It's Saturday. I should be at my post opposite 'Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe' in Melton Mowbray. But it's pelting it down outside so I'm indoors and am starting to feel fidgety and guilty for not doing something more useful than drinking tea and reading my new book Mysterious Wisdom: The Life of Samuel Palmer by Rachel Campbell.
It's a wonderful biography about an artist we both love. Palmer taps into the mystical currents that infuse the English landscape that inspire us and so many other creative people to paint, dance, sing, compose music, bake bread [Sharon's in the kitchen making a sour dough loaf], write bad poetry [me], do all kinds of craft work. This landscape with its old churches, stone circles, barrows, ancient oaks and meadows needs not only to be preserved -it's more than just a decorative feature for holiday brochures- but to be lived. We need to keep it alive by living it not just living in it.
Last night we watched Julien Temple's film on Dave Davies of the Kinks, Kingdom Come. I love the way that the classic English rock bands, like the Kinks, are so deeply rooted in the English landscape. 'Deeply rooted' is not a cliche in this context, it's hardly even a metaphor. In the film the presence of Exmoor was huge and marvelous and seemed to empower Dave. In fact I was afraid it might overpower him.
Outside our garden and the fields beyond it are sodden with rain. But in no way is it depressing. The trees and hedgerows are swaying in the breeze. They are lush and green and buzzing with life. And I am off for another cup of tea and a slice of Sharon's bread
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