I just returned from my second wheelchair excursion of the day. It’s a nice day, if a little breezy, and I like being out and about. This morning I went shopping,,, visiting the wine shop, book shops etc. this afternoon I had a look in a few charity shops for clothes, but returned empty handed.

I noticed in the park that my batteries were getting low, so I decided to head home. Now, one off my oldest memories is of my dad showing me the weir on the path from the park up jewson’s hill. This is a waterfall with an old mill by it. I was in my buggy trying to get dad to push me closer and closer to the edge of the river. I was a fearless little brat!

I was going that way again today; there was the mill, whose wheel had long stopped moving. I don’t suppose it has been used for centuries. Yet it was then I heard a bagging: on the wheel, a man was working. The ancient trap door was open to the platform. This could only mean one thing – restoration.

I’m not sure what anyone would want to restore a mill for today – maybe its for a museum, maybe for gryff Rees-Jones. We seem to have a strange relationship to history – our desire to restore ad preserve the past almost indicates a desire to stop time, to live within history. Perhaps because the world is progressing so fast we desire to make stand still. It’s rather ironic then that the paddle-wheel of that mill,, which has stood still for so long, should, in a way, make time stop by turning once more.