Windy Tales

It has been a windy weekend. I woke up several times on Friday night to hear a gale howling around the house and rattling the roof tiles.

Yesterday, Tim, Dad and I went to Glastonbury. We ate our sandwiches while looking at the Tor from a swinging seat surrounded by daffodils in the peaceful Chalice Well Garden, and then sustained ourselves by gulping some of the cool, sharply iron-tasting water, before preparing to follow in the footsteps of those toiling ant-like figures we had watched over lunch. As we made our way up, the wind rushed across us, knocking us from the path, trying to claim hats and hoods, ballooning out trousers and coats. We struggled into the church on top, hoping for a little respite to catch our breath, but the wind was whistling straight in one open doorway and out of the other. The only sheltered side of the tower was crammed with bemused tourists. Glastonbury Tor rises straight out from the Somerset Levels, and there is a marvellous view from up there, even while squinting into a stiff breeze. We amused ourselves for a while by splaying out our arms and legs and leaning into the wind, testing whether it could support our weight, and then we thankfully descended the suddenly-calm leeward path.

Today, both my parents, Tim and I went out to Danebury Ring. The wind had dropped some more, but the clouds were beautifully speckled, which I am told is called a mackerel sky, and I took a lot of photographs of it.

Huangshan Mountains

The Huangshan Mountains in China are eerily familiar, since they encapsulate everything traditionally associated with Chinese landscape. The peaks are high and jagged; stunted, strangely shaped trees grow straight out of the rock. The "welcoming pine" trees stretch their branches out to embrace guests from the sheer mountainsides, and white mist collects between the summits.

There is a rather sweet custom where lovers bring padlocks engraved with both their names, lock them to ropes on the mountain peaks, and throw the keys down into the valleys below. Their union is then said to be unbreakable, unless they return and search the valley for the key to release the padlock.