Friday January 29th 1993
A medieval poem on the underground (anon. 15th century).
‘I shall say what inordinate love is:
The furiosity and wodness of mind
An instinguible burning, faulting bliss,
A great hunger, insatiate to find,
A dulcet ill, an evil sweetness blind,
A right wonderful sugared sweet error,
Without labour rest, contrary to kind,
Or without quiet, to have huge labour.’1
Video shot from Bostal Hill, Sussex on Thursday January 29th 2015.
Saturday January 29th 2000
Bo Peep – Firle Beacon again with Milo.2
Sitting with Milo on top of the hill near the stile. Milo’s golden coat matches the gold of the grass.
Landscape full of curves – of slurry piles, of promontories, of undulating fields, of ploughed furrows. A patchwork of fields fanning out to the distance. Alciston (Rose Cottage) below – Alfriston over the downs.
Milo sits, tongue out, ears cocked, nose swivelling.
Cloud hanging over the hill near Wilmington. Dark grey, smoky, pale mauve underbelly, blowing from the sea.
The sound and speed of the wind at the top of the hill, buffeting and exploding and roaring in the ears. Milo walking along with his ear blowing up and over his head and all his fur blowing in one direction away from him.
The view across to the sea, Newhaven. Open heathland like Egdon in Return of the Native.
Pale blue-white smoke blowing along a hedge, rising in plumes, a silver spray of bonfire smoke.
Wednesday January 29th 2020
An amazing long walk to Lamorna, St Loy and back to the Merry Maidens. Beautiful valley where the stream flows down to St Loy. Made a few mistakes en route and ended up in people’s gardens. Met an old lady who lived in a white cottage perched high on edge of cliff overlooking Lamorna Cove. Beautiful location. Not that tall, she had a broad, weathered face with a gap where one tooth was missing. She said she had lived there for sixty years since the age of two.
But as Rosy said, ‘I’m 67 so surely she must be 80 or more.’
Homemade vegetable soup with Scotch bonnet chilli for tea.
Poems on the Underground, Fourth Edition, Cassel Publishers, London, 1994
Our first golden retriever 1992-2006