Dryslwyn Castle, Carmarthenshire
19th October
(Dryslwyn Castle, Carmarthenshire, 2007)
Jackdaws starling-like in flocking flight over crenellated castle ruins, their calls epitomising mist and dustscheawung. Quintessential.
A curlew’s call from the deep misty valley, before the sunrise. Later, the bird itself seen flying close by, over the slow waters. And a snipe, creaking in take-off.
Reading Sassoon’s Memoirs of an Infantry Officer that morning, the chapter ended as follows before I left for Dryslwyn:
“Larks were shrilling in the drizzly sky as I went down to 71 North. I felt a wild excultation. Behind me were the horror and the darkness. Kinjack had thanked me. It was splendid to be still alive, I thought, as I strode down the hill, skirting shell holes and jumping over communication trenches, for I wasn’t in a mood to bother about going along wet ditches. The landscape loomed around me and the landscape was life, stretching away and away into freedom…“