My walk this morning took on one of those etherial moods . A low mist clung to the ground. Like a blanket covering everything . It is November after all. As I tramped the village on one of the more familiar routes I remembered fog . Fog as it was when I was a child . A real pea souper . I thought many would not remember a fog so thick that you could not see your hand in front of your face. A fog fuelled by endless coal fires . What else would you burn when your dad recieved cheap coal as a perk from his job. The whole village i lived in had at least two and even three fires in their homes . All fuelled with coal . The air was thick with the smoke emitted from the factory chimneys . This and the steam trains which ran between Wrexham and Chester all added to the smog . Smog - a smoky fog that lingered all day . So dense that you could not see the white lines in the middle of the road . Nor were the cats eyes visible . Many a time the turning to
the house was missed . Just did not see . Those days had gone . The only from the few and far between Heritage railways . We no longer burn coal but smokeless fuel . Factories are fined if they belch out anything other than clean air . I dont know if it is Covid that has brought these memories flooding back or just getting older .
Walking was giving me time to clear my head . I walked up Hockley Lane . I wondered if this would be one of the last times I would tramp up the lane . Judging from the phone conversation with our buyer yesterday that seemed unlikely . The exchange on Friday was not happening and a survey needed to be done . That was booked in for Tuesday . As it wasnt our house that was being surveyed I felt both pleased but also frustrated at the lateness that this had been organised for . Completion would not happen either . I would tramp this way next week I thought .
Lest we forget flag . It hung limply without any breeze to move it but the words were still there to read . Lest we forget . Some of the villagers had planted their metal poppies in their front gardens . A splash of colour in a drab world .
Adjectives sometimes suit . Drab November . Dull November . The parish council had removed all the summer hanging baskets and replaced them with plastic massive red poppies attached to lampposts on Longedge Lane . The rememberance bench in the churchyard had a poppy tied to it . The first school I past had placed the large silhouette of the First World War soldier on their railings . He stood there battleworn leaning on his gun . I wondered what he would have thought . Loss of his friends , his family , missing his folks back home , despair as he stood in the mud listening to gunfire . Or perhaps he was listening to silence as I was today . No Last Post . No laying of the wreaths after the marches and flag carrying . No Guides, no Brownies , no Scouts or Cubs, no British Legion nor Air Training Corps or Army Cadets . Rememberence Sunday today was a subdued affair . Opposite him taking a knee was a modern soldier . Silhouetted with his gun he was too probably remembering battles fought .
I walked past the second school. They had placed out planters and filled them with poppies and flags . The rainbows had been taken down off fences and replaced with poppies . The celebration at the Albert Hall had been a subdued affair. Rememberance Sunday this year was an odd one .
