Treasure from Hlywing by Ruth Angell

I’ve always collected stones, shells, pebbles, acorns, twigs and seeds when walking on the beach or in the woods. There’s one pebble I’ve had for years, it’s so smooth and fits beautifully in my hand, I keep it in my pocket finding it somehow comforting. All these things are treasure to me, discovering beauty in the small and often over looked things. This metaphor reminded me that we must treasure our family, our friends and those around us who we spend time with and who enrich our lives. I wrote this song on the way home from a gig and it reminds me of my family, those in our lives presently and those who we’ve lost along the way.
I was reading James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl to my son at the time so the cloud men appeared in this song wearing cool steam quiff hairstyles from the cooling towers, those beautiful big concrete structures that were so familiar to me growing up and now are being de-commissioned from around our British landscape.
Also at this time I’d spent a day shadowing my brother on his rounds as a country vet in North Wales and the dramatic euthanising of a cow in a small stone barn in the hills at very close quarters reminded me intently of the fragility of life.
It was my mother who wore the knitted bikini, she is a very cool woman.

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