andvari

Day 3 (2001)
The Third day of this, our strange odyssey, has been a confused jumble of everything, so much so that it hardly seems like the same day. The fiancee's family has arrived, bringing our strange little ceremony one step closer. Her dads customary surliness has vanished in the face of exhaustion though perhaps he was overawe by being in a garden as the one here. The view from the back forty is indescribable, down onto the Shrewsbury plain. I almost feel as though I’m atop a mountain looking out at the great flat that stretches, in neatly hedged shapes, off to the infinite. Journey to the nearest town once more today and arranged to have Danaide's etching framed. The difference between her two etchings is like night and day and while her first is excellent the second declares her talent as a true artist.

I’ve notices, as I write this that my thoughts flow far faster than I can write and my script ends up ragged and my words not fully formed. So frequently my sentences make little sense. Leonardo wrote backwards, I apparently have no such need. The ample provider is a true farm woman, every task she sets her hand to is resolved and always with a smile and a bit of a tale. The work ethic that built this farm is difficult for a gadabout such as I to understand. While I sleep until noon a world is built around me.

I have determined that on the first day on bike we will strive to reach the town of Clun. But the names of the towns around us draw my eye like magnets. Who can resist the lure of Caer Caradoc?

Danaide's sister has arrived, friends in tow. Somehow I doubt she has told her friends that there is no room for them at the farm and they seem to resent being left at the hostel in Shrewsbury. One has brought the same amount of money that we anticipate spending in two and a half days. Perhaps we should live with less.

Day Four
Another Strange jumble of a day, filled with everything from boredom to exhaustion. I did a practice run on my bike from the farm down the hill. The hedgerows close in on you so that it feels like traveling through a chasm or even a tunnel and the wind through the trees rumbles like engines so you are constantly checking for cars. I encountered a truck and backed into a lay by to allow it to pass. The surface of the lay by looked solid, but it wasn’t! Two days of intermittent rain had transformed the dirt into a thick, soupy, gumbo. Still, when you burst from the hedges into a clear patch the view was phenomenal, a sweeping survey of the land below, and was accompanied by an almost overwhelming sense of freedom.
Most of Today was spent working around the farm to prepare it for our big day. Flowers, some from here, others borrowed from the town council were laid out. The back forty was mown, mulch was laid down among the apple trees, windows were washed, everyone pitched in. My sister and her husband arrived near mid afternoon, fresh from Cheddar and Stonehenge and, after a brief rest, were drafted into the fray. Everyone has some important task, except me, all I have to do is get married.