“Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and its current is strong; no sooner does anything appear than it is swept away, and another comes in its place and will be swept away too.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

Thanks to Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis, rivers are attracting a lot of attention at the moment.  Here in Wales, being the first high ground that the Atlantic weather systems hit on their west to east trajectory, we get more than our fair share of rain which leads to a surfeit of rivers.  The Rev. Eli Jenkins’ list was by no means complete as it misses out, amongst others, the Severn, Usk and Wye:

“By Sawdde, Senni, Dovey, Dee,

Edw, Eden, Aled, all,

Taff and Towy broad and free,

Llyfnant with its waterfall.

Claerwen, Cleddau, Dulas, Daw,

Ely, Gwili, Ogwr, Nedd,

Small is our River Dewi, Lord,

A baby on a rushy bed.”

(Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas)

My childhood memories are scattered with river references:  in warm weather we’d paddle in the Afan where it flowed across Aberavon’s sandy beach or dare each other to crawl along the gas pipes that straddled the Ffrwdwyllt in the Goytre valley.  Occasionally, we’d be taken on a family outing to the Pontaber Inn on the Black Mountain, where a little bridge crossed a babbling stream that ran through the beer garden and, in Sunday best dresses, we’d lean over and play Pooh sticks.  Our local nant was dammed by work parties of children every June so that we’d have a makeshift lido right through the summer holidays.  Whilst none of us grew up to be civil engineers, we all knew that obstructing the flow of water downstream would create flooding upstream.

As a result, when I looked over the ancient stone walls of Crickhowell Bridge a few weeks ago and saw this, I felt qualified to get in touch with National Resources Wales and say that based on my experience, the tree in question was not going to dislodge itself and float away without help.  Now, not being local to Crickhowell, once I got a nice message back from National Resources Wales saying the matter was being referred to their Incident team, I stopped thinking about the tree but not about rivers, and not about the things that get swept away by them.

The path to Llangattock runs close to a little brook and as I stopped to take this photograph of snowdrops, a dead duck floated past on the fast flowing water.  For some reason – I think it’s to do with the fact that the duck was stretched out, lying on its back with wings at its side and I’ve been reading too many books about Viking boat burials recently – I have been unable to erase the image from my mind.  I suppose we should all be glad that my camera was pointing at the snowdrops or you might now be having the same problem.

Returning home the following week I got an email asking me if I wanted to submit a piece of work – art or poetry – to an exhibition.  It was to be on the theme of ‘Rivers’ and as I live close to the river Ogmore which starts with a mountain spring before plunging over a bare rock cliff as a tumultuous waterfall, I thought, yes, I can do that.  I did a field sketch then composed a poem called ‘Leap’ in my usual 7 syllables a line, 3 lines a verse format and sent it off.  When it came to the stitchery however, all I could see was the dead duck and as I was pretty convinced that the exhibition organisers didn’t have a drowned bird in mind when they decided the title, I thought I had better go and find some different inspiration.

You may recall that last month’s blog ended near the Mynydd Portref wind farm.  It’s a short distance from there along an old pilgrim path to the small village of Glynogwr where a lane opposite Llandyfodwg Church leads to a winding brook called Nant Iechyd.  There are two ways to cross the water – a small footbridge over it or the Dimbath Ford straight through it.  It’s a route which I run regularly and is home to one of my pieces of transient land art.  A small detour into a wood on the west of the lane leads into a hollow way and just before the trail putters out into wide green meadows, I built this piece of sculpture and decorated it with one of the many crab apples that litter the ground.  It was at grid reference 942888 but Storms Ciara and Dennis may have altered that.

It’s always tempting – but rarely right – to use blue to give the impression of water, especially if you’re not working figuratively.  With the drowned duck still at the forefront of my imagination, I went for a less romantic, maudlin palette.  Also I didn’t have much blue wool in my stash whereas there seemed to be a lot of muddy browns and greys.  As usual, my free form knitting began with a ribbed edge and drifted off into long straggly bits which gradually got infilled and joined up until they formed a single piece.

I had picked, sliced and dried some of the Dimbath Ford crab apples to use as beads and set them to dangle on invisible thread down one side of the hanging.

