Made in Roath 2016

Made in Roath 2016

Tuesday 5 May 2015

Relative time

After walking from Merthyr to Cardiff (27 miles) for Made in Spring and then traversing back by means of powered diesel railed sleigh (a train) home. As I sat in the carriage I was struck by the thought of time. Time is indeed relative, walking time is a different time to train time. A train is very ordered, very precise, it must be for trains to function. A result of this is your time upon a train is very definite, the time it will reach a stop is known, your journey time is accountable, you feel you must fill it, use it, prepare it, for the moment that follows, it’s a waiting time. Walking time is different, it’s more non useful, slow, and is really no time at all. Time passes on a walk but it's not noticeable, it happens but without the importance of noticeable points, there is no real need for it. Walking time is just walking time, it happens during the walk and whist the train counts the minuets, hours, seconds. The walk counts sunrises and sunsets, minutes and hours are something else, they belong someplace else.

On the second day we started at Taffs Wells train station and as we waited for the time of departure, trains came and went in accordance to their pre-designed time tables. Organised down to the minute of arrival to departure, as certain as the ticking clock and as we waited the train time counted down the second until our time of departure. 10:30 come and we started to walk and as we walked the predestined and ordered set of time began to slip and fade away with ever step we took until away from the train station we had left all that behind and was now walking in our own time, the time of just the walk. Upon the trail it ticked away someplace else, hours come and went, appointment and schedules were heeded too but for us all that belonged someplace else. We followed the course of the river down to Cardiff, through nature and land we strolled, watching the natural ways of life, horses in a field, ducks and birds upon the river bank, plants and animals going about their business and concerns ordered by impulse rather than scheduled. As we grew nearer to the city we began to notice more of appointment time appearing, runners and bikers passed and said hello to us on the path. These keep fit fellows tracking to the pace of their own personal bests. Onwards we walked until the city towers could be sighted above the tree line and then entering our final destination of Roath we marched, through the street’s passing and growing more and more into the city’s time. Coffee shop costumers waited for their beverages and bus riders advanced upon their progress. We then became drawn more and more into their time, the waiting for clear stretch of traffic to cross the roads, the apologising and moving out of the way of the city shoppers who mostly greeted us with an expression of mild curiosity as their busy city shopping time was suddenly interrupted by a line of red flag carrying slow time walkers. Then finally we reached Roath and Made in Spring and as we crossed the finish line into the excitement and thrills of the closed road, under the May King and Queen gaze did we finally leave and give back all points of walking time and re-entered city, scheduled, arranged, ordered time once again.
 
 In some ways that’s the importance of the Red Route march, the reclaiming of this time. The arts and cultural sectors are currently experiencing more cuts than a frantic, impulses, hyper child cutting away at some paper with no real clue as to what they are doing. In society too, zero hour contracts, unliveable shift patterns and lowing advancement prospects for a large majority of society the opportunity to enjoy the arts, just to find the time to visit a gallery or to just have a day to enjoy a walk is slipping from slow time into the ordered and necessity of the train time. Soon time to enjoy and be in slow time will be a privilege available to the few when the arts and this slow time need to be available to all. The Red Route march was an act to reclaim this slow time that is slipping away. I hope I’ll be able to hold the time to partake again next year. 


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