online: 25 february 2013 modified: 18, 25 february 2013 17 february 2013 in a landscape of power
Blenheim Palace estate
...looking down at seven swans swimming slowly on a lake... about 5m below the high bank on which i am sitting... my electric gloves have become ineffective... also the touch-screen pen... so i'm writing with one bare finger...
...when suddenly... in the peace and near silence... there is the explosive beating and flapping of wing tips on water... as the swans rise as one and fly together for almost a kilometre across the artificial lake...
...a man stands upright to fish from a rowing boat propelled slowly by another man... while on the bank a man and a woman clasp hands to climb the steep slope... on which i am still sitting...
...now i hear a trumpet-like sound... which may the single cry of a goose... or it may signal the closing of the park... and so i move on... for it's a long way to the gatehouse and satellite village... and today i can only walk slowly...
...then walking across a vast sandstone bridge (leading from nowhere to an equally vast ceremonial palace)... i feel in the presence of the unbounded power of kings and queens and dukes and duchesses... before government was depersonalised and made bureaucratic if not democratic... hmmm...
...presented (a few minutes later in the satellite village of the same sandstone as the palace) with a delicious tea of cucumber sandwiches, clotted cream and jam, scones and sponge cake with Indian tea or herbal... in a small hotel and cafe... in the guest book of which someone writes 'thank you for comfy beds and a friendly welcome'... and with teddy bears sitting at some of the tables...
...in retrospect:
as strange an encounter as Alice in Wonderland... (which i suppose you might also see as a picture of power relations)...
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