Being Badgered

It was a bit of a late night last night: I was slaving over my PC combing through the Byzantine connections between individuals and movements in Welsh public life and their sponsors in the wind power industry.  Some of the claims are very funny: if you believed their claims for community benefit, the tarmac on the A458 would be replaced by solid gold.   The scary part, however, is the way in which the tentacles of these companies have reached deep into Welsh institutions but for us, octopus slaying is all in a day's work.  Fuelled by a couple of bottles of alcoholic ginger beer (which brings back childhood memories as Mrs Foskett, the second string char-lady, used to provide us with three things: anecdotes about the Dagenham Girl Pipers, fushia cuttings and the so-called plant to make home-made ginger beer), I did not head to bed until after one, having first put out the indolent cat Lightening.  In my gnger-beer haze, I clearly did not close the door properly.  A couple of hours later, I heard some snuffling and heavy movement: nothing unusual there, thinks I, as mother of teenagers.
  In the morning, however, as I was cleaning my teeth, I noticed a small badger behind the bath.  Friends, I was admirably calm.  Equipping myself with the broom handle all single women in this county keep inside their front doors, I chivvied said badger from the house.   I tried to enlist the indolent cat but he just gave the badger a haughty look and walked away.  For a while, the badger attempted to re-group behind the wood burning stove but patience and prodding encouraged him to shamble away, blinking in the daylight.
A few weeks ago, the people of this county woke up to find a shambling, malodorous presence in our midst.  for a while, we wer frankly too startled to know what to do but now we have armed ourselves and the power plan badger is scrambling down the stairs.  All of this is hard work and most unexpected but one thing I know: our homes will soon by ours again and the door will never again by open, so much as a crack

Why do I bother?

Several of us involved in the fight to prevent the industrialisation of Montgomeryshire have discussed how to keep energy levels up for a longterm fight.   From these conversations and many others, I have come to understand that the links between us and the land are deep, strong and complex.  I will tell you part of my story, which does explain why I bother.
I was accidentally born in Essex, though my father came from a family with Montgomeryshire roots (everyone on the face of the planet has family from Llawryglyn).  My father made no compromises to his exile; he held the only eisteddfod inEssex in the school of which he was, he continued to read and write more cynghanedd than was good for him and promised us every year that we would celebrate next Christmas "at home". When the move came, it was in bad circumstances.  My beloved sister Anthea was killed in a road accident and my mother had an immediate and severe nervous breakdown.  My father was obliged to give up work to care for her; he took to drink.  Then our house burnt down.  Aged ten, I had forgotten how to be safe: I was obliged to be vigilant all the time.  Hide the tablets, hide the Scotch bottle, mend your shoes with cardboard, do not let anyone come near the house.   By the time the tab from the pub was taken away from the fire insurance, there was not much money left: we began looking for houses in Wales.  My parents were looking around the house which became our home: I walked outside and sat down by the brook.  I fell into the first good sleep I had known for over a year.  When I awoke, hearing the brook, footsteps and the forgotten sound of my fathers laugh.  I knew it would all be alright.  And it sort of was.
Thank you, Montgomeryshire: I owe you

Clattering Good Evening

Friends, I have decided to enter the blogosphere in the hope that my musings on all things from TAN 8 to the cat on the Caps Lock button may be of interest.  I have just returned from a trip to Clatter, a fine community which does not fancy becoming the 132,000 KV spaghetti junction of Mid Wales.  Suggestions as to what to do ranged from meditation to dark mutterings about angle grinders.  The poor sap from Scottish Power was almost going native.  When asked if he though all of this was appalling, out of scale and inappropriate, he agreed.  He smiled twice.  Once was at he idea that a re-designed pylon might be more acceptable (just how do you camoflague childhood cancer) and the other was when I was talking about local power generation for local needs.  "I would love to help with that!" he suggested.   As we left the meeting, where, as usual in Mid-Wales, radical political action was accompanied by a good cup of tea and a biscuit, my ten year old daughter expressed sympathy.  "He kept on blinking- he is not the right man to do consultation meetings" she said.  I agree.  If this were Hollywood, the power line men would fall in love with local girls and lay down their pylon plans.  We should find them all job insulating people,s houses....