The Little Gidding walk with commentary by renowned rambler TS Eliot

It is often said that in the wildlands of the East Midlands there can be changes in the rain and wind patterns that take even the most seasoned explorer by surprise.

One may enter expecting a fine sunshiny day with shadows stretched along the ground  and a gathering of like-minded folk, exchanging  pleasantries as they pick the wild cucumber and beetroot growing merrily by the wayside only to find that rising up from the depths below there can be wildebeest and dragons, all willing to do to the Ramblers what the Ramblers are doing to the bushes.

And painful that would be I can tell you.

But I hear you cry, forthsooth!   There are but mere clouds passing at a distance and nothing to concern the hardened walker who has beaten paths far more mundane than these within a millimetre of their existence without let or hindrance!

And yet, and yet, such forthsoothiness may not be exactly the right action upon a walk for the aforementioned clouds can indeed gather, and forsoothly swoop, especially around their foreswarn enemies, the pylons, which march unbidden across the wilderness, or at last across the ploughed fields.

Where do they come from, we ask, and indeed where goes’t these monsters, but answer comes there none for as we approach they remain still and unmoving, taunting us with our short strides and limited height mostly under 6 feet 2 inches.

And so they stand, mocking us as we attempt to make our way as the gloom becomes even gloomier and the darkness descends.

For we are now in the realms of Gidding the lesser, also known as Gidding the Smaller, or on occasion Gidding beneath the even darker clouds than they were a few moments ago.

The gods of darkness close in and we wonder what to do.

More will be revealed in part two, but I must warn you that the darkening clouds are liable to darken even further as we venture into a landscape into which no one had actually ventured for at least 15 minutes, and we prepared ourselves to meet whatever wildness could be found.  As our guest walker proclaimed:

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown, Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,

The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror Midwinter spring is its own season. Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire, The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches, In windless cold that is the heart’s heat, Reflecting in a watery mirror A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.

That’s Rambling for you and no mistake.