Almost diagonally opposite each other are the two ends of the theologer’s spectrum. To the North east is the “Hell Hole” to the south West “Paradise” 

Each area bounded by liquid channels, to the West Sapey Brook, a tightly packed channel of clear fast flowing water gushing through smoothed limestone over gravel bottommed waterfalls offering pools to swim and bathe for summer pleasure seekers, flat sunbathing rocks near the brook edge offer dappled sunlight through the Mystical aged Oak and Birch. There is a well trodden path through these woods,  past a boarded up but not deserted woodsman cottage standing sentinel, watching over the edge of the gorge, perched atop a hill, surrounded by trees and solid in its position of standing for several hundred years, i’m guessing a holiday bolt hole free from Covid protected by the nymphs of the wood and stream.

To the East Meanders the wider and more mature Teme, running Chocolate and bubbling high wreaking havoc through the nests and burrows of the river creatures, flooding and drowning in its treacly channel, there’s no rules, the rain has no option but to end up here where it will make its way ultimately to the Behemoth which is the river Severn at Worcester. From the end of the World at the fringe of North Clifton it is a short walk, a mile or so of flat walk and then descent into a heavily wooded area, mosses and vines, ferns and brambles crowd the forrest floor hiding a multitude of Caws and Screetchings, A white tail occasionally breaks the dark damp green, bouncing through the ferns and disappearing into the deep dark gulley they call the Hell Hole, very few venture down there and some say it is the very entrance to the underworld as cascading black water is swallowed up hungrily, greedily into the Gaping Maw. Yesterday we circumnavigated the Hell Hole, walked down on the one side, up the other, a rarely used bridleway through the steep forrest, trees felled across the path, preventing all but the most adept of riders in fact only the horsemen of the apocalypse ride these paths.

Maybe…

But as I discover new paths and walks there seems to be a stark contrast between the North and South of Clifton. The North has a Count, me and the South probably a Duke or something slightly less forbidding, maybe a democratically elected government rather than some dark Despotic Count, intent on raising the hounds of Hell for his own evil ends…