Sentimental Journey

On Thursday I took part in a splendid event at Heffer’s bookshop in Cambridge. On my way there I took the opportunity of stopping off in Ely where my new series of novels is set to pick up a bit more local colour. I walked around the marina and went into the cathedral. Peter and I lived in nearby Cambridge and I remembered when we used to go to the Old Fire Engine House restaurant in the early days before we were married.

I went to see if it was still there and it is. Looking through the window I felt I could almost see our younger selves sitting there twenty years ago, with everything in front of us. Words from a poem by Hardy came into my mind. He so well understood the power of places to embody memories of those we love. He is one of my favourite poets. This is ‘At Castle Boterel.’

As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
Distinctly yet

Myself and a girlish form benighted
In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
To ease the sturdy pony’s load
When he sighed and slowed.

What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
Matters not much, nor to what it led, ―
Something that life will not be balked of
Without rude reason till hope is dead,
And feeling fled.

It filled but a minute. But was there ever
A time of such quality, since or before,
In that hill’s story ? To one mind never,
Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
By thousands more.

Primaeval rocks form the road’s steep border,
And much have they faced there, first and last,
Of the transitory in Earth’s long order ;
But what they record in colour and cast
Is—that we two passed.

And to me, though Time’s unflinching rigour,
In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
Remains on the slope, as when that night
Saw us alight.

I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
And I shall traverse old love’s domain
Never again.

The photograph is of the Old Fire Engine House restaurant with the magnificent cathedral in the background.