Like A Rolling Stone

Toby's hobbit yurt-chapel

THUD. THUD. THUD. Each dull crack echoed around the woodland. THUD. “Harder!” screamed the little boy excitedly. Sweat dripped from my lip. “Louder!”. We were already at our limit. “Three more” said Toby. THUD. THUD. THUD. We stepped back to admire our handiwork. The two-metre-long wooden post was now firmly embedded in the hole in the ground dug for it earlier by a mechanised digger with a huge screwdriver.  Toby and I had been whacking it down with a two-handled heavy-duty metal tube, closed at one end, designed for just such an activity. We then filled in the hole around the post with various stones which Toby crushed down violently with a tamper to pack them in tight, which enabled me to remark that he was having a tamper tantrum. 

I was back at Toby’s place, Windsor Hill Wood, for a short visit. As regular readers of this blog will know, Toby (or Tobias) Jones is the author and novelist who wrote the book from which I first heard about Pilsdon, called ‘Utopian Dreams’. This was my third trip over to see him and his family as well as the other guests and volunteers who live with them. A friend of mine from London had recently started volunteering there and I knew most of the others too so it felt almost like a home from home.  People knew me well enough to express astonishment at the lengthening hair on my head and chin. Fortunately there were several pogonophiles amongst them (a word I learned that very day - look it up!)

There’s always something going on here and this time it was putting in the strainer posts for a sheep fence around the orchard. Not that Toby’s got any sheep, but I suppose it makes sense to put the fence up first before getting any. He plans to swap with a neighbour a couple of his piglets for a couple of female lambs and let them hang out in his orchard until they’re old enough to give birth themselves. He’s honest enough to admit that he knows nothing at all about keeping sheep but I’m sure he’ll learn fast. The best way to learn something is to do it, seems to be his guiding principle.

Afternoons at Windsor Hill Wood tend to be quieter and today was no exception. I hunkered down with a book by Hermann Hesse in front of the wood-fired burner and didn’t put it down till I’d finished it which must say something about its readability. Called ‘Knulp’ it was published during the first World War and centres around the life of the eponymous wayfarer who never settles down, yet through his amiable philosophising and free-spiritedness manages to touch the lives of many around him. It’s only since I came to Pilsdon that I’ve had the chance to meet some of Knulp’s kindred spirits in the twenty-first century, people who are always on the move and who couldn’t stand to be tied down in one place. Their view of Pilsdon is it’s a great place to spend the weekend and get a hot shower and square meals, but come Monday they’re keen to leave. One chap, who was heading towards Torquay, decided the best way of getting there was simply to follow the coastline so when I dropped him off in Bridport he wanted to check with me which way he walked when he reached the sea, left or right? If I’d given him the wrong answer he may have had a much longer walk than he’d bargained for!  

For me, I can understand that compulsion to wander, exploring the countryside and meeting new people.  It was that which led me to walk from London to Swansea in the summer of 2011, rather than catch the train like normal folk. But I also need a place to be home, somewhere I can find security, peace and a hot bath.  In April I’ll be making a new home in mid-Wales on the plot of land I bought. So it lacks hot baths, or indeed any infrastructure at all, but given enough time, money and determination all things are possible. Cheques and bath-tubs gratefully received.