Hereford and Kington

Milder again today - generally, that is, not here, where the temperature now is about minus 6 - but in Hereford this morning it was appreciably milder.  The sun has no warmth, though; out of the sunshine next to the superstore the wind was thin and the air was still cold.  Some spectacular views of the cathedral across rooftops and roads, the air somehow thick, creamy-red in colour, sluggish again.  

Hereford has had some icy times recently and at one point in the last week the Wye froze over, a strangely medieval weather event; reminiscent of ox-roasts, frost fairs, bridges encased in ice.  And the recession has closed shops too - there are recent gaps in the shopfronts.  I was surprised to read that Wedgewood has gone under after 200 or so years; I read recently that a gift from two of the Wedgewood brothers in the 1820s allowed Coleridge to write without working elsewhere.  

To Kington briefly in a cold dusk, the creamy-red light thickening as the day darkened.  A lot of pheasants on the hill road.  I like Kington, it is a very Georgian town, an 1820s skin over buildings 400 years older. Not Coleridge but Wordsworth had a use for it as the post came here when he stayed locally; and there are still topographical links with the Hartleys, the Earls of Oxford, who rented Kinsham Court to Byron in 1812.   But it is still a rough-and-tumble working town full of junk shops and pubs and traffic.