February 2008

[Sweder]

There are days when it's all doom and gloom - 'Black . . . BLACK!' as Johnny from the Fast Show would say. I rumbled out of the garage this morning, spluttering as if on contaminated fuel, tires worn, joints shot, pistons creaking and groaning. Mr Cooper, what the bloomin' heck were you playing this morning? A pile of MOR tosh, mediocre trash, hardly what we bears need when emerging from hibernation. I wanted pumping basslines, crashing drums, screaming guitars. I got Tom Petty - I understand Refugee might be poignant in this day and age but it don't cut the mustard when it's a pick-me-up I'm needin' - Moody Blues and - for the love of God - Phil Bloody Collins.

There's no poetry in my soul at the moment. I'm running off-key, getting through the miles like an inmate doing his chores. For sure the landscape's still there, the dancing sunlight, wavering grass, patterned skies, but as Blackcap loomed large on the horizon I ignored it all, placing one heavy foot in front of the other. I'm not worried; it'll come back soon enough. I have to get through this work-a-day phase, shed some lard, oil the wheels. If I mix any more metaphors I'll be in line for a spin on Masterchef; apologies, but its symptomatic of my current malaise.

Inside the last mile I crested Stable Rise. Before and below me sat the town, spread out, blanched by a white winter sun. The landscape appeared in layers, like one of those paintings you get asked to do in Art when you go to Big School; you know, you draw a series of horizons then paint each one a slightly different shade of blue. The shades were grey, edges spiked by the sillhouettes of leafless trees, punctuated by the castle turret and brewery stack, but the painting was familiar all the same. As this vision swam before my sweating brow it dawned on me that I'd seen eight race horses going through their morning warm-up, run through fields stuffed with sheep without so much as an untoward muscle-twitch from the hounds and hadn't seen or heard a car since I left the house forty minutes ago.

Led Zep appeared in my earphones - Four Sticks; not perhaps my favorite Zeppelin number by a long chalk, but, as I reflected on the muddy descent to homeward, sometimes, even when all seems gloomy, your blessings are just around the corner, waiting to be counted.