Levelling

Mr and Mrs Schnark have enjoyed a weeks holiday in South Wales, staying in a charming terraced cottage in the village of Crickhowell, that stands beside the River Usk between the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains.

We enjoyed walks on nearby Sugar Loaf, and Table Mountain, which gave its Welsh name to the village of Crug Hywel, Seat of “Hywel”, and more sheltered walks along the tow path of nearby Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal.

We arrived at Abergavenny around midnight after work on Friday, and the flooding of the Severn Tunnel, and found shelter in the Kings Head for the night. The following day, the weather remaining a little iffey, Mrs Schnark, laden with shopping, decided to cover the six and half miles to Crickhowell by bus; I had with me my two wheeled donkey so I went ahead to strike camp.

At the end of the week, smitten by the tow path, Mrs Schnark agreed to make the return on foot. Apart from arriving at the canal, and having to pass the laden donkey over a stile, which was steps protruding from a five foot wall, and eight feet down on the other side, all went without hitch. For the most part the original tow path was unmolested and the donkey was able to wheel his way almost effortlessly. We were entranced by the reflections of autumn leaves. The cooked breakfast of leftover faggots and bubble and squeak, for which we’d had little appetite at Six O’ Clock, made an excellent lunch eaten whilst gazing into the glassy calm, disturbed only by ducks, and the occasional over excited young Collie. We missed our turning, as I often do on canal paths, lost in a parallel world, passing over and under all the alternative routes, but the route we found back to Abergavenny might have been a gentler descent than the first choice.

Reflecting on these three passages between Abergavenny and Crickhowell, I thought how easy life is for us charmed mortals. A bus fare of £2.20p, or twenty five minutes on the well surfaced A40, which is bypassed by the A465 dual carriageway. There was no toll, I was not harassed by traffic, thieves or vagabonds and I arrived in the village by Castle Road, needed only dismount for the steep descent of Bridge Street. But these pavements, the roads, and the towpath of the canal do not build or maintain themselves. Imagine a world without roads canals, or railways; “easy”, I hear you counter, “we’ll take the footpaths”, but who lays and maintains those? Who builds the bridges and trims the brambles, who obliges rival clans to allow the stranger to cross their lands.

We have climbed to some height, and I question when politicians talk of “levelling up”, do they realise how far we have to fall?