Blackberries. Releasing themselves on the vine.
This ‘going deeper’ is often misunderstood. One might think of that more as listening deeper. Being prepared to listen to what’s actually there, only more carefully. Then following with tender attention to detail. With expectations and outcomes, releasing. Work for you?

My whole system is booting down after all of the activity over the past weeks. The weather has put a crimp in my walking activities ‘though I am still getting out, but just locally. No striding across distant green hills.

Partly taken from an email to a friend who is having physical difficulties. A thought 4 u here.

The remains of Iain that didn’t make it into the fire box
And still there is the going on.

Train driver
Going on.

What is there to say? What left to say? What remains? What is next?

For me it is to rest, for Edera it is to fly back to Japan and resume her life there. Did we have a footplate ride on that big black monster, day before yesterday? Did we hear the whistle blow as the last of the ashes were thrown into the fire box? Was that winter rain this afternoon? A chill in the air this evening? Yes all of that, and more.

How quickly what has happened, even in this day, fades in the face of a dawning tomorrow. This is as it must be. All that remains is the echo of the whistle, the sight of a falling tear.

Onwards.

This afternoon I took up Iain’s ticket on a most improbably double-decker bus tour to Stainmore Summit and Belah Viaduct at the head of the Eden Valley. As the can-do driver said, often, this is probably the first double-decker to come up this road. That road was actually a single track lane winding it’s way up the valley between unfenced fields with cows and sheep gawping at the spectacle as we lumbered upwards. In true British fashion, when in adversity, the passengers became jolly, bright and participatory. Cheering the driver on through narrow gaps and rounds of applause too for other major achievements along the way. We were on this trip to view the now defunct Belah Viaduct, a major jewel in the Stainmore line linking Barnard Castle and Tebay. A most ambitious project in its’ day.

Earlier in the day we scattered a portion of Iain’s ashes on Tailbrigg hill. This was the same spot he had scattered his grandfathers ashes many years earlier. We got a fine dusting of our friend in the swirling wind!

Into the air Iain. You would have loved to-days trip. I was quite scared in places yet glad to be there in your stead. The new Stainmore Summit sign another grand achievement. It replaces the old one taken down after the line was closed in 1962.

Iain’s grandfather was a signalman on the summit.

The other day I was making light fun about the seeming obsession of these railway enthusiasts restoring the station and line. Mike the chairman of the railway company opened his eyes wide and said with good humour, It is your heritage my dear! Duly chastened, I now have a renewed appreciation of what the age of steam brought forth.