Hazy day

The day dawned cool and hazy, a stiff breeze whistling down from the northeast.

Today is the day of the Royal Wedding. It was not out of any disrespect that I went riding, but rather that I am paying for a horse so I may as well ride her.

In fact I do wish the Royal couple well. I hope that they succeed in marriage at the first attempt - not at the third as in my case. (Better late than never, though. However I suspect that they have benefited from far better advice than came my way. Avoiding Balkan adventures seems like a wise move too, character building as such things may be.)

Besides, it was to be expected that the trails would be quiet. It's nice to be able to get out when the hills are not crawling with visitors.

Up on the hill it was chilly after a warm sunny week, and I was glad for a layer of fleece.

Visibility was just a couple of miles, and made the landscape seem flatter than it really is.

In the distance someone rode a motorcycle, only the top of their body showing above a hedge bordering that track. Brena stopped and stared at the speeding object, the shape of which did not fit the form of any known beast. When she resumed walking it was with a faster pace, as if she needed to be on her toes with such strange objects in circulation.

Of course if the motorcycle got closer, Brena would see it for what it is. At that point it would cease to be a potential threat.

Away into the artificially foreshortened distance winds the white ribbon of the chalk track. At each twist and turn, at each new crest it's there as a talisman to the trudging traveller.

There on the horizon that track, which is Neolithic in origin, is crossed by a relative youngster of a Roman road. Two thousand years ago, when Biblical events were still taking place, Roman soldiers were building their road across that hill. What did they think of a chalk track that was ancient even back then in their time?

This is the land of memories that Brena and I ride across, we who are just murmurs in the great sweep of history engulfing these hills. We are a ripple amidst the myriad swells of a great sea.

Prosaically, we dropped down the grassy hillside between crops burgeoning despite the dry ground and lack of rain. The wind whistled by, emphasising the apparent loneliness of the hills today. But one has just to imagine the past, think of the many and varied travellers who have passed, consider the cavalry trained up here in the 1914-18 war, for this place to seem far from lonely. Looking back through the ages Brena and I have plenty of company.

Comments

[funder]

If it makes you feel any better, I was only peripherally aware of the Royal Wedding. I am no happier for them than I am for any other couple I'm not acquainted with - I wish them all the best and nothing more. :)

Such beautiful country you ride in.

[White Horse Pilgrim]

The whole thing has been a fever here. It's taken peoples' minds off the economy. It's also a relief that it passed without a terrorist attack, as such had been threatened by the Islamicists. There was a lot of security.

The country here is pretty. Probably I think that it is quite dry and you, in Nevada, think that it looks rather green!