walks in Herefordshire - Peter Arscott

May Hill hovering on the horizon

The fitter your legs, the fitter your mind. This is what I told myself as I slogged up Bradlow Hill to my favourite viewing spot one harsh cold morning last week. It’s good for you, colder temperatures help people think clearly, people perform tasks better. What’s more, people are less inclined to tackle cognitive problems in the summer, as opposed to winter, because the warm weather uses more glucose that’s needed for mental processes.

the slog uphill

Yes, a long, brisk walk is as good as a run when it comes to lowering risk of high blood pressure and high cholesterol because it’s the total energy used, you see, rather than the intensity of the workout, that counts.

frond vase

Encouraged, I tried tackling a cognitive problem. When did time begin? Where does a thought go when it’s forgotten? Where do lost socks go when they are missing? No answer presented itself.

hoar frost

But it was cold. Very cold. Everything was covered in wispy white and the mud, usually so slippery and just waiting to play with you, was ice solid and didn’t try any of its old tricks. I decided it was a hoar frost. Later, when I got home, I looked up “hoar” – it comes from an Old English adjective that means “showing signs of old age”. In this context, it refers to the frost that makes trees and bushes look like white hair. It is formed by direct condensation of water vapour to ice at temperatures below freezing.

frozen worm roof

More cognitive problems: which came first – the chicken or the egg? Why do men have nipples? What would happen if somebody hired two private detectives to follow each other? At a cinema or theatre, which armrest is yours? What happens to worms when the earth above them has frozen? Just think how nice it would be to sleep curled up in a warm place, like a worm when the temperature goes down and the frost appears. They burrow below the frost line where they nest in chambers at the bottom of tunnels they dig, kept moist by the slimy mucus they produce. All that soil above them keeping them warm, like a blanket – bad news for birds, no matter how early they get up on a cold winter’s day.

do worms dream?

Do worms communicate? Do they produce any sound? My research later showed up all sorts of interesting facts, like worm grunting – which is the art of rubbing iron and wood to cause vibrations in the ground that cause worms to wriggle to the surface – but I read that earthworms do not have vocal cords, lungs or larynx to drive air through and generate noise, and why didn’t I enrol in a biology class, it was suggested, and get a life.

lobe vase

Looking around at the whitened landscape another cognitive problem came to me. What makes stoneware and porcelain white? I know this one: kaolin, or rather kaolinite, a mineral. Kaolin is the only type of clay from which a white, translucent, vitreous ceramic can be made. It is a refractory clay, meaning that it can be fired at high temperatures without deforming, and it is white-burning, meaning that it imparts whiteness to the finished ware, be it stoneware or porcelain. Ceramicists like Edmund de Waal usually like their pieces in their pure white state.

Much as I like the white of stoneware and porcelain, because I am a painter, I feel the need to colour the surface with stains and oxides before dipping the piece in a transparent glaze and firing it to 1275℃.

horn vase

By the way, it turns out that Kaolinite is also used in toothpaste, incandescent lightbulbs, cosmetics, paint, whitewash and paper. Some people even eat it to help digestion or to lower food toxicity, but don’t try it at home.

bottom mystery

When I got to the top of the hill, I saw that someone had already beaten me to CJ’s bench and left his or her mark. In full Sherlock cognitive mode, I studied the patch left by the person’s bottom on the frosted wood: hmmm, not a large person, and very confident of the waterproof clothing worn, and given the heat required to melt the ice, I surmised the person had, like me, climbed the hill to the bench to generate such heat. Therefore, the person was ahead of me and in the woods. I decided not to test the theory. If I rushed ahead and approached walkers ahead of me whilst looking for damp patches on their bottoms I would only get into trouble.

three legged bowl 52

Instead, I looked at the low wintry skyline and noticed a thin finger of cloud below the top of May Hill, which made it look as if it were floating just above the horizon.

raven photo: www.copetersen.com

The rest of the walk through the woods was uneventful with only a few walkers crossing paths, no squirrels, no birdsong, only the neighbourhood raven who always croaks way above the trees. It made me think of Merlina, the Queen raven that recently disappeared from the Tower of London, presumed dead. It was Charles II who officially decree that the birds must be kept at the Tower at all times (otherwise the kingdom would collapse), and when numbers fell to just a single raven guard, Winston Churchill ordered that the flock — known as an “unkindness” — was increased to at least six.

Seeing the landscape beyond through the vertical grid of the trees, I was reminded of a vase I made some time ago, thus the next two pictures:

view through the trees

You may have noticed that I have taken the advice of my marketing manager, St Spyridon (see previous blog), and have scattered images of recently made vases throughout this blog in a haphazard manner unrelated to the text. He assures me it is called scattergun influencer marketing and all the kids are doing it, and why am I calling this blog worm grunting? It’s got nothing to do with ceramics.

Brittle Star

Nor has this: some of you who read my verbiage, my waffle, my flannel, might be interested in listening to me read a section from a short story called sibling published in Brittle Star. Please join us for the magazine’s first ever virtual launch, hosted by the Barbican Library through Zoom. Free to attend, just click here to register. It is the publication’s twentieth birthday, with readings by contributors strictly limited to five minutes each. There will be no ceramics on view, no matter what Spiro says about it being a great marketing opportunity. It will be on 26th January at 6pm until 7pm (UK time).