I’m quite pleased with the result;  the colours are very evocative of a floody river, the textures are great and best of all, I have nearly (but only nearly) erased the image of the sodden bird as the river swept him away to his final destination.  Now all I have to do is decide on a title for the artwork so it can be submitted for the exhibition.  Do I go with Time like a river?  Dimbath Ford?  Or Epitaph for a Drowned Duck?

“Learn from a river; obstacles may force it to change its course, but never its destination.”     Matshona Dhliwayo

“Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land.”  Sir Walter Scott

Before we left Scotland I was determined to see the famous stone circles of Kilmartin.  For some perverse reason our sat nav decided to ignore the obvious route of the A816 and instead took us on a panic attack-inducing, twisting, narrow lane towards the village of Kilmore – aptly named, we thought, especially after we encountered a full size bus hurtling towards us, the driver of which had more faith in his braking ability than our nerves could cope with.  Eventually we got back to the main road and as Kilmartin Glen opened up, we stopped at Carnasserie Castle.

From the bottom of the hill, it looks like one of the ubiquitous stone towers that scatter the Scottish landscape but as you climb the slope, it becomes clear that whoever built this was sending a very serious message about power, ownership and the consequences of threatening either.  The tower is five storeys high and can be climbed.  If listening to the sat nav had been our first mistake of the day then deciding to take the spiral, unlit, un-handrailed, slippery-with-age stone staircase to the top of Carnasserie Castle – while carrying an acrophobic Jack Russell terrier –  was our second.  The views across the vast expanse of the glen were magnificent and certainly gave an indication as to why this landscape attracted the attention of stone circle builders.  Once we’d recovered from the climb, however, there was the terrible realisation that what had come up, had to go down.

There are few better ways to calm jangling nerves than doing a bit of watercolour painting.  Once on terra firma I tried to capture the colour of the castle stones which from the bottom of the hill look a dour grey but up close are the most delicate pink – quite lovely if you are in a post-traumatic state.

Kilmartin was everything I had hoped to see in terms of landscape archaeology.  There are standing stones, stone circles and burial chambers everywhere.  Probably the biggest disappointment was that we arrived shortly after a coach load of American tourists, many of whom were of the opinion that the best way to appreciate the work of neolithic man was to lie on their backs with their legs stretched up on the sides of the monoliths.  Whilst I don’t have a problem if this is done out of spiritual necessity, it did mean that photo opportunities were limited.

More history lay in wait at our next destination as we briefly visited Rosslyn Chapel, rightly feted because of its stupendous carving but disappointingly famous because of its involvement with the plot and film of The Da Vinci Code.  We made the mistake of being there on a weekend in the school holidays.  If you’ve never been, Roslin (the village) is about 10 miles south of Edinburgh and you should make it your life’s ambition to get there.  Definitely a place for the bucket list but don’t stop at just seeing the chapel – there’s a lovely castle and some terrific walks through historical battlefields around the village too.

Next day we drove to Bamburgh where the massive castle overlooks the wide, golden-sanded beach and from there we headed to Gilsland, once the outer limit of the Roman Empire.   It was here that I intended to make my next piece of Unlost Places art.  The idea came in two parts:  the first is captured in the photograph at the very top of the blog.  Nailed to the fence to the left of the tree was a dead crow.  Doing this is an old farming way of warning other crows to stay away from the field.

The second part of the idea came when I saw this stone.  Here in Wales we chain standing stones too.  It is said that doing so stops the stone from wandering off and taking the path with it.

This was the first time that I had done performance art as part of Unlost Places and my recitation of a poetic tercet whilst standing in the middle of a Northumbrian lane probably frightened off more crows that the old farming way.  Being so close to Hadrian’s Wall meant I was spoilt for choice when it came to making a larger piece of artwork.  Until, that is, we passed the Temple of Mithras at Carrawburgh.

Creative Knitting is always a bit fiddly and you can never be sure it’s going to work out until the very last bead is attached or French Knot stitched.  And to those who think that maps are drawn with lines on paper all I can say is that for me, on a damp Tuesday afternoon in May, standing in the Temple of Mithras in the bleak landscape of Carrawburgh, this is how I understood my native land.