El refugio Casa de Cristal – la paz y la meditación en el invernadero

The young geraniums are in intensive care, while the mature athlete looks on with apparent concern, but otherwise pursues its vigorous self actualisation.  The sky exposed itself, briefly, permitting the sun entry and warming the place but we are where we are, geopositionally. A plaid shirt provides the necessary protection.  Pity the geranium youth.

Aggression has, so far, been contained within the main house.  It tends not to venture into the open.  Doors and walls secrete ugly truths but open windows can occasionally share them more widely.  What do secrets exist to protect?  I’ve often wondered that.  At present, the peace of the greenhouse remains undisturbed.

A new project, begun last evening: to play the original Beatles albums that have been sitting, with the record player, in boxes since leaving Weston.  Almost five years.  Why now?  The arrival, in a new cardboard box, of an interface.  I don’t have any speakers, but, hey, I can copy that sound onto the laptop and, thence, to the phone.  That little niggling absence in Madrid.  For now, the conditions for absolute immersion have been lost, just have they have for guitar-playing.  How that violence would have held me back if I’d remained here.  And yet it was invisible for so long.

On Sunday, I had to jump into the car.  I left around two pm with only a general plan to point the thing towards The North-Western Lakes.  I fuelled up, grabbed a sandwich and some water, hit the A59, A1 to Scotch Corner, A66 all the way to Keswick.  Two hours, near enough.  Only one brush with death – just how I remember the 66 from before.  The sight of those fells in the distance.  It gets me every time.  The weather even brightened up.  Sun and scattered clouds in The Lakes.  Result.

I don’t really remember my way around Keswick.  Coledale was straight ahead.  Rolling End rising from behind slate roofs; Causey Pike, knobbly, behind.  And the pyramid?  Grisedale Pike.  I followed my nose to the side of Derwentwater.  Parked.  Two hours.  I thought it would be enough.  I’d already decided to return along the A591, past Grasmere, Ambleside and Windermere, Kendal and the A65 via Skipton.  I’d used up my luck on the A66 for one day.

Open water is such a balm.  So, too, the sight of mountains.  Mountains reflected in open water and you have it.  Some universal law comes into play.  Still not too many people.  Locals, maybe.  A few with canoes, some swimming, others just walking and enjoying the afternoon.  A bench at the water’s edge.  Sound of voices, made small.  Not an encroachment, but a necessary part of the scene.  What good is all this nature without humanity?

One of those days so rarely witnessed in The Lakes by visitors – perfectly still and clear.  The light generated by its surroundings just as surely as the light of Venice, or Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azure.  In such light, among such scenery, the presence of Romantic poets is all around.  A time and place for everything.  I followed a path along the bank; Causey Pike and Grisedale Pike opposite, with Eel Crag just visible behind when the sun lit its flank.  I thought I heard someone say the fell further along the lake was Cat Bells.  I don’t know.  I’ll defer to Wainwright.

I came to a small bluff.  Friar’s Crag.  A couple who’d been sitting on the bench there got up and walked off.  I left the bench for someone else and found the sculpted root of a pine.  How many had sat there in contemplation?  You can see along the length of Derwentwater.  Langdale Pikes maybe?  Maybe.  I took a notebook out and scribbled a few thoughts.  In such places are we at peace with the world we’re shot into, or out of.  For a few parenthesised moments do we commune.

Nothing parenthesises moments like a car park ticket.  Mine read 18:28.  Where had the two hours gone?  Men’s voices came along the path behind me.  Four men emerged onto the bluff, chattering away.  One of them turned and apologised for the intrusion.  As if it was my bluff.  They were wearing a mix of casual suits and shalwar kameez.  We’d all come for the same thing.  More or less.

We introduced ourselves.  They were from Kashmir.  One of them had recently returned. I asked if this view compared. No. It didn't.  But it was beautiful anyway.  They were on their way back to Birmingham from Workington, where they’d been to visit their grandfather’s grave.  He’d been a pioneer, arriving in 1937 and making a success for himself.  One of the men had done a lot of delivery driving and knew York.  We swapped driving stories.

I took a couple of group photos.  It meant standing on the bench to get an overhead shot with the Langdales, perhaps, in the background.  I was ten minutes late back to the car, but group photos and handshakes are as much a part of the setting as ghosts of Romantic poets.  It was a long but undramatic drive back to York.  Worth the detour for the views.  Helvellyn, maybe up on the left above Thirlmere, the site of wild camping forty years ago with an old mate and mentor.  Where’s he now?

Well, it’s still calm in the greenhouse – why did I name it in Spanish? Dunno.  The implements are keeping their thoughts to themselves.  The young geraniums continue a silent and dignified struggle against whatever mistreatment I or the climate might have visited upon them.  The mature one continues to tease me, having produced great clenches of buds, bright red peeking seductively from inside.  Will the climate and I conspire to spoil the show?

A popular science book lies on crumbs of dried compost, along with Hughes and his Cambridge Companion.  I did actually buy a budget eBook of Wordsworth to languish with the Lyrical Ballads.  There’s an uneasy quiet over in the house.  The floor is littered with crushed eggshells.  It’s been that way a very long time.  At least I’ve solved the riddle of all the moss on the ground under the windows.  Blackbirds, crow, starlings: there’s something of a bonanza in the guttering.  I’ve copied The Beatles’ early stuff.  It’s in danger of becoming a chore.  I know, I’ll go straight to Let It Be.  Who needs linearity?  Best stick a curry in the microwave first.