Sometimes my feelings seep through into my writing. Here's an extract from my latest WIP and, in spite of what it says, I miss the moorlands desperately!
As I drove on, higher onto the moorland, the fields became smaller and more angular, hedges gave way to grey, stone walls marking long, narrow strips of land. The cattle of the lower slopes were gradually replaced by wandering sheep that dotted the stony hillsides. I saw many lying slumped against the foot of the walls and it was not until then that I understood the pattern of the dry, grey lines. They had been constructed against the prevailing wind and were designed to provide shelter in a landscape that offered very little natural protection against the elements. This would be a very different place in winter from the scene I could see spread out before me; without the sunshine of a summer’s day it would be truly bleak.
1 comment:
What always boggles my mind about dry stone walling is that in most parts of the country where they are found, someone spent years picking the stones out of the fields year on year in order to make useful land and piled the unwanted stones up around the edges of their plot, which over the centuries evolved into the technique for building stable walls without mortar.
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