Walking Eleri

Away from the estuary, the long, straight stretch of water channelled along the edge of the bog, draining it into the sea.

Away from this along a winding stream rippling over a stony bed, rushing towards its salty end. 

Back from this through the tunnel of trees, or so it seems in summer when the leaves hang heavy over the water.

But now - in spring - the winding river meandering this way and that between wooded banks is lighter, airier, less mysterious. Leaves are unfurling but not yet luxuriant.

Even so its enchantments are a joy to the heart: anenomes in hollows along the edge, sunlight falling on glittering rapids or glazing deep pools in slow-moving channels with yellow-green light.

Walking upstream into this place is like walking into a dream, a vision of the blessed realm, but here tangible, in space and time, the world we know, enclosing and enduring.

Step by step I pace the river; the river runs on. But the path falters, losing itself in a sea of aromatic wood garlic leaves. I have to leave the river, climb a steep bank away from the flow into a field.

Bereft of the river now. The field is empty but the river rushes on beneath the trees, a hidden mystery.

I cross the field to a lane. Then walk on another way to find her again flowing beneath an old stone bridge. I pause as I cross but cannot recover the sense of travelling to a hidden country. The road home is hard and I tread it heavily. 

An Autumn Day

Between two weather systems, one either side of the island, so today is bright and clear, the low Sun in a blue sky with occasional scudding clouds moving steadily in the breeze and casting shadows on the land as they pass. The pale, clear light of the Sun illuminates the brittle leaves still on the trees, dry rusty-gold and faded yellow, yet they glow in the translucent air.

As often on clear days the roar of low-flying military jets suddenly fills the valley, taking advantage of the perfect weather for practice following the contours of the hills. Just as suddenly they are gone, looping back to some far distant air base, and the only sound left behind is the mewing of a pair of buzzards overhead. Are these from the huge nest I spotted at the top of one of the trees growing further down the slope but visible from the path along the ridge which is level with the treetops?

The dew pond on Bryn Hir was full of water with pondweed growing in it, as if it were always so and not just as likely to be dry as it sometimes is when I visit. The view from here displays the Eleri Valley as a long, curved sweep between hills and I can pick out places I walk to and woods I pass through above the river, and the line of the river in the narrow gorge below the wooded slopes. In the other direction a v-shaped patch of sea is visible between two rounded hills, offset from each other but appearing level in this angle of view.

It is a perfect day. I walk back down off the open hillside and into the woods again. There is a choice of paths where I often hesitate before deciding which way to take. Today I go up through a derelict gate and round the hill fort where a short-lived wooden motte and bailey castle was erected in the 12th century by an intrusive Norman lord. Now it is almost inaccessible because of the bramble and gorse that clothe the slopes. I keep to the footpath across a wet, boggy field and then take the lane down to the village.

The arils on the ancient yew in the churchyard are beginning to darken. Here under the deep green shade I look out at the sunlight on the hillside trees shining amber through the autumnal hues of the leaves. Below, the stream rushes down into a culvert and the sound of it contrasts with the stillness of the water in the well-shaft of the Holy Well where I pause and carry a blessing home.

After the Flood

I awoke last weekend to the sound of sirens down on the main road and later saw helicopters hovering on the outskirts of the village. But it was not until someone phoned to check if we were OK that I realised what was wrong. Heavy rain had fallen all day on Friday and through the night. The severity of the weather was indicated by a dead house martin in the porch with no visible signs of being mauled by our cats. But still I had to switch on the television before I realised the full extent of the flooding almost on our doorstep. The river Leri (Eleri) had burst through banks and over bridges to flood two nearby villages and engulf a riverside caravan site situated just below our village. The helicopters were rescuing stranded people from the caravans.

We stayed at home for the rest of the weekend. The river Rheidol had also burst its banks and flooded the retail park in Aberystwyth. Living on a hill we were unaffected as the rest of the weekend was quite dry and sunny. I left it a few days before taking a bus to the river estuary at Ynyslas and walking the four miles or so back along the river valley. The river was diverted in the 19th century so the final mile or so to the estuary is a wide straight channel which was constructed to drain an area at the edge of Borth Bog (Cors Fochno) to create new fields. Some of these fields have since been allowed to revert to wetlands and are managed as part of the Cors Fochno nature reserve. Other fields are still farmed but one of these resembled a lake and a farmer was using his tractor engine to drive a larger pump which was transferring water from the field over the embankment into the river through a huge pipe. It looked like he would be there for some time. There was a considerable amount of debris along the silty edges of the banks, mostly tree branches and other natural objects, but also manufactured items including a large calor gas canister such as those used on caravan sites.

All along one side of the bank, apparently unaffected by the flood, grew as mass of Thrift - or Sea Pink - flowers (see picture above). It was not until I reached the point where the embanked straight channel changed to the narrower curves of the natural course of the river that the real devastation of the flood became apparent. The river level was much higher than usual, the water grey with silt and running at great force. The bankside vegetation had all been flattened and a line of silty deposits indicated where the waters had risen over the banks. There is a place where I have often stood in the shade of alders watching the easy flow of the silvery waters, and where I once saw a kingfisher flash through a pool of light beneath a gap in the canopy. It was no place to stand now, but I stood there anyway. A dragonfly hovered for a moment, in the distance I heard a cuckoo calling from the willow carr; life went on.

Further upstream I passed through one of the villages that had been inundated. A house right on the river had windows and doors wide open to take advantage of the sunny day and the light breeze to dry it out. Gardens were covered in silt and sodden household items were piled up against a wall. I avoided the path I usually take which follows the river past the caravan park. But looking down from a higher path I could see tarmac paths uplifted from their foundations, elsewhere items were scattered randomly or stacked neatly where the clean-up had begun. People with diggers, tractors or just shovels were busy at the task.

Climbing the slope back up to my house its steepness seemed like a blessing. The blue skies were beginning to cloud over. More rain was on the way.

KINGFISHER

Sitting under the shade of alder trees
A sense of stillness and silence out of the Sun

Though a breeze is rustling the leaves above
And the ripple of the flow of water over stones

Tells of movement and fills the place with sound:
Eleri sings a soothing song as she rushes on.

Then, against the flow, the whirr of a bird
Flashing past over the river, flying upstream

And following it with my eyes I caught
In a patch of sunlight – a gleam

Of electric blue – then blinked it away
Back into the shade and round the bend

Of the river. Still she sang
Rushing on to the sea, Eleri,

Bringing back a stillness and a silence
Out of the tumble of water over the stony bed.

I sat and added to my store of treasure
A blue jewel flashing in dappled shade.

None of it is mine, though I hoard it all
In the nest of memory Time has lent me.