Watermead to Abbey Park

A gentler walk today, intending to be around 6 miles but working out at nearly 8.  Once again I got lost on the way back: once again I failed to understand how this could have happened.  Either I took another path which had vanished by the time I came back, or I’d failed to notice a long row of houses and a large pub.  Now call me unobservant if you will, but if there’s one thing I notice it’s pubs.  Because I like pubs.  I’m interested in pubs.  I like to take a look at them and see what sort of pub they are; whether they’re likely to do good beer and have a good atmosphere and so on.  And it turned out that, my phone having died and the map being rather too small-scale to provide the requisite detail, I entered said pub and asked if they knew where the Meadows Lane car park was.  And a very nice young man said he did know it.  He told me where to walk and even came out with me to make sure I understood.  He was such a nice man that I felt like Harry Enfield and friends:

 

Where was I?  Oh yes, walking.  Well let’s start at the beginning.  I parked up at the Birstall end of Watermead Park and found the river with no problem.  It was going to be a pretty straightforward walk along the waterside with the added excitement of estrenar the sheewee (estrenar is a Spanish word for which there is no direct English equivalent: it means ‘to use for the first time’.)  I had some difficulty with this, not logistically but psychologically, as I was somewhat inhibited by the fear of being seen; however I’m sure everything will improve with practice.  The path goes past Belgrave Hall, an 18th century house now, sadly, only open for special events, and the Space Centre which houses a rocket that actually went into space:

https://www.leicester.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/museums-and-galleries/museums-and-historic-venues/belgrave-hall/

https://spacecentre.co.uk

It was noticeable how much less friendly and more hurried people got, the nearer I approached Leicester, being less inclined to say hello and more inclined to rush past you.  I reached Abbey Park in time for lunch and mooched around there for a bit.  Abbey Park houses the remains of an abbey where Cardinal Wolsey once lived; there are also very pleasant gardens, the wide meandering of the river Soar, a miniature railway and a cafe.

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186334-d7728936-Reviews-Abbey_Park-Leicester_Leicestershire_England.html

After spending a while here I started my walk back which was just the same only in reverse, except for the end bit which I told you about.

And that was today.

Kirk out

Developing Nations: An Occident Waiting to Happen

I wish I had a fascinating post for you on the subject of developing nations but alas, all I have is a pun which occurred to me this morning, that developing nations are an occident waiting to happen.  If I were so inclined I could deconstruct the whole notion of ‘development’ and the assumption that it is not only necessary and good but inevitable; that underdeveloped nations must be developed as soon as possible (which means their natural resources being seized for the benefit of others and their people being forced to work for the economy) and that ‘developing’ or ’emerging’ nations must be hurried along to join the top table.  Of course, we don’t want them to develop too fast otherwise they’ll be in competition with us: just enough so that we can exploit their resources and sell them lots of stuff.

But there’s a problem with this narrative; a problem which goes to the heart of the question ‘what is the right way to live?’  Very often I come across people on social media advocating a certain lifestyle which harks back to a golden age: the paleo diet, for example, from the pre-agricultural era, or the idea that we are ‘really’ designed to be hunter-gatherers.  So what is the right way to live?  The other day I came across a post about free houses in Wales.  The Welsh government will allow people to build their own houses without paying for the land.  Great.  Ah, but there’s a catch.  You have to be self-sufficient and carbon-neutral within five years.  The carbon-neutral thing might not be such a tall order; after all, there are carbon-neutral houses already in existence.  But self-sufficiency is altogether another order of tallness.  My sister and her husband are semi self-sufficient in Wales, and I’ve seen the amount of unremitting daily work which that involves.  To be fully self-sufficient is a heck of a tall order.  Think about what you eat in a typical day: protein (meat or otherwise: if otherwise you have to grow a ton of pulses) veg, milk, cheese (or their vegan equivalents, again usually made from soy) bread, margarine or butter, tea, coffee… I could go on and on.  The thought of total self-sufficiency totally does my head in.  But maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way: maybe you need to look at what you can produce and focus on living on that.  But I wouldn’t want to.  I can’t post the link at the moment but if you look up sustainable self-build in Wales you should find it.

The trouble with the search for a golden age is that every age has its problems.  There’s no point in history where everything was perfect until some horrible people came along to spoil it.  Negative things have certainly taken place (the enclosures, the first factories, slavery) but things were not perfect before (though I’m sure they were a damn sight better for the slaves).  The industrial revolution led to much misery for workers, but how much better off were they when they worked the land?  None of us is immune from harking back to some golden age: there’s also a feminist utopia (a sort of anti-Gilead) in the concept of a prehistorical matriarchy.  There’s even some evidence for the hypothesis, though it’s not very strong.  Here’s a rather long but excellent analysis:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/e/eller-myth.html

Besides, helpful though it is to think beyond the current paradigm to other possible worlds, there do actually exist some matriarchal societies today.  They are small and tribal but still they survive and some do seem to practise a kind of equality:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/31274/6-modern-societies-where-women-literally-rule

image removed on request

So whether matriarchy was actually prevalent or not in prehistory, the idea helps us to imagine other possibilities, since oppression is usually founded in the dogma that ‘there is no alternative.’  This underpins austerity, and the general idea of economic growth.

Which brings us neatly back to where we started…

Kirk out

PS For some reason the Welsh link has posted below…