I find it hard not to be in a place without imagining who has stepped there before me. When I was living in Asia, I used to visit cemeteries, read the names on the headstones and wonder at the lives lived in the tropics before air conditioning and modern medicine. When I am in Australia, I listen to the crazy sounding bird life and imagine what it must have sounded like to the convicts transported there from Dorset where they were used to hearing light, trilling bird song. And how incomprehensible it must have been for First Nations people to be faced with the sudden appearance on their shores of over-bearingly dangerous people from overseas. When I stand in our house in Leiden which was built in the 16th century, I transport myself back to its first occupiers and marvel at how different their lives were from mine today. And yet, we seek shelter from the same building they did - I joke that they might recognise the plumbing though.
Life was perilous and short, as it still is for many….
It is particularly easy to travel back in time when walking along the ancient green ways of Dorset (many of which have not changed much in centuries) or standing on the Roman and Iron Age hill forts which surround my home here. On top of Pilsdon Pen, you can look straight across to the wooded top of Lewesdon Hill, the highest point in Dorset. A couple of weeks ago, I did a loop from Broadwindsor, up Pilsdon, down into the valley and then up Lewesdon before returning to Broadwindsor for cake and coffee. Some seriously sweaty inclines. Even on the warm and sunny day I had chosen for my trek, my mind turned to how wet, windswept and cold hill fort dwellers must have been most of the time and how badly everything must have smelt. Also, how all-encompassing the dark would have been and how properly frightening given the murderous hoards roaming around and the unquestioning belief in the potential for evil spirits to appear suddenly out of the gloom. The only people I encountered on my route were a lovely couple from Birmingham who cheerfully assured me I was near the top of the hill - I must have looked as though I was flagging. Only in my over-active imagination did they whip out their iron age axes and chase me down the hill.
I am grateful for everything I have, but running water and an electric lighting which allow for cleaning and my near-nocturnal work practices are high on the list.
Attached is a painting I have done of Lewesdon as seen from Pilsdon Pen. My mother says she can see cows in the painting, but I can inform you there are none. If you look very carefully, perhaps you can see me amongst the trees of Lewesdon or maybe it is a Celt?