Winter sketching via the old roman road.

 

GRAMPOUND TO PROBUS

If I’m out with my sketch book then it’s the norm for me to be walking alone. Few would want to hang around while I sat and scribbled, and on a frosty afternoon, even if the sun was out people prefer to keep on the move.

I took the No27 bus east from Probus square and got off at the next stop in Grampound. I used to live here, but my aim today was simply walk back to Probus, so the only bit of the village I saw was the hill rising steeply out of Old Grampound. The ancient road must have been here since Roman times as it leads to the old encampment of Carvosa, no following the valley as the busy modern road does. I would not be meeting any traffic here and the noise of the main road was suitably distant. It’s a tough beginning for old bones like mine, but I plod these days and get there in the end. The steep climb in tunnel like shrouded by ancient oaks until you reach the flat typically narrow Cornish lane that leads you to the Trewithen farm entrance and bridal path. 

From here I took the woodland path as far as the main eastern gates of Trewithen stopping for another scribble while bathed in brilliant sunshine. Had to keep moving as my feet were frozen, on towards Golden Manor. 

Walking along this section of road is not advised unless you are determined and alert enough to throw yourself into the hedge to avoid oncoming cars. I’m too old for that sort of Russian roulette so plod through the fields, keeping close to the roadside hedges. There is no livestock this time of year and I make sure this is not a day when there’s a shoot on.

 From Golden I take the lane leading back to Probus on the south side of Trewithen, where old top heavy pines overhang the road while others lie horizontal, taken by a gale that has snapped them like twigs splintering their great trunk with a force that is hard to imagine. Home in time for tea and a warm up of frozen fingers. My ramblings are much shorter than those I took in my youth, but I still don’t tell anyone where I’m heading. How can I, when I don’t even know myself. Much like my creative output I have little in the way of an expected outcome and am always delighted by the unexpected. When walking this most often takes the form of close encounters with nature. Alone there is no one to talk to and little sound to inform of my approach. There are times when I’ve been prepared with camera to record that fleeting encounter, and others when I’ve been able to take my time and record something special in my sketchbook. I too marvel how David Attenborough and his camera crew manage to record such events. To sit quiet and benign alongside another living creature and sketch their likeness is very humbling. On the south coast of Western Australia beyond Cape Le Grand National Park I came across a carpet python sunning itself and spent fifteen minutes sketching the beauty of its coiled markings. Not all of nature is as obliging as a still life drawing, and it maybe a process of repeated observation of that movement before a complete image is formed. There are always exceptions, and times when it is difficult to distinguish exactly who is the observer and who the observed.

The Australian magpie perched on a post while I was drawing a view of the pink salt lake outside Esperance seemed as intrigued by me and my stillness. It wasn’t the first time I’d been closely observed by a bird. A wedge tail eagle hung above me, his shadow crossing my sketchpad as he floated in the thermal of Peak Charles. In Spain the first I knew of the vulture was the flapping of wings as it realised at the last minute I wasn’t simply another piece of inanimate rock or dead carrion. To be at one with nature can happen anywhere, in your back garden or in some far flung wilderness. Iguanas like to find a high point for observation, and will often remain immobile on a convenient post. They are not fussy about their perching spot and one friend found himself with an iguana perched on his head. Whether fleeting or sustained these encounters remain with me, unlike the more forgettable meetings with my fellow beings. The words of Lord Byron sum it up.

There is pleasure in the pathless woods;

There is a rapture on the lonely shore;

There is society where none intrude,

By the deep sea and music in its roar,

I love not man the less but nature more.