Logging Out: signs of spring
Logging Out: signs of spring
I left work the other day, and wished Finbow, Robin, Olly, Arta, Martha and Kam and Lex and all these people that were just strangers a few months ago, a good evening, and drove down the winding mountain track.
Normally when I get to the bottom its dark and I have to be really careful and look out for the blinding headlights of cars whooshing past… Once the coast is clear, I slam on the pedal and my growling Gertrude boosts out and goes fast… but she doesn’t love going fast, so she growls and gurgles and makes it abundantly clear that she is not delighted about my demands for combustion and speed.
Once we are cruising at a cool sixty, I ease off, and she huffs and puffs and I pat her dash and say yes Girtie, let’s go, let’s fucking go.
After a little bit of driving, she gives me some delicious hot air and the cab gets nice and warm, and then maybe a little too warm, but on most days, it’s the first time I have been really warm all day… and so I let it get hot.
But the other day, it wasn’t cold or dark when I got to the bottom. There was daylight; I opened my window.
As I drove through the valley, I watched as the sky started to open up and gently glow a dim orange. There were no cars on the road, and when I pushed the pedal down, Gertie raced out merrily and hummed as we bobbed down the road - across the new bridge - and toward town. I stuck my hand out the window and felt the air soft in my fingers.
I got into town and parked on the main road, by this little restaurant called Gwen - which is owned and run by the same people who own and run Ynyshir… (currently the best restaurant in Britain; 10 minutes down the road). But Gwen is tiny, and only seats 8 people; you are basically in the kitchen with the chef, who prepares you a righteous ten-course tasting menu.
But I wasn’t here for food - I was here for parking. And then a walk… because for the first time since I moved here, it was still light when I finished work.
The winter had been bitter cold. The workshop doesn’t really have heating - it’s just a huge old wood mill. We often work all day at 0 degrees, or thereabouts, and sometimes if its reaaaally cold and super sunny, then the metal roof is warmed by the sun - just enough that our frozen condensation is turned to liquid, and it rains indoors! And then instantly freezes as it hits our industrial metal machinery.
But, while it has been cold, this winter has not been defined by the cold… no, the cold has been a minor detail in a dense plot, full of joy and laughter and deep warmth and growth and sometimes bacon and eggs.
I walked down the street, past Gwen, and past the charity shop, the book shop, and the hand-made shoe shop, and the bike shop, and up the hill by the other book shop, and I pulled out a little jablinsky and out of nowhere popped Altaea.
Altaea is a friend of mine, that I met on Halloween on my first night here. She was dressed as the little green eye fella from that movie where aliens walk through doors - i forget the name. I bump into Altaea all the time. The other day we met up to make haggis for a big ceilidh in town. Altaea is an epic chef and does these big dinners for the community. They are all over four courses, and all the food is made from locally grown fresh produce. I joined them for a dinner recently, on a cold winter’s night, and mostly all of the food was pickled, fermented and otherwise preserved from the fall.
One thing was fresh - the bright orange, knuckled and twisty, branch filled carrots. They were grown by the girl whose name I never asked. I so rarely ask people’s names these days. Sometimes asking someone’s name breaks the spell of an interaction with a stranger that feels like a conversation with an old friend.
Any way, I digest. I mean digress. So there was Altaea just beaming with a big old smile and we both took off our headphones and it went without saying that we were now walking together, and so we chatted and walked up to the top of the hill and on the way there Altaea reached down and grabbed a little green leaf and said “eat this!”
And so I ate it and it was delicious. I asked Altaea what it was, and she said “poison” and then belly laughed a most hearty hahahohoho.
And I said that if it was in fact poison, then frankly I wouldn’t even be mad, just impressed at the epic proportion of this prank… I miss pranks.
But no, it was, in fact, Navalwort. A little belly button shaped leaf that is highly edible and not at all poisonous. We turned a corner. I chewed and she told me about all the different plants and how to cook and eat them, and then blaaaaammooooooooooooo a mighty magnificent DAFFODIL - standing, and calmly bursting with life. First one of the year!!!! Altaea said we can’t eat that one. Other people need to see it.
Eventually, as the light faded and our walk naturally concluded, I said good night to Altaea.
I put my headphones on and played Gillian Welch. I have been listening to lots of Gillian Welch since that evening with Robin and Lex…
My car had been at the garage and they let me crash at theirs to avoid having to hitchhike home. (I was delighted my car was not available, as it was a lovely excuse to spend the evening and morning with Robin and Lex).
They have this little white cottage with a huge fire place. They used to live in a wooden cabin that they built in a cooperative near town. Before that they played music and travelled around and helped run a sauna called Lost Horizons at loads of festivals. Now, Robin manages our workshop, and Lex writes about saunas and runs all the social internet stuff for Heartwood Saunas (my employers at the moment). They have a dog called Toast.
Robin set about making some pizza, Toast the dog snoozed on the floor and Lex showed me a drawing she had been working on. It was a very intricate drawing of two toads, wearing proper cool clothes, enjoying the sweet spring time. She has done other drawings of toads in different seasons. One is at the top of this email, and depicts a coupl’a toads in the winter, another is below, with toads in the autumn, foraging for lil shroomies.
Pretty radical toads, aye. Apparently the tall green one is Robin, and Lex is the smaller toad with the pumpkin.
Lex sells cards here, if you want to get one. https://www.themiktovalley.com/
Lex said that she missed playing guitar - that her and Robin used to play all the time, but now not for a while. Life just gets busy, and it’s hard to fit in the things you love. Especially when you have a smart phone!
But lucky for me, the conversation naturally led to Lex pulling out a guitar, and Robin getting his banjo, and after some tuning, they played a few Gillian Welch songs. I lay on their couch, next to Toast the dog, and closed my eyes and let it wash over me. Lex’s voice was so sweet; it made me think of that treacly, sugary stuff in flowers that humming birds sip on in the summertime. Robins voice was low and calm and warm.
They sung this song and it was comfy like a big heavy blanket. After the song, Lex said, sometimes you only really understand the lyrics in a song when you learn to play it. Apparently, when Gillian sings “someone hit the big score, they figured it out, that we are gonna do it any way, even if it doesn’t pay.” she is talking about the music industry - that the business people figured out that even if they stop paying artists for their work, the artists will still art, and so the music companies will reap the rewards for free.
…
I’m leaving Machynlleth soon. My dream-like time has come to an end. Since I moved here I have known that I would have to leave in the spring time. I’m doing a job down in Monmouth - an hour or so north of Cardiff. Its a cabin build - these two really cool looking cabins that were designed by renowned British architect, Roderick James. The build is pretty remote - at a farm on the top of a hill, and I will spend the whole summer building all day every day - mostly by my self.
Roderick said that my build will feature on a Channel 4 show called ‘Impossible Builds’, which is deeply exciting and kind of pleasantly daunting; t’will be a proper adventure, me thinks.
I’m going to be living at the farm, in this Shepherds hut…
But before that, my friend Luke Gbedemah and I are going on a quest, and writing about it/filming it for The Times.
Oh and i’ve been making music with some friends! we had a gig in Machynlleth the other day … we have a gig soon in London! ill let ya know.
Anyhoo - sorry it’s been so long since i last wrote. I just haven’t felt too inspired to write. But today I did. I hope you are well. I miss you all, my friends. Do write back…
Yours,
Sebastian
….
Mike Wazowski! That was his name.
This is what Altaea looked like when I met her on Halloween.