Keep well.

Driving back from the Gwalia* Ceramics gallery in Llangollen, the consequences of this pandemic were apparent. Businesses are having to make difficult decisions, and the ceramics rattling gently in the back of the car were not unwanted but rather a reminder of how vulnerable small enterprises are. The lovely Gwalia Ceramics is having to wind down and I was bringing my unsold pieces home.

The A49 meanders through some beautiful countryside but there are few opportunities to overtake on it. From outside Shrewsbury all the way to Leominster I was stuck behind a food delivery lorry. No doubt with Brexit in mind and in preparation against the invasion of chlorinated chickens from the USA, a large image of a plump roast chicken surrounded by potatoes and veg, a Union Jack background, and with the slogan “Eat British Chicken” hovered before my eyes for forty miles. By the time it turned off at Leominster I was truly hungry and stopped to gulp down a small pork pie I had bought in Llangollen for supper that night.

With the Gwalia ceramics unloaded and stored back on their shelves it is always interesting to see work again after some time. Sometimes you are surprised by a colour achieved and you can’t remember how you did it, or you notice a shape or contour for the first time, which you decide to apply to a new piece. The mossy green on the Loop Vase is a tone I will repeat.

Talking of which (“green”, that is) we get spoilt in Spring, what with all the bloom and fresh growth. I set off for a walk in the woods a few afternoons ago. It was hot and sultry, overcast, with a hint of rain in the air, but the trees were not offering any cool shade and the undergrowth looked tired; without a hint of anything flowering it was a dull grey/green carpet. It even smelled different – tacky mud and dried up puddles. I was just about to show my disappointment with Nature by turning back home and watching another episode of “Call my Agent” (it cheers me up) when at last I spotted a pink flower.

Now, I would be a complete fraud if I claimed to know a lot about plants and flowers. With the recent lockdown and the increased walks I am learning on the trot, but I have recently downloaded an app that helps identify most things in a couple of seconds. This one turned out to be a Hairy Willowherb.

Because its dense and aggressive growth habits can crowd out and destroy other native plants, a sort of rural bullyboy that goes around beating up the feeble pretty ones that tremble and hide behind trees, it is considered a problem, an “unwanted” plant that is difficult to eradicate. Local names include “apple-pie” and “codlins-and-cream”. So, it can’t be all that bad. In fact, the shoots of the willowherb can be boiled and eaten like asparagus. This I can believe, since it seems that any stem or shoot of a non-poisonous plant or veg can be boiled and served cold with mayonnaise as “poor man’s asparagus” – I have eaten beetroot stalks in this way.

Anyway, I was struck by the “unwanted” epithet given to so much that grows in the landscape. Not only willowherb, but also the next one I stumbled on – the Bull Thistle.

It may be considered a noxious weed by some authorities, but it produces a large amount of nectar and attracts pollinators. Its entire bud is featured with stiff spines that make it look like a fierce bull. It is also called a Spear Thistle and is designated an “injurious weed” under the UK Weeds Act 1959 (no, I didn’t know about that either) despite the fact that it feeds butterflies, beetles and small birds. Guess what? Yes, the stems can be peeled and steamed or boiled.

The third plant to get my attention was the usually disregarded bitter dock, which is another unwanted plant apparently growing and spreading out of control, and in such competition with other “wanted” or cultivated plants that it aggressively overpowers them. But I have always seen it growing in the countryside and to me it seems to happily coexist with nettles (which I expect is yet another “unwanted” plant) and most other unidentified vegetation. Furthermore, the large clusters of shoots which contain small greenish flowers change to a deep reddish brown as they mature and serve as visual punctuation marks in the landscape specially against a greenish background.

watercolour of Malvern Hills – bitter doc, bottom right

The doc’s name variation depends on the leaf – if they are huge it is a broad-leaved dock. Blunt-leaved dock was used to wrap butter in the 19th century. Hence, it is called butter dock. And the bitter dock may be an invasive weed, but It serves as an effective laxative.

By now I was dreaming up plans to cultivate a Garden of the Unwanted dedicated to all these unappreciated and unloved rural thugs, when I felt something strange on my left arm. Unlike insects which surreptitiously puncture the skin with needle-like organs, female horse flies have specially adapted mouth-parts which they use to rip and/or slice flesh apart. Research later showed that they thrive in hot rainy weather and that “the female horse fly is secretive, with an annoying ability to land without being detected and escaping before the victim begins to experience any pain”, but in this case I most definitely felt it.

I brushed it off and noticed another had landed on my right arm and was already tying its bib around its neck in readiness when I flicked it off. When I felt something land on the back of my neck, I decided I had had enough of Nature for the day and beat a retreat. They can persistently chase you at a flying speed of around 15mph and they did until I crossed paths with a couple walking their dog, who offered my tormentors far tastier fare.

I am sorry but horseflies are unwanted “unwanted” and will have no place in my Garden – you have to draw the line somewhere. To compensate for the dark shadow cast by these beasts here are two sunny images, one above of peacock butterflies feeding on lilac, and one below of sunflowers in a large vase.

*Gwalia is an archaic Welsh name for Wales. It derives from the Medieval Latin Wallia, which in turn is a Latinisation of the English “Wales”.

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worm grunting

Wanted