Whitbarrow

After all these years, I've never been up on Whitbarrow that has always drawn me as I've driven past on numerous occasions. What a stunning landscape. I walked up onto Lord's Seat and the sun dazzled on Morecambe Bay with lovely views into the Lakes.

As for apocryphal stories. G used to tell the story of one of his uncles' that lived somewhere remote up here. One day, he and his wife saw a rare visitor up here and he asked them if they knew of any of the rare orchids that were reputedly found up there. G's uncle had placed his hat over an orchid and claimed ignorance of any rare flowers. The chap then said he was from the Nature Conservancy Council and said he's read about them in a book. G's uncle said to his wife, 'we have a book don't we, missus?' ...'yes' she said .. 'a green one'. Once the stranger had walked on he picked up his hat! It was good to come  up here at last. 

Here's a lovely poem by Helen Dunmore from a lovely volume of her poetry 'Inside the Wave' given to me today.

The Place of Ordinary Souls 

In such meadows the days pass
Without shadow, unremarkable.
On time, the bus pants at its halt,
Passengers peel their thighs
From hot vinyl, and step down.

Swift-heeled Achilles strides
Through the fields of asphodel
Flanked by heroes and warriors
Who have left their mark on the earth
And want nothing to do with us.

With impatient glance at the starry fields
And kit on their backs, they're gone
Route-marching to Elysium
Where the gods are at home.
We are glad to see the back of them.

In the fields of asphodel we dawdle
Towards the rumour of a beauty spot
Which turns out to be shut.
No matter. Why not get out the picnic
And see if the tea's still hot?

The bus shuttles all day long
With its cargo of ordinary souls.
We lie on our backs, eyes closed.
Dreaming of nothing while clouds pass.

According to Greek legend, ordinary, unheroic souls pass the afterlife in fields of asphodel .... that's fine by me!