trundle by katharine eastman
Yes yes yesterday I was back at the Trundle. My favourite ex-girlfriend and I used to go here a lot, especially during that fantastic holiday we had together in Midhurst, in the Angel Hotel (RIP) - I think it was just towards the end of the whole Covid stupidity and we were totally/literally/honestly the only guests in the whole hotel, and even though this all happened within walking distance of where we live - anyway we both had a brilliant time.
I've just looked back at my magnificent back-catalogue and I see that I've already made an album called The Trundle. So this one is called Trundle. Now that I no longer have a car I sleep so much better and just feel so much freer. Yesterday I got the train to Chichester and walked up to the Trundle and then turned left and walked to Petersfield.
Yes I might be overdoing this walking stuff, particularly in this amazing heat, but I am at the age when i just do not know when it (and I) will all come crashing down around me. Yes I see people who are a lot older than me who are striding about and clearly walking from Lands End to John O'G. But I also know people my own age and younger who can hardly move at all - people who can only go somewhere if there's parking within ten yards and if there's a loo along the way.
So I get out of town as often and as long as possible. Especially as I am downwind of the country's largest oil refinery, one of the country's largest rubbish incinerators, half a dozen docked cruise ships who still keep their engines turning over constantly and jam-packed roads full of vans whose exhaust is like solid charcoal, and a housing density of about ten old boilers per square yard.
Yesterday's highlights were few. Butterflies kept on landing on my skin - I often stop still to look at what's around me - and then they leave off from sucking the juices of horse pooh and flap on over and suck up my sweat. And near the Trundle there are always a lot of light aircraft doing silly things and one of them was a Spitfire. Maybe a replica or something, but I've seen enough war films to know what a Spitfire looks like, plus there was one parked about twenty yards from my house for a couple of days to celebrate that VE Day thing.
Otherwise the only noticeable thing was that there were very few people about (the heat) and that the few who were about were mainly very edgy and nervous and quiet and wanted to ignore me as we passed one another. On the one hand this is depressing, the way the country has sunk into apathy and/or despair. But on the other I am relieved - there is barely anyone out there with any spirit left. So it's just you and me kiddo - and I long for another Covid and those wonderful months of empty hotels and when people were kind to one another. A crazy dream. It'll never happen again.
music today, photo yesterday, the path from the Trundle towards Petersfield
