I am surprised the golf course has remained undeveloped as long as it has. I hope it is because the council are waiting or negotiating for a good scheme to be delivered. It is clear there will be whats is called a sports hub built, but it is not quick to begin.
I tried to make a map of the things I remember happening there, but I have just looked at it, and realise I have omited the people I met, the conversations I have had, the floods, the annual occupation by sheep and the times I’ve had security drive over and tell me to keep to the footpath. So many things. Yet at the same time I think its been uneventful.
The biggest disapointments have been the fact that I have tried to grow wild flowers over there, geurilla gardening you might say but on 4-5 occasions I have scattered wild flower seeds to no avail! The other is my reluctance to use the place more efectively. Right at the start of the blog I believed I would make a set of flags and here we are three years later I have still made no flags. Why is that?
Because flags feel big, by that I mean they represent important things, symbolise something that unites people. Alfred the Great captured the Vikings Black Raven Flag and they ran in retreat with the emblem lost and so was the battle. Alfred was victorious.
There are no Ravens on the golf course, but there are plenty of crows. I believe crows get a bad press: They mate for life, develop social communities with their own dialects to set themselves apart from other groups (murders) in the area. They collectivly help mothers in their community while incubating eggs and feeding young. Here is an amazing crow fact, they have memories and are able to recognise human faces, humans who have been nice to them and those that have tried to hurt them. More than that they can pass on this information to their friends and younger generations. This is a kind of crow folk lore or history. They can use tools and even make their own tools to access hard to reach food.
I had an odd encounter with a crow once, I belive one would have let me touch it, but instead I took a photo of it!
Since then I have thought about crows a little more.
It’s pouring with rain and it’s about that time I would have taken the dog for a walk. And I would have moaned about it as it was raining, but do you know what? I put my water proof jacket on and went for that walk. I went over the golf course like we used to, keeping up to date with developments over there.
My waterproof jacket is a bright green hi-viz one and I thought that if any building work was going on I would be able to get a little closer to it, as if I was a contractor looking in a hole for a spade or measuring something. I thought I might blend in slightly and get away with looking around before I was told to go away. I no longer have the excuse of the dog being off the lead. I have before had conversations without any words with builders and security staff by holding up a dog lead with no dog on the end, and pointing at a dog 30 yards away. Waving as if to say ‘Thanks’ and walking on undisturbed. I can’t pull that one off any more.
But as it turned out there was no building work, no diggers, no workmen. It was as it has always been. Just empty land, like a country park. I did see a single circular weight from a set of dumbbells, probably a 5lbs, then I thought it would be kilos and I just stopped myself as I started walking to pick it up to see what it did weigh, thinking why are you bothering with that? I saw a bedraggled sleeping bag and a plastic washing basket?I could see the trenches that had been dug and filled in again, there were dozens and dozens of these, just big brown lines on the ground, kind of like Nasca lines in Peru? No they were not that good, it would be interesting to see what they looked like from above though.
I tell you what they did remind me of; even though they were a bit too long for this, it did feel like being in a cricket match. As a bowler you have walk up to the wicket or the ‘strip’ and say to the umpire ‘right arm over’ or ‘left arm round’ or whatever your bowling action is. Then you have to pace out your run up, by starting at the batting crease with your back to the wicket you’re going to bowl at and walking off towards the boundary counting however many yards you feel is right for you run up. All the players are watching you do this as the tension builds. You go back to the umpire and give him your jumper and your cap, he has already got one on his head so he has two caps on now. Then you start pointing at a few fielders making gestures with your arms and hands, left a bit, bit more and shouting things like..deeper….more … then another fielder no no shorter .. shorter that’s it. Then you want a gully and someone has to run round from a long way to get there…no no just behind square….no too much.. square’er square’er ..that’s it. Then the non strike batsman starts sledging you! Saying ‘It aint a Fkcunig Test Match Mate. You can’t let that go and you have to say something back like, ‘that’s right because you’re playing’. I did not pace out my run up, or run in as if I was going to bowl, it was way too muddy and I had me wellies on. Can’t play cricket in wellies.
