Under the Howgills

(Written 11/11/05, 9am)

It hasn't been an easy week. Pressures from different directions, car woes, decorating, work stress.

With all these impacts I didn't expect to feel as joyful as I do right now. I'm sitting beside our Chief Exec as we drive to a meeting. The wind is blowing like a malevolent spirit - we've already passed one overturned lorry. The little red Italian car shivers and skips in the crosswind, but the motorway flies by smoothly, at speed.

Counting Crows is on the stereo. We're driving through the Howgills, broad, rounded moutains, secretive and largely ignored. They're verdant green, marbled with bracken-bands of gold, and grey stone lines of possession. Hundreds of people pass these hills every day, rushing by on the curve of the motorway. But hardly any of those drivers and passengers know their name.

We've claimed these hills a thousand times over, bound them in stone walls, trampled them under our feet and under those of our beasts. But they still own themselves, and they're still beautiful.

There's a lesson in there somewhere.