That Was Then

 Dear Reader,

The river Evenlode is a tributary of the Thames in Oxfordshire.  It rises near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire in the Cotswold Hills and flows south-east to the Thames, its valley providing the route of the southern part of the Cotswold Line.

The river flows for 45 miles from source to the River Thames.   The name Evenlode is modern, until the late 1890s the river was called the River Blade, hence the name Bladen.  The Ordnance Survey of 1884 already uses the name Evenlode.

The river joins the Thames approximately one mile down river from Cassington on the reach above King's Lock, 3 miles north west of Oxford.  The river is privately owned, used for fishing and other leisure activities.  Hilare Belloc commemorated the river in some of his poetry. 

 From D.H. Lawrence   February 15th 1916 in Cornwall

"Here the winds are so black and terrible.  they rush with such force that the house shudders, though the old walls are very solid and thick.   Only occasionally the gulls rise very slowly into the air.  And all the while the wind rushes and thuds and booms,  one forgets the rest of life.  It shuts one in within its massive violent world.   Sometimes a wave bursts with a great explosion against one of the outlying rocks, and there is a tremendous ghost standing high on the sea, a great tall whiteness.'  

 

From James Woodforde  February 18th  1795 in Norfolk

'Very hard frost with strong easterly winds, a black frost......Had a fire again in my bedchamber to-night.' 

 

                                                                                      *

That Was Then

We made our home
where the west wind blew
and the sun shone, sometimes
we walked where people
we met in the street
or in the country lanes
exchanged news,
people well known to us
growing infants to children,
teenagers to married couples.

We walked by the Evenlode river
up into the fields where
butterflies gathered in the clover.
We saw horses grazing,
wheat fields full
of red remembrance poppies,
the first primrose and bluebells
in the spring, foxgloves,
cowparsley dressing the hedgerows,
summer roses,
the first autumn leaves
fluttering to the ground,
and winter snow.

He walked ahead,
I followed.
We held hands, embraced,

but that was then.

                                                                        *

With very best wishes, Patricia