Distance: 6.3km
Accessibility: Level dirt tracks, with occasional pavements. Some steep hills, and one uneven bridge.
Landscape: Countryside, fields and hedgerows.
Moonlight is beautiful. An eternal cliche, but easy to forget. The guiding nature of the silver glow has lit the path of so much of our folklore. Reverse sunshine that helps you through the night, and illuminates our stories.
I am writing up today's walk at my cluttered kitchen table. The moon shines through the window, decent as any lamp. Silence is all encompassing after seven o’clock in The House In The Woods. Heavy oak beams and grey stones in the fireplaces muffle the world outside. A strong wind knocked over a plant pot earlier, and the clatter made me lose a mug to the kitchen tiles. But this is ideal for crafting. Privacy was a key factor in the house purchase.
Compared to the ancient scenery of Fyxen Dun, Ácwern Bog is a standard dog walk. You spend time chugging along tarmacked paths besides crumbling walls from long forgotten farmlands and estates. People live somewhere round here, but the geography steers you away from their dwellings, leaving you with a sense of discombobulation from reality.
But this is a merry trail with more character than it first seems. A rickety bridge crosses a stream bubbling with weeds and pebbles. Wiry plants nestle in broken brickwork, and the first buds of leaves struggle on the hedgerows. Human beings may be out of reach, but these pockets of nature burst with life.
I love the idea of secret corners of nature. Deliberate or not, this image forms one of the core ideas behind the Butter Mouse. At heart the books explore the fun of heart a small creature living in a tiny cottage, romping across the fields on adventures with his friends, without mankind ever knowing.
I do not take credit for inventing this of course. My works are one path carved through this concept alongside many others. But my readers lapped them up. Do we all want privacy in our dreams?
In the whole two hour journey fellow travellers appeared only once. About halfway the path opened up, and neat grass formed a rough embankment either side. On the left rise stood a girl no older than six, and a woman who must have been her grandmother. She had a lot of chunky jewellery, amber and green. If they saw me, they chose not to say hello.
They crouch over an ankle height structure made of leaves. This was not a messy heap, but an interlinked stack like a pioneer’s cottage. The girl held a leaf in each hand.
'Which one goes on top?' She said.
'The flat one,' the older lady replied. ‘Make overs up all the cracks, so you have a tight little house. We say the words in a minute.'
The girl peered inside the leaf cottage, looking for an invisible occupant.
I wanted to ask what they were doing, but I could not get beyond ‘why are you piling up leaves?’ Too rude for a first introduction. So on I went, pleased to have something of note to look back.
But this was not the only surprise at Ácwern Bog.
:::What do you reckon Barbara? Too heavy? I think this passage unlocks the text. Keep to a description of the journey, but mix in anecdotes when the walk get quiet. Make the book a stream of consciousness that obeys certain rules. Joycian with a structure.
Too heavy? Back to the kids’ stuff?!?
Odd about the girl and her grandmother. Already thinking about a sequel examining the folklore of the area. Too much to cover in this one.
That leaf cottage keeps rolling round my mind.:::
