THE Lane Nobody Notices
Our Lane be a lovely tricksy place.
Small, quiet and easily missed.
It will go where you need to go …
when you’re not in a hurry
Your first walk …
Now then, me dear … our Lane do only be a little ‘un.
An tis small and quiet and so tis easy for them as don’t know to miss it.
But I can tell ‘ee this, it do allus go just purrzackly where you needs to go,
even an’ you doesn’t know where that be yersell,
just so long as you b’aint in a hurry.
So you come allong’a me now, an’we’ll see where it do want to take us today..
Now, this first bit o’ the lane yere, that’s good hard walking,
but I dessay the lane hersel’ might be a bit damp,
an’ p’rhaps a bit rougher than you’m used to.
You’m gonna get your feet muddy, so don’t you setting off in your best shoes like.
Best if you gets your feet in a good ole stout pair o’ walkin’ boots, then you’ll be fine.
Right then, us’ll start off yere just after the village green,
an’ keep the old allotments on your left hand.
Or you might go down a’tweens they two bits o’ the gardens, if you’m of a mind.
One way’s as good as t’other.
An’ whichever way you chooses
will bring you to the old, gnarled twisted tree what marks the way.
An’ there you turns, and the path’ll take ‘y on.
Arter us takes the turning,
Down yere, atween the lovely golen bracken,
Us’ll not a be goin’ long afore us comes to a little bridge.
Tis a wee packhorse bridge just one horse wide,
As old as old.
It’ll cross us over the Little Silver Stream,
What comes down from the moor.
Us’ll cross over yere.
An’ then, once us gets on t’other side,
Then soon again we’ll be making choices.
Fist thing us comes to is them there, girt great boulders
You see ’em there?
They do be keepin’ the old hill from slidin’ on down on the path and fillin’ up river on t’other side.
The hill herself put ‘em there,
an’ the gods only knows when.
They do seem to have been there time outer mind.
But they does their job just fine.
Anyroad, there by the boulders you’ll be seein’ how the path do climb up the hill. So us has a choice.
Now, today, I think we’ll take oursells up there.
Another day we can go on along by the river,
an’ a pretty path that is too,
but today the weather’s good so we’ll head on up.
The path climbs pretty steep but you looks young enough to handle that and, anyroad, if an old codger like me can do itthen you won’t have no trouble.
So do you come along now,
let’s be gettin’ our backsides up thicky ol’ slope.
That’s right. You’ll be needing that there stick.
Best if tis a good old ash plant like mine yere,
there ain’t nowt like a good sturdy ash plant
not for helpin’ you get up them there steep bits.
And now, d’ye see?
We’s come out on a flatter bit
for the path do follow the contours around the hill like.
And now we’s right and truly up in the woods.
These ol’ woods be ancient.
No one ain’t never took an axe to these ol’ trees.
They’m guardians …
An’ I can tell ‘ee now, if any on’ a’done such a thing there’d be an uproar.
An’ not just from the human souls, but them trees theirsells would have summat to say about it.
An I tell y’ now,
I’d not want to be in the shoes o’ the one what wielded that there axe!
Well now … an’ so us’ve got oursells up yere.
Now do y’ just stop a moment, take a breath, look about you.
Thicky ol’ trees do have a lot to say, don’t they … when ‘y stops to listen.
A lot o’ us, the young’uns as well as us old codgers,
we do come up yere just to listen on ‘em.
An’ we allus comes down with a bite o’ wisdom what we didna have on the way up.
Now, how’s about us setts oursells down?
I brought a bag o’ vittals from the Inn, and a flask of tea?
The forest settles in front of you now,
all the shades of red you could ever imagine and lit with gold,
set off by dark black trunks and deep brilliant greens.
Autumn … the death of the year?
But this looks like the fire of Life itself.
You’d thought they were different …
You sit a while with the Old One
And they offer you tea, and a hunk of nut-bread spread with local butter
and a lump of golden cheese to go with it.
You eat, and drink.
And the sun slowly rolls down the sky.
Soon it will be time to go home …
