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The Virtual Rambler
Number seventeen: 3rd October 2011
Night Walks
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Sleep , that grudged interruption for the carpe diem brigade , proves
a sovereign friend to a troubled mind. Its snug animal warmth , detached
from
obligations and stress , its dreaming adventures in surreal landscapes.
I've long been envious of chimps and gorillas , who sleep for ten and
twelve hours
a night respectively , of reptiles whose bouts of activity are infrequent
interruptions to an otherwise somnolent mode of life , not to mention those
hibernators with the good sense to see out their winters in the deepest of
sleeps. Lately , however , osteo-arthiritis has foisted itself upon your
author ,
reducing him to the slow gait of the Living Dead , although fuelled
internally by medication more appropriate to the Grateful Dead. For those in
too much
discomfort for prolonged sleep , night-times start looming like sundown for
a tourist in Transylvania. After an hour or two of tossing and turning , I
sometimes get up and dressed for a stroll , to the delight of my border
collie , Harry , and the pair of us take the nocturnal air. While the city
sleeps ,
the solitary stroller is a prince of all he surveys.
The initial path we follow bisects a plot of allotments on one side and
fenced yards on the other , whose inhabitants; horses , geese and
chickens -
are all fast asleep in their coops and stables. Not so the wild creatures of
the night ; from the far side of the allotments comes that curious ,
high-pitched lament of foxes and among the trees ahead sounds an owl's
melancholy refrain. Now the path turns past a vandalised clubhouse
overlooking
an overgrown cricket pitch. The clouds racing across a half-moon , urged
across the sky by strong Autumn winds , seem as restless as an invalid in
a tangled bed. It puts me in mind of the Larkin poem in which the
narrator's glance up at the moon "Is a reminder of the strength and pain
/ Of being young;
that it can't come again / But is for others undiminished somewhere." We
turn into parkland where the rippling beck by our side reflects snatches of
moonlight as it passes along a sequence of weirs. These are remnants of the
water-powered industry that once inhabited this valley. There were tanneries
,
paper-making and corn mills. Thence into the steep-sloped woods that have
grown over a complex of nineteenth century quarries. Their gritstone was
used
to build the proximate cottages and the factories whose occasional
foundations now line the riverbanks. There is some scuttling in the
undergrowth , which
prompts Harry to race off in hunting mode.
He re-joins me later as I limp out of the park , heading towards the site of
a mediaeval corn-mill. It was rebuilt by Samuel Smith (father of the
Tadcaster
brewer) in 1857 and then became known as the Old Tannery. Having opened for
work when Dickens had just completed Little Dorrit , it was for many years
the
main employer of local labour. The allotments and yards , the cricket pitch
and much of the older housing on its perimeters were the bequest of its
paternalistic
owners to those who worked for them. It became a fellmongers in the
twentieth century and went out of business in 1994. The place was eventually
converted
into a complex of 'Executive Flats'. Here's an echo of the transition
from an industrial to a financial economy. Formerly it housed the business
of separating
sheepskin and wool from hides still dripping with blood in an atmosphere
clouded with chemicals and steam. Now a single light shines from a
third-floor window.
Some go-getting young heir of Mr. Merdle(1) perhaps , monitoring
tomorrow's financial markets as he conjures with his portfolio of futures
, options and
derivatives ? Economic cycles are inherently transitory. The earlier output
of tangible commodities such as corn for bread , leather for clothing and
footwear ,
stone and wood for building materials and paper , has given way to a
nebulous world of service providers and service users , although we continue
to require food ,
warmth and shelter and , in the morning , our daily ration of tabloid tosh.
The last lap takes us past the fish-stocked lodge whose waters once supplied
the
mill's steam-engine. A satellite traverses the heavenly orbs as we head
back home , Harry with a nose to the ground and his owner musing upon all
that has been
and gone hereabouts. Is there a more fleeting figure than a night-walker
pondering local transience ?
Wig.
(1) The dodgy financier in Little Dorrit ,
whose mysterious wheelings
and dealings in the stock market end in the sort of economic 'crash' and
subsequent distress we are all too familiar with.
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Archive
Virtual rambler #1 – Posturing,
9th March 2010
Virtual rambler #2 –
Managerialism, 17th March 2010
Virtual rambler #3 – Nostalgia,
27th March 2010
Virtual rambler #4 – The Alpha
Male, 13th April 2010
Virtual rambler #5 – General
Elections, 3rd May 2010
Virtual rambler #6 – The Leisure
Industry, 15th May 2010
Virtual rambler #7 – Guide to
The World Cup, 15th June 2010
Virtual rambler #8 – Human
Nature, 12th July 2010
Virtual rambler #9 –
Communities, 13th August 2010
Virtual rambler #10 – Worlds
Apart, 6th October 2010
Virtual rambler #11 – Dawdling,
22nd November 2010
Virtual rambler #12 – ELVIS,
24th December 2010
Virtual rambler #13 –
Transience, 4th February 2011
Virtual rambler #14 – Regional
Accents, 15th April 2011
Virtual rambler #15 – The
Afterlife, 21st July 2011
Virtual rambler #16 – Bizspeak,
27th August 2011
Virtual rambler #17 – Night
Walks, 3rd October 2011
Virtual rambler #18 – Bob Dylan
and Charles Dickens, 8th November 2011
Virtual rambler #19 – Another
Nutty Professor, 16th December 2011
Virtual rambler #20 – Customer
Choice, 16th January 2012
Virtual rambler #21 – Wearing
Shorts, 18th February 2012
Virtual rambler #22 – A Brief
History of Progress, 17th March 2012
Virtual rambler #23 – The Myth
of Sisyphus, 16th April 2012
Virtual rambler #24 – Natural
History, 20th May 2012
Virtual rambler #25 – European
Self Importance, 26th June 2012
Virtual rambler #26 – Sweet
Dreams, 25th July 2012
Virtual rambler #27 – Excess,
17th August 2012
Virtual rambler #28 – In Denial,
20th September 2012
Virtual rambler #29 – The Way,
21st October 2012
Virtual rambler #30 – On
Rambling, 14th November 2012
Virtual rambler #31 – Gazing
Into The Abyss, 18th December 2012
Virtual rambler #32 –
Intellectual Gloom, 25th January 2013
Virtual rambler #33 – Great
Human Achievements, 20th February 2013
Virtual rambler #34 –
Autobiography, 20th March 2013
Virtual rambler #35 – Your Good
Health, 21st April 2013
Virtual rambler #36 –
Deconstruction, 20th May 2013
Virtual rambler #37 – My Home
Town, 19th June 2013
Virtual rambler #38 – Ancient
History, 21st July 2013
Virtual rambler #39 –
Possessions, 20th August 2013
Virtual rambler #40 – Sporting
Stoics, 20th September 2013
Virtual rambler #41 – Free Time,
20th October 2013
Virtual rambler #42 – Ewan Don't
Allow, 20th November 2013
Virtual rambler #43 – A Literary
Nexus, 20th December 2013
Virtual rambler #44 – Taking
Liberties, 16th January 2014
Virtual rambler #45 – More or
Less, 20th February 2014
Virtual rambler #46 – Under
Control, 20th March 2014
Virtual rambler #47 – Waiting,
20th April 2014
Virtual rambler #48 – They Rose
Without Trace, 20th May 2014
Virtual rambler #49 – Bigger
Impression , Smaller Footprint, 20th June 2014
Virtual rambler #50 –
Terpsichorean Instrumentations, 18th July 2014
Virtual rambler #51 – Socially
Mediated, 19th August 2014
Virtual rambler #52 – Rambling Into The Sunset, 20th September 2014
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