An Arising from the Settee of Suffering

I've spent a lot of time reclining lately, mainly because sitting upright is too agonising. When I hobble round to the surgery, my GP wonders if it could be fibromyalgia that is causing this widespread pain, as well as the increasingly well documented arthritis. Am I under a lot of stress at the moment? 

I wonder if he's come up with this by himself or whether he's swayed by the notes from the physiotherapist. It seems to me that fibromyalgia is treated much the same way as depression was in the 1970s - something women get, and just keep necking the valium, love. And anyhow, I don't really care what they call it; all I care about is that it hurts. 

Maybe, I concede.

I decide my strategy of resting up and only going out when I have to - which is most days anyway - isn't working. Alice Oswald is appearing at the Bristol Poetry Institute and I've missed hearing top poets read their work in Bristol since the demise of the poetry festival. Moreover, the last time we heard her, she was astounding. That evening remains the best reading I've ever been to.








Alice's latest book is 'Nobody', ostensibly about a bit-part player in the Odyssey: the poet who was charged with guarding Clytemnestra by Agamemnon, and subsequently marooned on a rocky island in the middle of the Mediterranean by the queen's lover, Aegisthus. Really it's a paean to the ocean, and as Alice recites it by heart in darkness, I find myself drowning in it. There's not so much as a cough to break the spell. Not a shuffle or a shifting, and when, after an hour, we can finally move, I find I can't. I can barely walk back to the car. Perhaps I should try swimming.

Saturday it's off to the Floating Market on the Kennet and Avon canal at Bradford-on-Avon with Hazel Hammond. I'm delighted to see that despite the manky weather, Dru Marland is doing a roaring trade in art on the tow path. She squeezes in a quick coffee with us between sales, and we repair to the pub for lunch with a haul of thirteen 2019 calendars of boating life between us. Twenty per cent of the profits go to the Floaty Boat Fund, which helps boaters keep their homes afloat when hit by unexpected problems.  You can get yours here.

As we leave the canal, a pair of ravens croak overhead. Hazel hasn't been inside the tithe barn so we drift through its cavernousness in almost darkness.

Back up on the tow path there's a lot of shantying going on, and the lights of the market seem to float through the twilight. 

Twenty days till the year turns and it starts getting lighter again. Not long to go. 

Paying Homage to Ted Hughes in Sweat and Mud

The Northerner wanted to pay homage at Ted Hughes' memorial stone on Dartmoor.  Being a poet with a biscuit tin by the sea, I'd already been there and done that, but it's an easy lope out to the spot near Taw Head through the valley of the East Okement, so I agreed to repeat the experience. Though to make it a little more interesting, I chose the village of Belstone as our starting point over Okehampton Camp.

Our previous two walks of the holiday had taken place under high clear skies, but this trek looked like it was going to be far more moody and atmospheric, with Yes Tor and High Willhays dipping in and out of cloud. I find interesting skies are preferable to the banality of blue. Also, the streaming wind means that Dartmoor walks are seldom uniformly grey - there will usually be gaps in the cloud and patches of sun to fire last year's grass and the imagination. 

Looking towards Oke and Steeperton Tors

On High Dartmoor 'roads' can be a bit of a misnomer - OK for military vehicles, for which they were designed, but a bit tough on arthritic joints.  Still, even the roughest of tracks is easier to negotiate than tussocks and bog, and so we made reasonable headway towards our goal of Taw Head ... 

... that is, until we got to Deep Ford, which was, and we had to boulder our way across.  

As we shared an orange by the ford, we spotted evidence of previous wayfarers with a less poetic purpose.

Dartmoor painting itself in the style of J M W Turner

A stand-off with a rather large sheep

Looking back towards Yes Tor

Looking north from near Taw Head

After a challenging stretch of bog-hopping and tussock-jumping, we finally reached Ted Hughes' memorial stone, prompting an outburst of 'You stupid Yorkshire bastard!' from the Also Yorkshireman.  Then we sat and ate oranges while it hailed, and communed about moorland and poetry.  Well, the poets did; Ted the dog was still sniffing out sheep.  

At Ted Hughes' stone, looking towards Taw Head

Since my other companion, Arthur Itis, had been pretty quiet on the way out, I decided to forgo the comparative comfort of tarmac for the return journey, taking instead the rough road to the ford at Knack Mine.  This is the view up to Steeperton Tor ...

... and this to Belstone Tor and beyond.

As at Deep Ford, the ford below Okement Hill was too deep to use, and once across via boulders, a lot of puddle-dodging was required.

The ford at Knack Mine was just about passable, however. 

Looking down the Taw towards Steeperton Gorge

Climbing up and away from Knack Mine

Steeperton Gorge

Then it was up and over Oke Tor ...

... and on past Belstone Tor to the village. My hips and knees were beginning to protest a little now, not to mention both big toes, but I was really pleased at how my newish walking boots, which have some support for my insteps, are helping me to cover longer distances without doing my joints in completely.  

And anyway, what's a little pain in return for days like these?