Sunday morning we cycled through Bristol and up to Leigh Woods. We took the ‘high route’, choosing to climb up through the wealthy streets Clifton. Everywhere oozes money and wealth. The cavernous houses, gleaming cars, manicured front gardens and then the tiny shops of Clifton Village. Humans and their worldly possessions are all I can see.
And then, all of a sudden, release. The ground gives way and we are soaring high over the Avon Gorge. As the Clifton Suspension Bridge leaps from one cliff to the other, I feel like I am looking at a giant fracture in the Earth’s crust, looking back in time through rock layers laid down millions of years ago. The scale changes. Humans are tiny again, a tiny feature of the surface. Nature and all the evidence of all its forces spread out before me.
I yell ‘hello planet earth, and good bye planet money’, and we are off towards the woods.
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