Betrayal

Dear Reader,

Cornwall

Cornwall has large reserves of tin which was mixed extensively during the Bronze Age by people associated with the Beaker culture. Tin is necessary to make bronze from copper, and by about 1600 BCE the West Country was experiencing a trade boon by the export of tin across Europe.

An independent British polity was established in Cornwall and was defended against Saxon incursion for many hundreds of years.   Not until 838 were the 'West Britons' finally subdued and for centuries after this Cornwall retained many of the marks of a separate country.

Cornwall, or Kernow as it is known in Cornish, has a unique Celtic heritage and is considered one of the Celtic nations.  The Celtic nations are made up of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Brittany and Cornwall.

The Cornish Pasty is the undisputed national dish.  Beef, potato, swede, onion, salt and pepper folded in pastry to make a D shape and side crimped.   The original Cornish pasties were eaten in the darkness of Cornwall's coastal mines.

                                                                               *

From D.H. Lawrence    February 9th   1919 in Derbyshire

'It is marvelous weather - brilliant sunshine on the snow, clear as summer, slightly golden sun, distance lit up.  But it is immensely cold- everything frozen solid- milk, mustard everything.  Yesterday I went out for a real walk-  I had had a cold and been in bed. I climbed with my niece to the bare top of the hills.  Wonderful to see the foot marks on the snow - beautiful ropes of rabbit prints, trailing away over the brows; heavy hare marks; a fox so sharp and dainty, going over the wall:  birds with two feet that hop; very splendid straight advance of a pheasant; wood pigeons that are clumsy and move in flocks, splendid little leaping marks of weasels coming along like a necklace chain of berries, odd little filigree of the field mice; the trail of a mole - it astonishing what a world of wild creatures one feels about one, on the hills in the snow.'

From Thomas Hardy    February 10th 1897 in Dorset

'In spite of myself I cannot help noticing countenances and tempers in objects of scenery, e.g. trees, hills, houses.'

 

                                                                             *

 

Betrayal

 

You were always there
for me, as I for you.
Your read to me
you laughed with me
you told me stories
of magic and imagination.

We travelled north and south
to Scotland and the Western Isles
enjoyed Dorset, Devon, Cornwall.
Went to see the Lakes
peeped into Beatrix Potter's house
felt cold in Dove Cottage where
you put my hand in your pocket.

We were one heartbeat.

But you have gone.
Now I have to try to live
another life
with you not there,
with someone else perhaps,
someone to fill the empty gap
you left me with.

Please forgive me darling.

                                                                         *

With very best wishes, Patricia