Cwm Rhondda

Bread of Heaven....

Arglwydd, arwain trwy’r anialwch

Saturday, March 25th, 2017.  As has become a sometime habit I walk from home to Redbournbury Mill, about two and a half miles away, to buy bread.  

There's a spring in my feet.  Amanda meets me part way, and we enjoy the dip into the Ver valley, cherry blossom and bees brightening the way....

It is a perfect spring day.  The sun shines from a blue sky; fresh breezes keep us fresh.

There is a reason we go to Redbournbury. The bread is baked there, on the spot, with flour milled on the spot, some of it from organic grain from nearby Hammond's Farm....

Bread is what we require.  As my friend Sarah Stancliffe writes in her Book of Bread: Bread has been a staple food of humankind since we settled down and became farmers rather than hunters....

And one thing that is rather special about this bread is that in order to get it I need to walk two and a half miles each way through the English countryside, with all the surprises and delights this offers.....

With bread on my mind, the tune of Cwm Rhondda begins to tweet in time with the birdsong that accompanies me, whether it is the song of the Chaffinch,

 Or the less musical trump of the Chiffchaff....

And while I consider the words of William Williams: 

Guide me, O thou great Redeemer,

Pilgrim through this barren land;

I am weak, but thou art mighty;

Hold me with thy powerful hand:

Bread of heaven, bread of heaven

Feed me till I want no more.

Feed me till I want no more.

I am spied along the way.  This Goldfinch saw me coming, watching me to see if I had crumbs to offer, 

And then we reach the mill, where flour has been ground for generations, powered by the sleepy Ver....

Here the breads are displayed, warm from the morning oven....

And then, happily supplied, we return, observed by the beady eyes of hungry birds....

Both the bold, high-seated, and the less confident, elusive.....

Overhead, a lapwing speeds past, wary of me, and of a red kite that is not that far behind, 

While another of the crow family keeps an eye on me from on high....

Open thou the crystal fountain

Whence the healing stream shall flow;

Let the fiery, cloudy pillar

Lead me all my journey through:

Strong deliverer, strong deliverer

Be thou still my strength and shield.

Be thou still my strength and shield.

Or so the Skylark could be saying.....

Or the Yellowhammer might imply,

Not to miss a squirrel in the willow, 

Nor the light green shoots of the larch....

Or the flowers of a cherry against the young shoots of a wheat field....

As Edmund Burke said in Thoughts and Details on Scarcity: And having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them....

When I tread the verge of Jordan,

Bid my anxious fears subside;

Death of death, and hell’s destruction,

Land me safe on Canaan’s side:

Songs of praises, songs of praises

I will ever give to thee.

I will ever give to thee.

Ah, but it was a fine morning's walk, whatever.....

Songs of praises, songs of praises

I will ever give to thee.

Love is in the Air

March 5th

Small flocks of Yellowhammer in the bushes

Now I know that Spring will come again,

Perhaps tomorrow:

Edward Thomas, March

We walk in the Hertfordshire countryside, near our home. The Lea Valley, through Wheathampstead; across the fields and through the woods to Ayot St Lawrence; the Brocket estate near Lemsford; Heartwood Forest, between our home and Sandridge; the Ver valley near Redbournbury Mill, and just across the common land between us and St Albans.

Rooks, moving their parliament

In winter, when the days are short and the paths are wet, it is not so easy to spend time exploring comfortably, but when the days begin to lengthen we can venture further, longer.  It is gentle countryside, with no bare mountains, nor wild forests. The creatures we see are familiar ones - this is not the land of great deer or awesome predators - but, despite the intensity of human activity and the pressure of roads and buildings, there are wild things around.

Spring is such a good time of year. Signs of life abound.  Buds, and shoots, the tender green leaves of bluebells appearing amongst the leaf litter of the woods, the unfolding of the early blossoms:

As you look across the fields, green with early wheat, the hedgerows and woods appear tinged with colour. What was spare and twiggy is now fuzzy and here there's a touch of yellow, there a copper hue.  But the lack of leaves allows us to see more, to watch the mixed flocks of tits fluttering through the hazel and birch.

Long-tailed tit

The chaffinches, so quiet through the winter, are tuning up, and it seems that every oak or ash is now supporting that bright interrogative song.

By the river Lea I see a kingfisher flash past, the brilliant cobalt wings whirring upstream too quick for my focus.  But less shy are the Grey Wagtails, bobbing and flitting just above the water:

And the normally shy Wren pauses for me to take a portrait, without the usual scolding Tchik! Tchik! or its trilling warning.

Today, near the railway line through Heartwood Forest, I catch sight of two Buzzards.  At first I think they may just be circling in their usual hunting patterns, but I don't hear them mewing, and as I watch I see they are more engaged with each other than with what's on the ground.  

I, I'm willing and able

So I throw my cards on your table

See, I want to love ya, I want to love and treat ya

love and treat ya right

Bob Marley - Is This Love

Of course it is not all about love....  Though the Jackdaws that flap over my street and frequent the chimney pots and TV aerials of my neighbours tend to fly in til-death-do-they-part pairs, something has disturbed the pattern of this flock....

And, true enough, speeding across the sky in hungry flight, is a Sparrowhawk.

In the meantime the thrushes are busy feeding up for the breeding season.  On pastures near Sandridge the other day I counted thirty Redwing and two Fieldfares, though it was a dim drizzly day and I was without binoculars, so it could have been about thirty mixed Redwing and Fieldfare. What I do know is that this is a bold Mistle Thrush:

And who doesn't long for the evening song of the Blackbird, as opposed to the chattering alarm call?

I love the little pond to mark at spring

When frogs and toads are croaking round its brink

When blackbirds yellow bills gin first to sing

John Clare

And then there's homebuilding.  Storm Doris did the birds a favour, perhaps, in loosening twigs and spilling building material for all to plunder.  Along the Lea the other evening I was surprised by a Red Kite flying low past me and away, clutching a hefty rafter in its talons.... 

While displaying mastery of the air the bird simultaneously stripped some unwanted addition from the wood, just caught here discarded to the top right of the picture....

Then, follow this sequence.  The stick is in the feet.....

Now it's in the beak....

And now it's back in the feet....

I reckon that's worth at least six points on the licence!

Though I'm not sure I would have the nerve to pull this one over....

Anyway, it's all part of the business of Spring, along with Amanda's 63rd birthday!  Here's a bunch of flowers for you dear.....

All token spring and every day

Green and more green hedges and close

And every where appears

Still tis but March

But still that March is Spring

John Clare - Spring

Or, as John Paul Young sang in 1978:

Love is in the air everywhere I look around

Love is in the air every sight and every sound