nunoncastors

I’ve been catching up on emails recently because, to be perfectly frank, I haven’t really checked my inbox for months and I’m therefore somewhat behind. I’m a naughty, naughty man, yes I am. Anyway, in checking through I’ve uncovered this, a blog post that was never posted, no idea why, but here we go.

You know, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy that giddy mix of pleasure and excitement that flares up whenever you stumble across something new and hidden, there’s just something so very illicit about it.

Invariably your discovery is nothing new of course – a place around a bend in a footpath, a hidden nook beyond a rise that no one else climbs – but at the time you’re the first, and in your head it’s a forgotten secret, something hidden away from the ages. It’s silly, but I love it.

So yesterday, when I took my bike out for a thrash across the fields and journeyed far beyond the iron rails that gird my domain, imagine my delight at finding a sunken path to a naiad’s pool and my grief at finding it deserted.

Well, ok, not grief, but I’m still holding on to a small hope that mythology is in some way real.

There’s probably never been a naiad in it either, possibly a Nix of a Kelpie.

Anyway, it’s the first time I’ve really been out and explored my new home because, to be honest, there’s something quite bleak about Netherfield that saps your desire to do so. Shuttered shops proliferate, vicious beasts known as ‘locals’ roam the streets and a swath of industrial estates weighs upon you like a leaden sky. It isn’t exactly conducive to having a nice little walk to see what we can see.

Unless, of course, you overcome the urge to lock and bolt the doors, bar the windows and hunker down in your duvet with a cup of warm cocoa and go out, dig beneath the dirt and discover a hidden trove of secret paths, limpid pools and great big bridges.

I think I quite like it here.

Curiously, after a few months, I still do.