Far Wescoe

This has nagged at me for as long as I can remember from when I first read about it. W.H.Auden’s parents had bought this cottage and Auden lived here for a time when he came back from the Spanish Civil War. I’ve never walked this lane before and it was like stepping back in time.

The weather was pretty grotty again so after a call to my brother I decided to head over to find the cottage and then walk on up the Glenderaterra valley before rejoining the path back to Threlkeld. There was a lot of activity... some runners and what looked like the local hunt. A woman passed me and we got chatting and headed down together. We passed several folk who were gazing fellwards but they weren’t very forthcoming. As we walked the lane back to the village they headed down in their 4x4’s and did their best to knock out the peasants on the way (I’m still feeling the militant after effects of yesterday...).

Sally (who weirdly went to the same school as my sister!) and I had tea and cake in the community cafe and I did my best to encourage her to join the wonderful world of Blip. I hope she does. I’ve just realised it’s International Women’s Day ... well, we did drink tea and eat cake and we are surviving. Happy International Women’s Day!

...oh, and I’ve just eaten a tasty Beetroot Bourguignon with green lentils with a best before date of 2011. I’m guessing my husband bought them for something he was planning to cook ... just found them at the back of the cupboard. This may be my last blip.

Here’s a favourite Auden poem....

Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.