September

[Sweder]

The sun rose some time ago as I worked between the chambers on Main Stem. So much to do! Checking the sugar-stores for the Unborn, stacking food at the Nesting Place in readiness for the season-end Hatchlings, prepping troops to forage into new lands, despatching sentinels to scan approaches for Sky Raiders. It’s been a strange year; so much rain, not much sun yet an abundance of rich foliage for all that. Stocks are plentiful, we are greater in number than at any time in my brief lifespan. Our legions move from territory to territory, sap-harvests reach record volumes. The work continues; we build, we grow! Our Great Day approaches, our time comes . . .

I’ve been so busy I barely noticed the Rose Hips ripening on the Outer Branches. They’re turning yellow to red, blood-sweet skin blooming under a silken sheen. Three sunrises more - maybe four - and I’ll lead a harvest team onto the first bud. So many nutrients packed into so compact a vessel! Easy feeding, just in time to greet the Unborn. They will feed well, grow strong to lead a bold new army to glory and conquest. I must go and check the sap-rise; it’s not so far, just an awkward clamber into the Outer Branches. Not many leaves to munch on along the way, very little cover. But I must ensure these buds truly hold the precious force we need to fuel the Triumphant Generation.

Got to be careful; there’s a lot of Big Creature activity in this sector. There’s already been a few stinking Four Legs come through. They don’t trouble us here, high in the safety of Main Stem, but they do push and shove into the Lower Reaches, causing the whole assembly to tremble like world's end! Wouldn’t want to be hanging off a shiny, slippery fruit cluster when that happens . . .

Oh Mighty Aphina! Sweetness beyond dreams . . . these buds yield nectar beyond all reckoning! What a new breed we shall have, such an army as has never before scaled these lands! The rise of the Aphids has been a slow and careful travelling, knowledge-wealth handed down through our genetic code, evolved through generations in readiness for these momentous times. The culmination of millennia, the dawn of a new generation; Evolution! Conquest!

Must return, so much to do. Ah - that lone raindrop, clear sweet pearl, nature’s devine candy . . . I should take a sip . . .
WHAT!??? NO! -


That was close. I almost stacked the bike – and, more to the point, my own delicate frame - in the ugly cloth-grabbing thicket hedging the muddy switch-back beneath Stable Rise. The thorny tendrils all but tore a chunk out of my arm. I was distracted by those lustrous Rose Hip buds – I missed them yesterday on the run. It’s important to pay attention, especially on the super-slippery sections around the gates, more so when balanced on relatively unfamiliar wheels. I don’t want to end up with a face full of gorse spikes anytime soon.

Although nowhere near as satisfying as yesterday's re-affirming adventure today’s mounted thrash was still a decent workout. I heaved and puffed up the long slow pull of Mount Harry, a bizarre parody of a man in cardiac arrest. I've come to realise that the hardest sections are tougher to climb on the bike that they are to run. I'd certainly not expected that but here was the proof. That nasty little section out of the woods before the gauntlet of gorse and flint leading up Wicker Man Hill always sucks the energy out of my calves. Today I was all but stood still on the bike, in the lowest gear (lowest, that is, on the mid drive-sprocket – I refuse to drop down to the easier sprocket. It’s a macho thing - oh, and I hope you like my use of the technical cycling terms), struggling up the incline until finally I could relax back onto the (spitefully skinny) seat.

The hurtle home was, as ever, hair-raising. Discarded sheep offerings, ubiquitous across the rough-hewn trail, flew off my unguarded tyres to splatter my white running shirt with a generous dash of green-brown sludge. Lovely. After the first two-wheeled outing I’d press-ganged a pair of cheap sunglasses I’d found in someone’s car on the way to some golf day or other. These were now coated in crud as I sped downhill, standing up on the pedals taking mini-jumps at thirty-plus miles per hour, teeth clenched, eyes squinting behind the fouled shades. Gypsy, faithful Lurcher, chaser of racehorses, kept pace admirably even when I clunked through the gears to reach maximum velocity in the bosom of the inter-hill cleavage. She runs beautifully; sleek belly flat to the floor, legs flying back and forth, head thrust dutifully forward, tongue flapping from her open maw. She really loves these flat-out hammerings. I never cease to wonder at her capacity to repeat maximum effort on every descent. Willow, issued with woefully short legs, an abundance of thick curly hair and a portly Cocker's countenance, bundled along in a game attempt to match our speed. Halfway up Mount Harry she caught us, pre-Raphaelite ears flapping madly as if at any moment she might leave the ground, defying gravity to soar amongst the low grey cloud above the bracken.

Today’s weather, whilst not exactly glorious, was far kinder than yesterday’s ugly beating. Yet once again I’m sorry to report my old companion Tess abstained. Alas I sense this pattern will continue. It’s a new era, a painful collection of firsts and lasts. First refusal, first resigned shuffle back to the house, back-to-back bail-outs. These will inevitably lead to the lasts; last outing with the bike, last long run, last rabbit chase, last longing look towards the grazing sheep, last nefarious dump in front of a poor unsuspecting rambler, last walk, last cuddle on the sofa, last breath. Terminal decline surrounds us but it doesn’t get any easier to understand, much less accept.

I was deep in conversation with Captain Tom last night on this very subject. One of our golfing associates passed away at the weekend. A mutual friend had hailed him across a station platform only last week. The fellow had waved back cheerily, an apparent picture of rude health. We discussed a possible eulogy on the MGS website. The problem is this fellow had less redeeming features than he did annoying habits. Constructing a fair and noble epitaph whilst describing a man we could all recognise was proving beyond the wit of Captain Tom.
‘My Mum’ he said with a rueful glance ‘told me that if you can’t say anything nice about a person it’s often best to say nothing at all.’

Oh, I don’t know . . . I recall a thrilling piece penned by Hunter Thompson on the death and funeral of his arch-nemesis, Richard Milhouse Nixon. It was published verbatim in Rolling Stone. Here’s a snippet to give a sense, a flavour if you will, of the piece.

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon’s funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a President. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.