We wanted to hitchhike out of London, though the sheer volume of people and roads without shoulders turned us off. We then turned to British Rail, gasped at the costs and struggled to see how we’d get around that way. We settled on a cheap hire car, which scuttled us out of the metropolis, south to Dorset.

We landed in a community orchard in Bridport,

where we were told the fallen fruit is fair game.

We came to visit Lee in Pymore,

and his goodly lady, Toni, and while Toni nourished us with food, Lee spoke of his time at Findhorn in his youth.

After a comfortable sleep we went with Lee and Toni to West Bay,

and walked along a bridle path,

to a village where Woody was to fish.

Here he caught his first fish for the journey – a juvenile Pollack.

We farewelled fair Lee and Toni,

and gathered some supplies for the way,

and we travelled with Primrose Hill leaves to lay beside a grandparent oak in Devon,

where our next camp would be.

We came to this small community in Bow, and joined their weekend working bee. Our friends Steve and Ti live here,

and they took us down to Dartmoor, leaving the hedgerows for Scorhill.

We were taken to a ceremonial place made by people attuned with life.

and we sat and contemplated this magical site before posing for this.

We swam, bridged and travelled on to behold buildings made with local care,

Steve cooked the nearby grub, including wild poached deer, followed by plum crumble.

Nourished, loved and sent on our way with gifts, we crossed into ancestral Cymru,

and in Caldicot encountered crumbling Roman hubris, upon the joyful weeds.

At Tintern, in Wye Valley, we came to a village green where a game of cricket had just finished, Woody, undeterred, took his ball from his pack and bowled down some pacy deliveries.

Tintern Abbey’s ruination was of course Henry VIII’s making.

We spent time on the green speaking with cricketers, publicans, and other locals with dogs,

and walked the town and took the fruits,

before, with the dew, bedding down.

The next day we drove to Cambridge, where tourists and twitchers were out,

and we caught up on some lost sleep,

and played among the leaves.

In Ely, in Cambridgeshire, we beheld ever more blackberry and elder,

and more ancestral-artisanal skills, including a six hundred year old home.

We attended a screening of The New Peasants in this town, and afterwards shared food and formed a listening circle.

Esther, who hosted the screening, kindly made us dinner and food to take with us, and we left Ely in the dark and shuttled north ‘til we found a place to sleep – a community hall in The Fens named Welney.

We’re so grateful for the land and people for continuously providing.

We dried the tent and travelled to East Yorkshire where in Sutton-on-Hull we visited familial graves – Frost, Carrick and Rodmell.

Here we left salt and ate the fruit of this burial garden – the plumpest and sweetest we’d so far gathered.

From graveside to centre pitch in Sutton,

we suspected ancestors here too. The women’s team were training and they invited us in,

gathered on the stand with us,

and brought from the club rooms several folders, where a Rodmell from 1918 was found.

Everyone gave out a cheer, and we hugged and journeyed on.

To Leeds we drove and we saw how they pack them in! No wonder there are so many folk on this tiny island.

In Leeds we went to Headingley to see if we could enter,

but every gate was locked up tight and only street traces mattered.

We’d entered the Luddite Triangle, and as they’d sadly failed, we were moving at an ungrounding speed, while witnessing more industrial sardines in Halifax.

The paradox of industrialisation – the givings and its takings – has lead to many conversations, including in Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, where a friend in Sean called us.

This little town of misfits, rebels and boundary riders knows well the beauty of non-conformity in the place where industrialisation began.

With Sean and his ladyfriend Kelly, we walked high above the town to witness the eclipse,

and a short walk on to old Heptonstall village,

where we visited Sylvia.

That night we stayed at Stubb Pond where Ted Hughes swam as a boy. A place of magic and renewal

where gatherings are held and where Sean has built lyrical, thrifty accommodations, where we lodged ourselves for a night.

From Hebden we travelled by the moors,

and left a granite offering from Dartmoor, wrapped in Cambridge willow,

and journeyed on to Cumbria,

where we swam in Grandmother Windermere, where ‘One impulse from vernal wood,’ was first spawned.

From the south to the north of Albion, and into old Elmet lands, we have travelled well too quickly and feel giddy from the richness.

We have three screenings of The New Peasants this week, in Findhorn tonight, then Boat of Garten, and then in Edinburgh.

Signing off with full hearts, and blackberry juice on our faces,

AaF x