'the country is filled with the ringing strokes of the chopping axes...' (incidents of mirror travel)

'I went up the cwm this afternoon. the road was cut to pieces by the ponderous timber carriages dragging timber down from the cwm dingle, and old james jones the stonebreaker was in despair... 

the country is filled with the ringing strokes of the chopping axes...'

- kilvert, diaries, 24th april 1872.

horsemouth is back from the bell-ringing

to his shame the bell rope slipped through his fingers last night and he had to be rescued. other than that it went ok. (er,) he could have done without that happening. but sods law was in effect. 

afterwards beer (which cheered him up). plus he managed to sell some eggs (so that has cheered him up also). 

incidents of mirror travel

‘in the side of a heap of crushed limestone the twelve mirrors were cantilevered in the midst of large clusters of butterflies that had landed on the limestone. for brief moments flying butterflies were reflected; they seemed to fly through a sky of gravel.’

-  robert smithson, incidents of mirror travel in the yucatan (1969). 

it's a beautiful morning outside. horsemouth will be off for a wander at some point. 

a better future (utopia parkway)

it's yesterday evening 

it's yesterday evening when horsemouth types this (as compared to the today when you will probably be reading this). all is good. it is still daylight out and he has locked up the chickens for the night (and fed and watered them before you ask). 

he has spent the day (off and on) reading edouard louis' the end of eddy - his life is still terrible (but then again it's not actually as terrible as just about every other member of his family).

'she thought that she had made mistakes, that without meaning to she had closed the door on a better future... she didn't understand that her trajectory, what she would call her mistakes, fitted in perfectly with a whole set of logical mechanisms that were practically laid down in advance and non-negotiable.' 

he wandered about on the common for a bit. 

today

as will be. he will start working on learning plain hunt again. remind him about the eggs (he was going to take eggs). try to make an effort. 

utopia parkway was a street in queens (where the artist joseph cornell lived).

it's a greyish morning. the bbc weather says it's going to clear and then be good all next week but then be rubbish the week after. hopefully the runner bean plants will be established by then.

he's been out to unleash the chickens. he has his coffee. he has had a letter (his savings seem to be holding up ok). 

love affairs (plans and prospects)

'held a consultation with mrs. venables about my love affairs, plans and prospects. I see how it will all end. alas, who could have believed that I could be such a villain?' 

 - kilvert, diaries, 22nd april 1872. 

it's all coming to an end for kilvert. soon he will leave clyro. later in his middle age he will marry and end up as curate of nearby bredwardine. (but before that he will return to clyro briefly). 

tomorrow no kilvert. (what will horsemouth do? what will horsemouth do?).

ok he's off outside to listen to the radio. (one o'clock news and such). 

his afternoon got sucked into waiting for a TESCO delivery and then into arguments over whether he'd ordered what he had been told to order. 

last night he re-posted  some photos from his POPLARISM voice over for suke driver. there he is in the iron shirt (the red pinstripe suit) with his beard shaved out but some sideboards left on attempting to resemble george lansbury. all this to help him get into character for his reading. 

as usual any photo he posts does much better than anything he writes (there's a lesson in this horsemouth). 

he started reading edouard louis' the end of eddy (he is reading more but he is unable to settle on one particular book). edouard grows up skinny and gay and bullied in some roughneck northern french town. now we know from the reading his biography of his mother that things will eventually come good for him (but not right now). 

horsemouth (being horsemouth) is unlikely to tell you anything about his love affairs (plans and prospects). 

today a greyish morning and cold. horsemouth worries about the runner bean plants he put out. 

water flowing underground

 'a day of wild driving snow, with a fierce bitter wind from the east. mr. venables had a terrible journey to the chapel, on of the worst he has ever had.

preached on the story of balaam extempore this afternoon from numbers xxii, 22 and made a miserable exhibition, very nearly breaking down...' 

- kilvert, diaries, 21st april 1872. 

the leigh folk festival 2026

horsemouth has been contemplating the leigh folk festival (june 25th to june 28th)

this year featuring the mighty lou and leo (who, as you know, he knows) plus roshi nasehi, belinda kempster and fran foote, diana collier (with a band), and the owl service. 

you see that makes a pretty good line up (horsemouth is assuming a sunday in the fishermen's chapel rather than saturday main stage, though to be frank it could be the friday in the fishermen's chapel - time will tell).

kick off times seem to be pretty much about 11am. 

the rest of the line up he pretty much does not know. 

last year himself and howard were put off by hearing a radio show of musicians playing at the festival (all of the modern singer-songwriter type, young people with 4 chord cycle songs). 

one year they were put off by rail strike hell. 

now unless he is covered by a relative this will mean something like going down the saturday night, visiting the festival on the sunday and returning on the monday. he just cannot make the 'travelling up on a sunday morning' work, even if he could get a lift into hereford/ abergavenny/ newport - well ok maybe newport it would work). 

some friends are doing a bookfair may 22nd to 25th, horsemouth would like to go to this also but again struggles to see a way he can do it. 

last night the AGM of the commons water committee 

a spring on the common is fed with water from the malvern hills, it is distributed by old military infrastructure (and more modern alkathene pipe) round a series of water tanks before being sent down seven or eight  'lines' to various of the houses and farms mostly on the edges of the common. the longest line is about 1.2km. 

a schematic of the various pipes and flows is a complicated beast (horsemouth is reminded of the water supply system to the castle in ismail kadare's the siege, the one deliberately designed to baffle human understanding). 

but, driven on by the goad of a regulation 18 order, progress is being made. 

horsemouth thanks the board for their hard work. horsemouth notes (in his humble opinion) that they are a good strong board with a wide range of skills. 

tantalisingly incomplete

it's the 20th of april 1872 and kilvert is returning to clyro.

