Presteigne Moods

A walk from the river to the centre of town and back again, a gentle pace, a warm sunny afternoon; local boys jumping in and out of the shallow water, skateboard boys, cutoff jeans, baggy hair and long t-shirts but friendly and a little shy. A day for sitting, slowing down, the sort of day men in Presteigne take to the streets and play chess on the pavement, the sort of day the antique shop owners sit on their wares outside and talk to passers by. The sky over the town full of swallows and house martins, the occasional swift. The sunlight was cool but warm enough, the light gentle - if it was September it would be regretful - on the classical facade of the Judge's Lodgings and the whimsical Italianate clock tower of the Assembly Rooms.

And then today, a damp day of mists like smoke drifting through the pine woods on the hill, threatening heavier rains, warm, almost stuffy. The town was envigorated by a lick of rain, the plants on Broad St fresh and green; yellow poppies, rosemary, pom-pom hydrangea. The same walk, from river to town to river, past higgledy-piggledy houses scruffy and pristine. Strange names here, old history; Ave Maria Lane, Canon Lane. Muddy tractors heading out to the fields, hippie mums in Indian fabrics, faded jeans and heavy boots. The river fierce and swollen after a day or so of rain.

Presteigne is a sleepy town, an old town, not so much untouched by the modern world as unscarred by it. There are supermarkets but they are small, local, almost independent. The town centre roads are narrow and slow and lined with medieval houses and shops given a new face in the late eighteenth century. The pace of town life has been saved by the by-pass, which used the footprint of the railway to curve through the town and on into mid-Wales. Yet there is a ring of modern houses around the centre, a leisure centre, a well-respected secondary school and a good junior school; it is a lively place, a healthy place for all its sleepiness.