I was forced out of my hermitage very unwillingly this morning as I had to make my way to the post office. Family birthdays appearing before I am ready for them can be irritating. However, I wrapped up the cheap chosen gift and hobbled off down the old road.
As you know this is an old road. It began some time after the ice age departed, an ice age that stopped at this point, leaving a mark on the south side of the road that determined where it ended. A couple of thousand years later vegetation had arrived, families, or tribes perhaps, wandering across from as far away as what is now Germany, and very possibly this was one of their routes through the forested area. Once the melting ice had created what is now the North Sea and flooded what we call 'Doggerland,' the walking ceased. Tribes now well developed and controlling their part of the land soon developed the high area, surrounded on three sides by steep slopes, into a citadel for safety from other tribes. This route to the west must have been operating for a couple of thousand years before the Romans arrived, slaughtered everybody, and hardened the roads so their wagons could travel faster. Road works may have hindered traffic but it kept the men busy.
I now hobbled slowly down the pavement, moving aside for mobile chairs, pushchairs, and fat people, as I made my way to the PO. Traffic roared by, cars, double decker buses, 7.5 ton lorries delivering to supermarkets and shops, small cars, vast petrol guzzling beasts, works vehicles, and a woman on a three tricycle. A normal day now, but what would the Romans or the Welsh speaking Brits of ancient times make of it all? I suspect that once they got over their initial fears they would quickly adapt, especially the young. Human nature does not change, the elder may fuss about 'It was better in my day,' but really they do this while enjoying large digital TVs, the NHS which keeps them alive, pensions and car or bus travel to shops hoarding a vast array of things not available when they were young, though in some cases Rickets, measles, chickenpox and polio was available, but not now. Ancient Britons would adapt quickly to being rushed along this road at 30 miles an hour, more if it is late at night and the driver is in his teens, and glad he does not have to walk. His walking would of course have made him much fitter than the teen driver who would be much healthier, even though less fit. Life can be strange at times.
Having reached my destination, in spite of road traffics attempt to stop me crossing from one side to another, I deposited the parcel containing goods that cost less than the postage, and trusted privatised Royal Mail to deliver by Wednesday. This depends if the Czech owner, counting his tax dodging cash, considers this worth delivering. Being first class it ought to be there by Wednesday but not being a parcel it is now considered less important than parcels, so delivery may have to wait until the sorting office manager can find a postman to walk that round. Once we had daily deliveries six days a week, now they have to work seven day rotas, yet deliver only about three days a week, how does this improve things? It doesn't. Privatisation of Royal Mail, like all other privatisation, was about greed, nothing else. Line the pockets of shareholders, forget service, just make money for some. Lower wages, longer hours, all these are still to come under this right wing coup that has taken over the UK, and let the peasants eat cake. Not just that, get the peasants to vote for you by blaming someone else, say asylum seekers perhaps?
This crossed my mind as I noted the Germanic influenced royal family, the German, Japanese, French and US cars, the Chinese takeaway, the US Pizza house with Italian Pizzas, the Fish and Chip Shop (an idea developed by a Hungarian Jew in Spitalfields in the 19th century), while watching a car flying an English St George flag and using Iraqi oil to make the Korean car work.
There is a lot happening on old roads.
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