PARADISE LOST AND REGAINED

So we decided to escape from it all and took the back roads up near the foothills where you feel like you have melted into a film with Matt Monro or Ennio Morricone in your head. We've done this route a million times but due to road works ended up in an unforgiving place called Arguis which is beautiful when it snows but uncovered just looks like you have landed on the moon. We persevered and Henderson asked me if I wanted to continue further into unknown territory, further along the roads marked 'dangerous curves' and although bleak it looked I wanted to know what may lie up around those bends. We travelled for a while wondering where we may end up and all we could see was a lunar landscape and dead things the sun obscured by a rockface not worth mentioning till we saw a ruin and wondered why the hell anyone would choose to live here at any moment but especially during a time without cars. It was apparent when we saw the first village and everything suddenly changed colour from grey to green. When we saw the Gallego river and passed over the railway line which weaves its way through the mountain twice a day we realised we were behind the hill that has Loarre castle on the other side. There is a village called Yeste which feels haunted and isolated and then another called Triste (or sad). Sometimes these villages feel as if they are harbouring some dark secret.The whole schlep did have a melancholic vibe about it and once we made it through we had to cross an old iron bridge which crosses one of many reservoirs and reservoirs are one of my bete noirs and avoid if I can. This road then leads up to another of my favourite places called Los Mallos de Riglos which is one of the most beautiful places in this region with giant phallic rocks which people always seem to be climbing. There must be a market for helicopter trips up there if only to have a barbacue and greet the hapless climbers as they finally reach the top. It's difficult to admire the beauty of these rocks if you are standing beneath them as they make you giddy just looking up at them. The best view is across the river where you can appreciate their size and beauty.

On a more surreal not I woke up after another weird and wonderful dream. Henderson is becoming increasingly worried ever since I told him of the dream about landing a plane and giving birth at the same time. He has heard enough about fights with see-through robots but last night's involved me effortlessly time travelling and meeting up with John Milton who demanded why I was in his house clothed in such a way and I just told him that I had time travelled and was visiting him from the future. I'm not a fan of Milton's and know little about him if anything. I have since found out William Blake wrote a poem called Milton and amongst other mad scenes it involves Milton entering Blake's foot as a comet. Blake then treats the ordinary world as perceived by the senses in the form of a sandal. Blake then finds himself in a garden and a skylark mutates into a girl who is looking for Milton. He then descends to meet her, there is an apocalyptic scene and Milton is united with his feminine. There is a vision of a final union of living and dead, male and female, internal and external reality, and a transformation of all human perception. This is the sort of mental phenomena I have to put up with every day and it is not my fault it could disable lesser minds. I wish I could wake up feeling refreshed.