The day is clear, cold and bright.
Marie drops off a truck load of wood from Wiltown Farm and we talk about the cold and the rising price of everything including the wood. She has three hundred sheep now. The price of a lamb has gone up from £70 to £150 but so has the feed so she informs me.
‘People just jump on the bandwagon.’
So after a morning writing about the cost of living for Bristol Somalis I’m out and down Furlong Lane where my father proposed to my mother on a walk in 1969. The sheep are in the field overlooking the cricket pitch just as they would have been then, their wool coats huge and round so they look like rolled up shagpiles with dainty legs and each one breathing a plume of vapour while they stand and chew.
Down to the T and down the wiggling lane where the water always seems to gurgle in the brook beside the lane. I walked down this lane to go back to the brother of one of my closest friends the day after his funeral in January. That was a cold bright day like this one. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of his death.
Striking out west across the fields, the Blackdowns are just a low grey line in the distance. I’m walking to Swell to a tiny church in a farmyard where they used to do Carols by Candlelight. Do they still? The last time I went was probably ten years ago. I’ve seen nothing online so I want to see if there is a notice in the church.
Threads of gossamer confuse the eye in the sun. The lines’ movement mean certain parts are reflected infrequently. It’s like broken lines appearing and reappearing every microsecond. Down another lane and then diagonally across a field to Moortown Farm which my mother always says looks like the farm in the Penguin children’s book ‘Down on the Farm’. It is a beautiful red brick farmhouse with a pond and barns. I remember coming to collect eggs from the chicken hutches as a young boy. I can still remember the smell of hay inside and the small clusters of pale ovals warm to the touch. It was like finding a bit of treasure.
Back then it was owned by another farmer friend of my grandfather’s and is now owned by a reality TV celebrity. I met her once in Langport and she seemed very nice.
At Swell there is silence. No-one at the Court. No-one at the church. The interior of the church is simple and humble. The arch is out of line and there is little stained glass compared to the wealth and elegance of churches like Low Ham where I have spent a lot of time lately. I find the notice. The carol service is a week today.
I have one of those moments of stillness that is unique to churches.
When I come out the sun is going behind the ridge of the Blackdowns and two schoolchildren get dropped off at the end of the drive and both politely say ‘hello’. They’re the first people I’ve seen.
The sky is turning and it’s getting colder. I pull down my hat a bit further and quicken my step thinking about tea and stollen cake.
The Slow Walker 