Travelling the River Wye

 A week of annual leave and I was able to do a tour from the source of the wye to the heart of Hereford. The Wye is a river that serves as a border of sorts between wales and England. Wales has stuck to more stringent social distancing rules; and England is now pretty loose; so a good way of telling whether we we in wales or not was whether the masks were on or off.

Either side of the river; It was very green. 

At one point, we did a tour of a small cider farm; a couple from London had settled near the Whitney bridge and started an orchard of rare apple varieties. It was almost like the opposite of gentrification - eccentric young hipsters potentially, yeah, but a palpable desire to understand the earth, the stories, the dialect, the language, the words. They were drawing history into the bones of their business model; but also the future. There was a freshly mown paddock that they envision; if climate change continues at the rate it is; will be good for grapes soon. 

They described the detail of how when cider is made, not with concentrate added, it’s near on impossible to get consistency across seasons. It’s so reliant on environmental yeasts. And so; good or bad; the batch you have you will never be able to recreate. He went misty eyed remembering the batch of 2017… 

I probably had a glass and a half of 6.5% cider in me at that time, so it’s probably not as profound as it felt at the time, but I got a real sense of it as an analogy. How unpredictable things can turn out; but yet the importance of still treating each step, each day with immense care. 

The land felt rich with the denseness of time- looking up the hill past the mown wildflower field and the young non fruiting apple trees to a 600 year old oak in the corner of the field.

Apart from that afternoon, There was biking, and views, and small fish in the river pointing upstream and hiding among the rocks. Old churches and bridges and mash and chips and peas and black pudding for breakfast. Castles and hedgerows, wind turning the leaves on the trees by the river so that their silver underside shows; sequins on branches. Puffs of white fluff; thistle and dandelion seeds carried across fields. Hay, square and round, hay on hay and Hay-on-Wye.

I feel immensely blessed to be able to travel at this time; and be able to soak in the green and gold.

I gotta go to work tomorrow.