Fairy Cow

Drove up into the hills near where my mum and dad live today, to look at the Stone Circle of Mitchell's Fold. Bronze Age in origin, it has a more recent legend that a good fairy once grazed her cow here, which doled out milk to the hungry in (adopts movie trailer guy's voice) "a time of great famine". This was strictly rationed out however at the rate of one bucket o' fairy milk per person (the period is unclear but given that that'd last me a month it seems like quite a lot).

This arrangement was working out fine, but someone's always got to fucking ruin it for everyone else, and the evil witch Mitchell snuck up and started milking the cow into a sieve. The fairy cow clocked what was going on, shimmered out of existence and turned the witch into a lump of stone, which the villagers – presumably quite miffed about the loss of their free milk ticket – surrounded with a circle of other rocks, to ensure she never again escaped (she's a rock now guys, relax).

It was nice. The surrounding hills were shrouded in mist, it was wet and slightly windy. The ground underfoot was spongey with moss. Other than than my mum and dads' car and our respective mobile phones, the most technologically advanced artefact in the immediate vicinity was a cattle grid, steeped in muddy water. It was a landscape weirdly unpunctuated by technology.

Living in London is something of a full frontal sensory assault from the minute you step out of your front door, and I suspect a good part of my waking mind is occupied screening and filtering this barrage of media into some kind of rational order.

No such problem here, in a landscape almost completely devoid of branding apart from a lonely National Trust logo on a bit of rock. Everything seemed wierdly undifferentiated and peaceful. I kept looking around for 'cool stuff', perhaps expecting to see a critically acclaimed new rave compilation leaning against an enterprising bit of rock, but no, nothing.

After that, we drove down into Welshpool. I wandered up the high street and looked in a couple of charity shops. The records therein were the usual suspects, of the order of James Last LPs and the popular 'Mrs Mills' compilations of the seventies. I didn't buy anything.

This evening went for a bite to eat at the local, The Sun, which is two miles up the road. It was very nice. I had a Wild Boar Steak. There was a three legged dog running round, though I don't think this was in any way linked with the food.

Getting the train to Manchester tomorrow, at mid-dayish. Yawn. Off to bed now.