting next to us initiated a (rather one-sided) discussion about how the altering of the voice as one ages benefits some singers more than others.  He agreed with me that Leonard Cohen sounds like God these days, but asserted that time had not served Lucinda well.  

Well, what a load of bollocks that was.  She started well, dedicating 'World Without Tears' to those caught up in the attack on Nice the night before,  and got better and better as the gig wore on.   

I was particularly pleased to hear 'Lake Charles',  'Ghosts of Highway 20', 'Something Wicked', 'Joy', and 'Dust' which is one of her late father, Miller Williams', poems set to music. 

Another poetry connection was the song 'Pineola', a eulogy for the poet Frank Stanford, who was a family friend and who killed himself in 1978, aged 29. (I have some googling and reading to do.)

Fossicking at Kilve

So, the parents wanted to go out for the day because my niece was down from Aberdeen a-visiting and where should we go? 

'You choose, Deb.' 

Hmmm. Somewhere requiring minimal walking, plus eating/toilet opportunities, BUT with at least a modicum of interest for the attendants. I know ... Kilve on the Somerset coast, an old favourite of mine.  Perfect.

And it was perfect. Beautiful weather, an easy run down the M5 to Bridgwater and then up the A39 through sunlit pastures to the coast, diverting on the way to drive past Coleridge's Cottage in Nether Stowey, before swinging neatly across the road in Kilve and onto the forecourt of the Hood Inn with plenty of time to avoid the tractor bowling down the hill. 

Only to look up and see it all boarded up. 

I'd been looking forward to making the most of a precious half pint of Rich's Cider, even though, as I'd muttered to my niece, my mother would be sure to say 'you can't have any more, you're driving'. But clearly it wasn't to be. Disconsolately - and without phone signal to inform our journey - we meandered west until we reached West Quantoxhead, where there was a purpose-built inn on the side of the road with a bouncy castle and play area, and the dreaded word (for a vegetarian), Carvery. 

'Perfect!' said my mother. 

Well, if not perfect exactly, it turned out to be better than OK. Plus, they sold farmhouse cider. I took a sip. If, by any chance, it wasn't Rich's, it was pretty close.  

'You can't have any more, you're driving,' said my mother. 

Then back to Kilve and down the lane to the sea. On the way we stopped at the little white Church of St Mary the Virgin.  

The oldest thing in the church - predating it by a couple of hundred years - is the 12th century font, which is still beautiful despite someone's attempt to turn it into a punch bowl. 

There's one surviving arch of the ancient rood screen propped up in the vestry ...

... while the carved back of this pew in the choir dates from the 17th century. 

And the mediaeval glass, I like that too. 

Plus, the door has a sanctuary ring - always useful to know in these dark days. 

On then to the end of the car park by the oil retort, which was built in the 1920s when it was discovered that there was oil-bearing shale in them there cliffs. If I ever get there and there's no plume of ivy smoking from the chimney, I'll be distraught.

Jane and I settled the (grand)parents on the bench and went for a fossick, to see if we could find some fossils to bring back to show my father. 

Most of the more noticeable ones were too big to heft. 

Nope, going to need a small crane to shift this one.

We found a few smaller fossils to take back to my father but by the time we got back, he'd disappeared, the warm, south-westerly breeze having proved too much for the combined efforts of his vest, shirt, jumper and zipped up anorak to keep him from feeling cold.  

Rather concerned - since I had the car keys - we made our way back to the car park to find him ensconced on a seat in the neighbouring cricket field, looking victorious. 

Between the church and the sea, there's a chantry, which was founded in 1329 and which, it is believed, fell into ruin long before the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

These days, you can get cream teas and ice cream in the adjoining farmhouse ... 

... commune with sparrows ... 

... and watch the doves in the old dovecotes round the back ... 

... but in the old days, as well as being used as a barn, it was associated with smugglers, who would bring their contraband up Kilve Pill from the coast and hide it there.  This continued until 1848 when barrels of brandy were allegedly set alight, in order to destroy evidence when the revenue men appeared. 

The chantry is now a Grade II listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument, and deemed to be at the highest risk of collapse.