Lawrence Weston Moor

On Tuesday, 2^nd July, I needed to go on a run from home in Henleaze, so I decided to go out to Lawrence Weston Moor to see if anything had been done about the blocked paths, which I had last reported to the Rights of Way department on 3^rd June 2008. (Nothing had been done of course!) I found a suitable route around Canford Park and the cemetery to Coombe Dingle and over Kingsweston Hill into Lawrence Weston.

When I went down Aylminton Walk towards Bank Leaze Primary School, I found a bunch of boys, who were playing a game with bikes or scooters rolling down the slope from the school gate. They were curious about me, which well they might have been as I was dressed in ancient orienteering kit in anticipation of nettles. I asked them about the path around the playing field. They did not know it existed, though they were standing next to it, and I suppose it must have been blocked for most of their lives. I noticed someone had used it as convenient spot for fly tipping. One boy thought I might be able to get through, but I knew that there was another route via the local nature reserve, so I headed down Atwood Drive toward Lawrence Weston Road.

On the corner, there was a gaggle of older boys and girls standing around chatting, but I thought nothing of it. A few moments later, I came across a fair haired youth in dark clothes running towards me at a nice even pace. I nodded at him as a fellow “athlete”  and noticed that his clothing was not that of a typical runner, but then not everybody can afford specialist running kit.

It was only then that I noticed a pall of black smoke rolling across the fields. I came across the inevitable red car burning away, just past the entrance to the nature reserve. The horn started to blare as I approached and I noticed a dog walker with a mobile phone in hand calling the police. I thought of adding my voice to his, but it was clear that even if I could have picked out the “athlete” in a police line up, there were ample witnesses to swear that had never left the corner of Atwood Road.

So, I hopped over the huge rock that had been strategically placed to stop young “athletes” from taking motor bikes into the nature reserve. Inside I found the remains of one bike that had managed to get in. It appeared to have been there for some time. Evidently no-one is responsible for removing such things. The whole reserve reeked of neglect. Substantial footbridges and gates showed that money had once been spent here, but there was no sign that the reserve was being managed. The gates were overgrown; but I had no need to use any of them as there were open field gates beside them.

The problem seems to be that every effort is being made to keep “the wrong sort of people” out of the reserve, and no effort at all is being made to get people onto it. It is about as different from other local nature reserves like Troopers Hill as it is possible to imagine. There, my wife and I met children who were in the reserve and were able to tell us which was the best path across it. Teenagers flew kites and talk together in the branches of trees.

On Lawrence Weston Moor, my only companions were a buzzard and a couple of woodpigeons. Unblocking the paths that give access to the moor would certainly help, as it would allow people to circulate through the area, but it is probably more important to find ways to connect the local “athletes” to the moor.

Is there a Woodwosish solution?

The Meaning of the Green Man

As I crossed the bridge towards the setting sun, there were tears in my eyes. I had done it!

True, I had set the challenge in the first place, but, until that moment, I had no idea that I could do it. I though I would keep Pete and Mike company for a bit over half the 45-mile run and then fade away to  let them finish without me. But Mike had to drop out because of a cold, and there I was, nine and a half hours after we had set off from the Dovecote in the frosty dawn, jogging across the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

The pink sky over Dundry Down looked the same as it had at 7-15am, but this time it reflected the glory of the sun setting behind the trees of Leigh Woods and Ashton Court.

I had already imbued the westward crossing over the Avon Gorge with special significance in the first chapter of my new book (‘Around Bristol, Off-Road, On Foot – Beyond the Urban Fringe’ – it should be in the shops by April). There, I linked it with the meeting between the hermit sage, Lao Tzu and the Keeper of the Pass, who persuaded Lao Tzu to write down his thoughts in the Tao Te Ching before he passed over the western mountains on his way out of China.

Now the bridge had personal significance for me as it took me on the returning path past the Green Man to the Dovecote.

But what did it all mean after the euphoria had passed and the pain and the stiffness had subsided?

By coincidence, before my legs had recovered, I had to drag my self to the solicitors to discuss my will, and I was inspired to send off for ‘The Natural Death Handbook’, which arrived almost immediately. This proved an amazingly positive book, including all you need to know about green funerals and an injunction -

‘Live each day as though it were your last.’

Perhaps that is the meaning of the Green Man with the tendrils of a tree growing from his mouth – accept death and, in the light of its inevitability, achieve what you can, whilst you can.

HIGH POINTS

Town and Country Harriers seems to appeal to people who like a challenge.

One of the founder members of TACH, Tony Robinson, who has moved on to pastures new in deepest Somerset, visited the highest point of every county of England in 2007.

For details of this achievement, visit http://web.mac.com/euphrasian/iWeb/highpoints

Town Run

This Thursday, we (the Gaveller, Ant, John, Mike, Mark, Pete de B and Ruth and Jason) did a town run from The Eldon House, a new Bath Ales pub off the Triangle in Bristol.

Since it was a TACH run, it was predominantly 0ff-road, even if only a couple of fields venturted past the city boundary. We began by gaining height past Clifton Hill House and Goldney Hall before descending the steps down to the Marchants’ Arms and the Nova Scotia. As we crossed the road onto the path beside the New Cut to the railway bridge, we tangled with a group out from Bad Tri. They seemed to be running around the docks. I am sure they would have found our route more interesting.

