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Published: October 24th 2009
Ye Olde Parish
The Church stands as monolithic conveyer of importance over these lands. The Bible constitutes its meditative subsidiary, scattered across many a dusty bookshelf. Yet although the bell still tolls, the worshipping crowds no longer congregate.
Nor, England! did I know till then, what love I bore to thee..."
- William Wordsworth Shires of Lincoln: There is no place quite like home... I have spent most of my life in a land where any undulation over 100ft is considered mountainous and where the landscape is strewn with muddy fields and drainage streams. Sheep, cows, and corn barns, are liberally scattered across a fenland topography which is so flat, I once watched my wild Terrier dog run off for days before she tired and trundled home. Within a traditional hillside hamlet, a humble small-holding is where I claim cultural home, despite feeling neither embedded nor situated here.
Inside the quaint walls of these old farmhouses, isolated tribes of village elders dominate. With an average age over sixty years, these habitual creatures of advancing years orchestrate ritualistic jumble sales and plan sadistic coffee mornings, appearing only from hibernation in summer months to cut hedges and mow lawns. Whilst they sit in their houses watching Coronation Street and knitting cardigans I find myself drawn towards the local Blackhorse Pub, which offers a brief, albeit solitudinous escape. Here, this
Reminiscently Awaiting My Return
I will one-day walk back across that field, although perhaps a changed man... altered by the ravages of travel and experience. rustic wooden bar beholds Church pew seating and a roaring log fire. A slightly miserable barman invites you to eat, drink and be merry, provided that you consume local Bitter or moonshine Cider and carry the appropriate identification. However, showing a valid driving license will not suffice, for it is required that you must wear a farmer’s hat, possess a scraggly beard, and have sh*t under your fingernails to be served.
Certainly, progress of any kind is remarkably slow here on the crux of the Lincolnshire Wolds. The post man arrives no earlier than 2pm to deliver letters dispatched weeks ago and any road travel is hindered by a barrage of farmyard muck spreaders and tractor traffic. Despite this, there is a certain charm to this 'retiring' pace of life, and indeed, the times they are a-changin' with the internet beginning to break through from the fields.
Now, in the twenty-first century, communication between foreigners and the elders is becoming increasingly common. This new global communication age is causing great concern to the owner of the Village noticeboard, who proclaims it to be a thing of witchcraft and wizardry that will never catch on. Indeed, perhaps it won't
The Cow Rideen Backyard
Flat farmlands are definitive of the Lincolnshire landscape, with thick alluvial soils attracting many a farm worker to the village here. The beleaguering old man next door would agree as he feeds the flocks of blackbirds which come to pick over the bread that the rats didn't eat. He would rather spend his evenings searching for those elusive fairies by torchlight, than plug in and surf the internet superhighway. So maybe this place will always remain partially locked in the past, with its English eccentricities intact. I would certainly like to think so. I want to return one day and remember those childhood walks through the old orchard, tipping over bales of hay, feeding cows, and hopefully rekindling the fire of inquisition which my countryside life has so generously fostered.
Vagabond's Vestige: Attemping to tread a different path... Within this locality, I've found my life plans increasingly viewed as 'alternative'. Few people of these social circles consider long-term world travel as a viable option. This has perpetuated a mental distancing over the past few years, and within this solitude, a person tends to assume a meditative third person perspective of his fellow citizenry. Routinely clouded observations are broadened by a resonate psychological quieting that enables societal conduct and bodily comportment to be succinctly rationalised. Henceforth, people become objects of
Ploughed Fields and Religious Cultivation
As autuminal succession marches forward, the fields are harvested and ploughed before a wintery hiberation. The skies will grey, the clouds will blacken, and the days will grow colder and shorter as I head to hedonisticly hot Miami and sizzling Central America. a seemingly alienative milieu, distinctly categorised by a circuitry of common aspirations. Normality becomes the goal and the root value of a well trodden path from cradle to grave. A prescription given and consumed without questioning as it is common and therefore presumably acceptable and civilised. In other words, the individual does not exist outside of social architectures that prescribe learnt ‘habits’ upon which human conduct is formed and governed, with the aspirations of others commonly becoming those of our own.
As children our minds harvest the fruits of a limitless imagination. The World is perceived as vast and mysterious, with unimaginable treasures lying beyond every crumbling corner. In play, the paths we carve through forested meadow, past the ancient oaks and into the wild orchard lead to exciting discoveries of unbeknown creatures. However, adventure is never true unless sprinkled with danger, and the distant echoes of a farmer clearing his throat would be enough to make us build dens of mud, leaf and stick near the darkened cove of a meandering stream. Excitement was tangible and life was immediate, enveloping and unpredictable.