'left dear hospitable ilston rectory at 8.15 and drove to killay station with mr. and mrs. westhorp and henry. there I bade them all goodbye and they drove on to swansea. as I was taking my ticket hughes, rector of bryngwyn, clapped me on the back. he was going to hay...'

kilvert is obliged to accompany him in third class. 

the next day in clyro 'a day of wild driving snow'. 

meanwhile in the wilds of herefordshire...

horsemouth mostly spent the day reading isaiah berlin's three critics of the enlightenment: vico, hamann, herder and in particular the essay on herder - herder and the enlightenment. which, at about 92 pages, is a decent readable length.

now herder originated the term nationalism but there's less comfort there for a modern day right winger than you might suppose because he's not a fan of the state. his model of nationalism is a more cultural and linguistic one.

'we live in a world we ourselves create'

herder was big into the people and their culture. in his wikipedia entry he is praised for his tantalisingly incomplete ideas. 

a friend proposed benedict anderson's imagined communities as a way out of horsemouth's perplexity - he'll look at that soon. he read it a long time ago and has mostly forgotten it. 

in the evening he carried on reading italo svevo's my life. 

today another beautiful morning. he has planted out most of the runner beans and they seem to have survived the cold night. 

tonight a meeting of the commons water committee. 

'nothing last as long as a good temporary solution...'

on this day in 1872 kilvert is in the gower but plommer (his editor) has not left us a diary entry for this day. kilvert will return to clyro tomorrow probably using the reverse route to the one he used to get there, using railway lines no longer in existence.

last night horsemouth read a little of italo svevo's a life (poor clerk trapped in boring job and straightened circumstances). 

horsemouth's enthusiasm for local politics is somewhat dented. he has realised it is a long time until he gets to exercise his democratic prerogative. 

'this year is what's known as a fallow year for herefordshire council, which means we don't have any scheduled full term local government elections taking place on 7 may 2026.

(there may, however, be by-elections)

this is part of the normal local election cycle. we elect all of our councillors every four years. our next scheduled polls are due to take place on 6 may 2027.'

ok and then horsemouth has to wait until august 2029 (probably) for his next slice of general election democracy action.

yesterday morning he heard the bells from the abbey while he was having a quick dig in the old garden. this made him feel slightly sad because he should be ringing the bells to get in his practice but he finds the abbey bells a bit scary. 

yesterday a walk on the common (usual route).

howard went for a wander round the olympic park (including a visit to the new V&A). there, what should he find, but a poster for the hackney homeless festival. 

here's the festival booklet.

horsemouth's band were about then but they didn't play (this was a bad move on their part). back to the planet, RDF, the rhythmites, the sea, the tofu love frogs, anorak lovechild, the co-creators, one style MDV, that's probably the cream of that crusty scene. 

ah the levellers were there as well. only senser are missing (unless of course you know different). 

horsemouth was there (er. in the audience), everyone he knew was there (probably), he remembers sussanah being there (so probably billy and that lot). 

frankly, given the state of his memory, all the rest of it is a blur. 

apparently it's on as part of tom hunter selects.

meanwhile in the wen the homeless and the renters march including the E15 mum's campaign (respect due). 

today a beautiful morning in the wilds. later a walk. 

everything in print

18th april 1872 and kilvert is still on holiday in the gower. he's off to the mumbles.

'a tramway runs along the roadside from swansea to the mumbles, upon which ply railway carriages drawn by horses.

oystermouth castle stands nobly upon a hill overlooking the town and bay. the lurid copper smoke hung in a dense cloud over swansea, and the great fleet of oyster boats under the cliff was heaving in the greenest sea I ever saw...' 

'I read. it is like a disease, I read everything that comes to hand, everything that meets my glance: newspapers, schoolbooks, bits of paper found in the street, recipes, children's books. everything in print.'

- from the illiterate by Ágota kristóf, describing her childhood in hungary.

horsemouth read the notebook by her a long time ago. and yesterday he read an article on her in the LRB and a few other things he found on google books.  she learned to speak french and then read french later in life (this is why she is the illiterate) and then began to write in it (like e.m.cioran, like milan kundera, like samuel beckett). 

she was another writer who burned their diaries. 

it's still a bit cold in the mornings and overnight. this is making horsemouth hesitant about planting out the runner beans (he's got the bamboo frame for them in already). the overnight temperatures are staying low all week.