Over the bridge, we caut across Greville Smythe Park and they around the City Ground to pick up the path across the railway line and along Colliter’s Brook. Across the Brook we looped round the sheep fields, where central government wants to build houses and local dogwalkers take those animals that cannot be trusted near other dogs in the park. We cut back along another branch of the stream into the Ashton Vale Trading Estate and then across the footbridge over the railway onto Bedminster Down. After a good stretch along the grass, we climbed up to the Cross Hands and crossed over to a smaller section of the Down before descending by back lanes to Hartcliffe Way. Here we crossed over and mad our way up Parson Street to pick up the Malago Greenway into Victoria Park. We had a little wobble finding our way over the hill to St Luke’s Road – I wonder if St Luke’s is the church that was turned into a mosque?

We made our way under the railway tunnel and over the footbridge to the back of St Mary Redcliffe Church (the fairest parish church in all England according the Queen Elizabeth I). Around the Church, we took in Queen’s Square, Pero’s Bridge, @Bristol, the Cathedral and the stature of Rajah Ram Mohan Roy before we cut through Brandon Hill Nature Park to Jaconbs Wells Road and the pub.

There we drank Spa, Gem and Barnstormer and enjoyed a chinwag.

Racing

I haven’t run in many races lately, but the revered captain of Town and Country Harriers (TACH), John McD, talked me into entering the Exmoor Stagger, a 15-mile milti-terrain race up the Quantocks to Dunkery Beacon from Minehead. It was, after all, high time I had another go. However, on the day, the said revered captain had a nasty cold, so he could not participate personally. So. on Sunday 21st October, I set off in our van with Emma and Lucien of GWR, to whom said captain had offered a lift.

As it happened, Emma and Lucien were charming company up and down the M5 and back and forth along the coast road to Minehead. We got there in very good time, which was ‘a good thing’, because it meant we found a parking place close to the race HQ and had time to find our bearings.

In the event, there were only three TACH runners at the start line, Turtle, Patrick and myself. The weather was perfect for such a long run – bright and cool. We set off in the opposite direction from the one I expected, and it turned out that the whole course was completely different from how I rememberd it. When I questioned those around me, I discovered that the course had been more or less the same for five years, which means it must have been at least six years since I last ran the race.

I started quite strongly and avoided the ignominy of being switched to the shorter Exmoor Stumble with comparative ease. However, I found the climb up to Dunkery Beacon very testing and I had to walk much of it. I was hoping to make up time on the descent, but instead of the wide track I was expecting, there was a narrow, rocky, slippery sheep track, which allowed younger legs to scamper away from me down the hillside. Under other circumstances, I would have enjoyed the switchback path that wound in and out of narrow combes cut by gurgling streams with rocky waterfalls and the distant views, but my legs were beginning to lose interest in any pace faster than a walk, and I had to give up all hope of catching Jim White of Weston AC, whose yellow vest in the dstance had acted as a spur on the way up. I ven had to allow his daughre Ruth to overtake as well.

Eventually, James Garland of Bad Tri caught me up, which proved to be a god-send. I didn’t know who he was, but he recognised me, because he had run in some of our TACH races, and introduced himself. He kept me talking until we reached the bottom of the descent from Dunkery Beacon. He pulled away during the cruel climb up the final ridge, but I caught up again at the last drinks station, where I was encouraged to take a couple of jelly babies and half a banana as well as a drink of water. Whether it was the banana or the jelly babies or the gradient of the final descent, I am not sure; but I seemed to have acquired a completely new set of legs. I could now enjoy the distant view of Porlock Bay and the light shining between the pine trees. I even started overtaking a few people, although there was one man with a camel back (water container), whom I could not quite catch.

I was greeted by Patrick and the contingent from Weston AC at the finish. (I was even invited to join the Weston team photo!) Turtle came in a few minutes later behind another man with a camel back, whom I had overtaken on the last descent.

Later, I found out that Emma had won a prize in the V35 category. Lucien finished some time after Turtle. It turned out that it was the first time Lucien had ever run that far – he looked a bit shell-shocked! I also finished ahead of James Eastwood. I won no prize, but I am definitely back into racing. As I write I am calculating how much I will have to increase my weekly mileage to finish ahead of Jim and Ruth!

The Song of the Woodwoses

Beware you quango-planners

You men in suits of grey

You faceless men in offices

Who care not what we say

Beware the curse of Woodwoses

Will haunt you till you die

And ghostly feet you’ll hear at night

Of wild men rushing by

 

In ancient days they bellowed here

Their eyes with passion burned

Uprooted trees and herded stones

In circles as they turned

And now they have returned again

To Avon’s Forest ring

To stamp their feet upon the earth

And make the ley lines sing:

 

The song of the Earth

 

The Earth has greater powers than you

You nameless suited men

Your Mother longs to suck your blood

And play your bones again

And dance again as once She danced

To make all life begin

To the rhythm of the drums She’s made

From stretched out human skin

 

© C.J. Bloor 2007