High and Low

I have seen several blips of people finding ways to escape the grim international news and bring some peace into their lives. I suppose a film festival ("27 venues; 290 screenings") is the ultimate escapism - the dream factory. The four we have seen so far have covered the corrosive effect of secrets and lies on succeeding generations; the bitter, dehumanising impact of the refugee experience on refugees themselves; the way in which the last war in Europe devastated lives in even the most far-flung, close-knit, rural communities; and the real poverty and desperation hidden beneath the picturesque scenery and apparently idylic lives of small farmers in remote areas. So that's going well, then

In between, we have genuinely escaped - to the inspiring views from the top of the Malvern hills behind the town this morning. This range of hard, ancient volcanic and metamorphic rock (up to 680 million years old) has resisted all erosion has remained as a protrusion into the landscape as all the surrounding land has weathered down. The Malvern springs, that produce the supposedly healing waters, then, are unusual, because they are fed not by inherently porous, soluble rocks like limestone, but by water that has been filtered through tiny fractures and fissures in this ancient, resistant rock. It emerges, therefore, as particularly pure water, containing very few dissolved salts - which indeed probably was more healthy than what was coming out of many public pumps in Victorian Britain!

The extra of the 'British Camp' is for blipper Mima, who mentioned that her ancestors ashes are scattered on this impressive Iron Age hill-fort. If we think there are any genes from the pre-Roman British in any of us, perhaps there are remains of all our ancestors up there. It all looked particularly fine in today's bright sunshine, obscuring for a while the crow-black shadows in the back of our minds