Cognitively we were Neanderthal homosapiens, brought down to the base elements of existence. The den
Rat of the Wild
Although her canines are crooked, her breath is halitosisly offensive and her brain... missing, I'm certainly going to miss this little rat of the wild. was enough to shelter us from rain and rustling wind, the snares could (theoretically) provide us with delicious rabbit suppers, and the babbling stream could be dammed to provide water filtration and fish supplies. A handful of soiled rocks and a wooden catapult fashioned from the crux of a sapling tree enabled us to shoot the noisy wood pigeons and a stack of ornamental sheep skulls provided tribal den decoration. Seasonal change initiated movement to warmer or cooler locations, but the essence of nomadic pastoralism prevailed. That is until our adrenal intercourse with nature and reality became consumed by the beleaguered experiments of “civilization”.
"I want to remind you, that one of the major ingredients of this civilization is standing still. You can't build fences and take all this property value seriously if you're on the move all the time." - Timothy Levitch. Somewhere along the course of childhood these simple daily explorations became dampened with increasingly complex formal studies and daily schedules which were socially cultivated as priority within our lives. Our souls clung to adventure as we mutated into teenagers, however, our endeavours evolved beyond the bounds of innocence. Rebellious drug and alcohol experimentation aligned
A Modern Road through the Village
The path which I walk to stop and sit under the tree and muse plans while reclining in the bright sunshine and absorbing some fresh country air. with chasing pretty girls and driving fast cars. Eventually school days ended and increasingly intricate and time consuming priorities institutionalised us into organised societal members. A structural embedding became engrained through University as houses were rented and student loans mounted in the attempt to embalm us as an economically viable citizenry.
"Our crude civilization engenders a multitude of wants. Our forefathers forged chains of duty and habit, which bind us notwithstanding our boasted freedom, and we ourselves in desperation, add link to link, groaning and making medicinal laws for relief." - John Muir Carefree school friends morphed into doctors, lawyers and construction workers and life became fiscally cultivated through meritocratic ideals. Imagination no longer held bear the fruits of limitless possibility, we became grounded, rutted and regimented with bills and mortgages to pay, cars to insure, and perhaps even children of our own to feed. Our minds were considered wholly developed and rational, and we presumably understood life by now whilst increasingly perceiving the World (which once intrigued us with its mysteriousness) as fraught with murderous dangers, paedophiles, rapists and terrorists. At least that’s what the News would proclaim as we sipped our morning espresso before driving ourselves
A Sunlit Graveyard overlooks Village Life
The brightly lit tombstones of people past beckon forth the aging populace of the surrounding hinterland. towards another steady nine-till-five uniformity of life. To relieve our daily monotonies we purchase materialistic embellishments. We furnish our houses with decorative gadgets providing momentary excitement, but which are ultimately disgarded and boxed into our cluttered attics. Even our travels are made into consumables. These short all-inclusive packaged holidays distance us from our normal life, but we never experience an alternate reality beyond the manicured resort walls.
Despite this, still bubbling within our corrupt souls lays a passion for adventurous excitement. Indeed, these are the classic ingredients of a mid-life crisis, and so before this occurrence rears its ugly head, I claim individual sovereignty over my actions.
"From this hour I ordain myself loose of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me." - Walt Whitman His reasoning becomes clearer, and we may begin to form a fearful judgement of his deviance from our established ways. By western standards his views appear idealist at best, for no man can exist as a
noble savage in
The Last Colours of Summer
As seasons move into new climes, flora and fauna transitionally adapts, becoming hardy and resistant to morning frost, wind, rain, snow and ice. A person adapts much the same, demonstrating their true colours through the toils of travel. this post-colonial age. Certainly, society would agree that the map he holds in his hand has an engaging charm, for it represents the other side of the horizon where anything is possible. It has the magic of anticipation without the toil and sweat of realisation. The greatest romance ever written pales before the possibilities of adventure that lie in those faint blue trails from sea to sea.
However, for some reason we define long-term world travel to faraway lands as a recurring dream or an exotic temptation, but not something that applies to the here and now. And so, in the latter part of my twenty-forth year, as time appears to be incessantly marching on. The road of which I aim to follow is undeniably long, I must begin by taking the first step. The search will embellish my life with moments of unimaginable beautiful and serendipitous enlightenment, whilst simultaneously being dangerous and excitingly unpredictable, but would the traveller wish for anything more?
The traveller simply asks that he may attempt to
live more bravely and love more deeply. He asks that he may negotiate life’s most raw and immediate intricacies in search of himself through an understanding
When Winter hits the Wolds
I'll miss these cold conditions. The snow, ice and windy country lanes which seemingly lead only to barns, farms, and muddy fields. of others. To set forth knowing that his endeavours may take him down the road less trodden where mystery still lies around every corner and where, once again, his mind is free to harness the power of a limitless imagination.
"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road."
- Walt Whitman. (Songs of the Open Road)
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lee
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blogmasterkarouak
Blog away Will, miss you loads as I sit " legs akimbo in my Lincslager driven existance, where fences only have meaning as you stumble through them whilst returning back through time to my lincs house in a field" - Lee 2009