Sanity Amidst The Slate

Inspired by a brief stay in a small North Wales town.

Rhosydd Quarry, Blaenau Ffestiniog (© J. Reid)

I recently spent a few days in North Wales during the uncertain interregnum between Christmas and the New Year. I often find myself in Britain’s wilder parts at such a time.

It’s worth being occasionally reminded how small we individually are, whether briefly impinging on time’s eternal passage or a tiny dot in a sweeping landscape.

Yet my reflections below are still drawn to the human, the intimate, the quirky literary links between us and the past.

Sanity Amidst The Slate

The inn is small and neat, my puddle-wet feet
pointedly remarked on by its prim Liverpudlian host.
Paul O’Grady reincarnated, he recites rote
the when and where of breakfast and room.
My gaydar is a klaxon when he beams at me,
my devilish muse whispering: ‘Be the Mog to his Myfanwy’.
I later learn his is the Beetle adorned with
Herbie stripes and ox-eye daisies,
a plane purser’s legacy of cosseting virgin honeymooners.
Of course it is. Of course he was. And of course they weren’t.

A poster in the inn's tap-bar displays a revived alphabet,
six usurper’s letters replaced with its ancient eight.
Germanic runes reveal the tortuous Middle-England link
to elves and dwarves, reciting in Tolkien’s tongues.
No pronunciation guide is provided for these digraphic diphthongs.
My muse intrudes again: A ‘Celtic Countdown’ with English contestants,
tortured heads in hands, pleading for just one vowel
to interrupt the flagellant flow of consonants, 
the jubilant host wielding with ease an accent
between happy-go-lucky and fervent release.

The high street is compact and sensible, business not charity,
enough pubs to hide the town during a lock-up or lockdown.
Two doors away, they sell fish and chips and a place to sit.
My order, free of foreign gluten and the nation’s accent,
is taken by a silent Wednesday, with raven-black hair and coal-fired eyes.
Her older sisters’ sing-song fills the restaurant,
whilst father prepares with care my rare, heavenly feast.
Girl-Friday remains watchful, penetrating, intriguing.
She serves my main – and only – course,
fine dining with shaken vinegar and squeezed tartare sauce.

Next day, I do what I promised myself,
ascending over sodden sponge into scudding clouds.
Finding only pagan sheep and uncaring gods,
I slide on rain-slicked slate, the driven hail
a thousand needles on my battered face.
With flapping map, I discern a trail down
from these ruinous, shattered hills, 
where steam-driven industrial might
once turned layered rock into envied grey walls, 
slate roofs and cursed school chalkboards.

On my curtailed hike’s return, a farmer stops in his four-by four,
three stoppered jugs of milk on the passenger floor.
I confirm the lone troll he spied before is me, insane but safe.
“Sorry about Susan,” he says.
Water drips from my frown. I don’t recognise
the name, a need for my sorrow or her shame.
“Susie – my dog who ran after you,” he explains.
I counter his best friend was today’s true source
of happiness, not the silent boulders whipped
by unremitting winds and wild loneliness.

The Welsh Alphabet / Y Wyddor