online: 2 september 2012 modified: 25, 26 august, 2 september 2012 25 august 2012 country rides
around Welshpool
...just back from an afternoon ride in a four-wheel-drive vehicle to show me views from the Long Mountain and to visit (on the way) a country airport or airfield...
...the airport is composed of a long tarmac runway and several hangers containing light planes... and alongside is a 'Wales ambulance helicopter' (which is being attended to with rotor blades turning)...
...it was a pleasant shock to see small aeroplanes close at hand... (many decades after i left the world of aircraft design)... and to see in this small airport the kind of local flying facility which all towns were expected to develop in the 1930s... a utopia which never happened... except in a few places like this where local enthusiasts and business people have managed to go against the trend to long distance flying from ever larger airports... which are becoming small towns in themselves... or vast economic growth centres... with consequent threats to the biosphere (the extended self of everyone)...
...after staying to watch a small training aircraft diving and rolling and looping... and other aerobatic manoeuvres... i was taken along twisty country roads looking for occasional long-distance views through gaps in the high hedges that are growing so profusely this very wet summer...
...the first surprise in this invigorating mountain drive was to see a misty sub-cloud blowing amongst pines and seemingly forming itself out of the damp air (perhaps an example of a diffuse kind of spontaneous creation)...
...but perhaps it was not water vapour but smoke... as it seemed to be thickest not at treetops but at ground level...
...we drove up and down in a zigzag... stopping at viewpoints... my sister and her daughter (who were taking this trip to show me the district... so different from the city) kept talking to each other about the people they knew living here and there on the Long Mountain... and of the family who own the airport... and this indeed is so different from the city... where most neighbours are strangers... and the whole thing seems beyond us... while in this countryside of farmers and small business everyone has a place and a character known to others and this is how the way of life is maintained...
...and now as i think over this trip i wonder what it is that makes the country and the city so different... i wonder if it is ownership of land that makes the difference... in the country you either own the land yourself or know the people who own local land and business... but in the city (and also in the city forest) the land and business is owned by people far away... or it's owned by social fictions called companies... or invented brands... or corporations... which are not composed of people... but of abstract roles and concepts such as management or marketing or government or public service... or other legal fictions...
...at which my thoughts become too abstract for comfort... so i simply let go of subhuman theory while enjoying country life...
next day:
...my sister surprised me with a ride in her car to the village of Berriew... close to the border of Wales and England... the village includes houses constructed of visible timber frames (painted black) and clay and wattle or brickwork filler (painted white) in the pre-renaissance tradition that still exists in central Wales...
...the village is set in a rocky river valley and includes an unfamiliar building which was once a squash court and has been reconstructed by Andrew Logan as a museum of his sculptures, jewellery and neo-mythical artworks... many of which are constructed of small pieces of broken mirrors... and are described in the leaflet as
the art of popular poetry and metropolitan glamour...
an extravaganza that is simultaneously absurd, funny and moving,,,
...and believe or not this very English eccentricity is described in the leaflet in both Welsh and English and is made welcome here by the Arts Council of Wales and other organisations for the promotion of the arts and local life... though it is controlled by the the artist himself...
...and to me... this pleasant cultural aftershock... is an encouraging signal that one person alone can enliven a whole culture by adding to it some lively artworks... both popular and sublime... while retaining and sharing the spontaneity we are born with...
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