The Lane

Each morning we consider the most important question of the day: where shall we walk? We have options: a three hour circular, but one involving stiles a daddy-long-legs would have difficulty clambering over  -  a much shorter walk but less scenic and involving several steep hills - the circular ridgeway route

 or, our favourite because it doesn’t involve squeezing into boots and tying complex knots, ‘the lane.’

At the very end of the lane is ‘Tregate Bridge’ and a decision, do we take a left turn to Crickhowell or turn right to Welsh Newton? I can’t be doing with decisions during a pandemic, besides it’s too far to walk, so we content ourselves with a brisk two-and-a-half-mile trot, our destination a mysterious shed.

I am quietly convinced ‘the shed’ is a cunningly disguised albeit dilapidated Tardis. It hasn’t got around to mastering time (as far as I know) but it’s certainly mastered space. The damn thing never seems to stay in one place.

Time and time again, we convince ourselves it’s just around a clearly defined corner, but it never is. 

Sometimes it’s located on the corner after that, or even one farther along, sometimes it’s exactly where it should be. It’s very exciting – the most exciting thing of a locked-down life – wondering where the shed will have located itself on any particular day.

You might think it gets kind of tedious, taking the same lane but in fact it never is.

Sometimes the sheep are excitable, other days they’re not. 

Those planning to cut their own hair during lockdown - consider.

And then there’s hedgerows bursting with butterflies and bees and every kind of wildflower. My wife is most patient. She knows it’s a ruse to pause and gain breath, but she says nothing as I stop to take pictures. Then again, it’s nice to know via ‘plant-snap’ what these flowers are, Celandine, Dog violets, and my current favourite Morning Campion.

The lane has its own mystery. This section is one of my favourites, little changed— apart from road surface—from the C18th.

Gorgeous in Summer, rich in mystery on dark winter nights when you half-expect highwaymen or worse: Hell-hounds, ghost-coaches, or the Devil waiting to trick a man for his soul—maybe in exchange for a shed that never stays still.