Last swim

Although it was cold today, with a bitter wind, the sun shone clear and bright, so I decided to take my last swim of the year in the lake. Fifteen degrees (57F) feels much, much colder than the eighteen (64F) of last week. My forehead pained me as I swam the crawl, my fingers tingled, my balls disappeared. I could only manage a couple of hundred metres before I decided to climb out, my skin pink and shiny through the cold.

So now I will put on the Winterspeck (?) for a few months and rely on cycling to keep me fittish until the season arrives again. Wish me well.

:-)

Cool

Walking out this morning, there was a definite chill in the air, and for the first time since Spring, walking on wet grass in bare feet was painful. The morning sunlight through our bedroom window is lower, so falls right across the room instead of only upon the bay.

And this morning, I noticed that the Virginia creeper covering the wall at the bottom of our garden has a few red leaves.

Autumn is coming.


:-)

Saying goodbye

On Saturday our household shrank from five down to three residents. We took Rio to the North to study to become an engineer, and her boyfriend was left behind to live full-time at his parents' home, instead of staying several nights a week with us.

We'll miss them both. Moonface was tearful as we bade goodbye to Rio in her hall of residence, leaving her to settle in and make friends for her new life. But at home, waving off Jason was difficult emotionally. Both Moonface and I really like him - he's a nice lad, good mannered, conversational and (Moonface tells me) handsome as well. What we couldn't know, and what we couldn't say, is that we didn't know whether we were waving goodbye to him for the few months until Rio returns at Christmas, or forever if the couple split up. And, let's face it, that's fairly likely. Both Moonface and I left boy- or girlfriends at home when we left for university, and both of those relationships ended afterwards. Rio and Jason have been courting longer than we were, I suppose, which makes the outcome harder to predict. Two years is a long time at their ages.

So we shall wait and see, and hope for the best - whatever that is.


:¬/

Sandals, 1998-2007

One hears about women who are obsessed with shoes; who collect them and crave them in huge numbers. I probably own too many pairs for a bloke, but there are few that I have really liked, that have become a staple of my wardrobe. There are just a very few pairs of shoes that I remember with fondness: the suede pigskin Hush-Puppy Chelsea boots I wore in my last year at school, my first pair of Doc Martens, the grey pink-and-purple highlighted cycling boots I owned for ten years, and a particular pair of black brogues worn for work until they wore out.

And now I'm getting rid of a pair of sandals that I've worn every summer since 1998. Originally bought in Vancouver, Canada, on holiday, after ten summers of hard use the straps have detached from the sole on one foot, the soles themselves are smooth from wear, and the air cushions under the heels have deflated, making me squeak as I walk along. The soles are recessed to protect my toes, so I've worn them on some considerable cross-country walks instead of boots. And, because they're water-resistant, I've paddled in half the oceans of the world in them.

Thinking about it, that's almost a true statement, as I've had a fair amount of travel in the last few years. I've paddled in the Pacific off Canada, the Indian Ocean off Zanzibar, the Caribbean around Cuba, the Atlantic, Irish and North Seas around Britain, and the Med. And my replacements aren't nearly as comfortable nor as protective.

So if anyone knows where to buy a new pair of size 43 Air Deschutz, please let me know.


:-)

Nameless Dread

I awoke at around four in the morning, I suppose, fearful and sweating. I had no idea of what I was scared of, but there was a felling that something awful was about to happen. Then, I couldn't sleep. I tried to relax, but my mind whirled into unlikely futures, positing unpleasantries about to happen to my family or myself, so I remained uneasily awake.

More than anything, I wondered about the effects of climate change and how this would hit us. I guess this was the result of a visit to the farm yesterday, discussing with my in-laws about the effect the weather had on their crops and animals this year, and realising what a thin line separates our Western consumer society from a nothing-to-consume society.

And , I suppose that there are many other things preying on my mind at the moment. September is rarely a happy month, and this year seems to be more stressful than most.

So eventually, as dawn broke and the curtains let in a grey steely light, I dozed off for another hour or so.


:-(

Tintagel

Tintagel Castle.

Home of Merlin, host to the Arthurian legend; bleak, exposed, open to wind and sea.

The castle ruins themselves are romantic and barren, comprising a few low walls remaining after centuries of decay and neglect. The plateau summit of the castle peninsula is unexceptional apart from the traces of millennia of human occupation and the strange tunnel through an undulation of the surface. But the emotional significance of the site transcends the banal nature of the simple location: it's the home of stories, legends and half of England's self-image.

And yet the little town itself, half a mile from the castle, is the epitome of nasty tourism rip-offs and redolent of what we have become. Tacky shops selling gems and souvenirs and keepsakes, ice-cream and pasties and chips. Waddling tourists for whom the walk to the castle is too much, but for whom the shops are designed.

Tom and I visited Tintagel on our route home from surfing. The worsening of the weather gave us the grey skies, wind and drizzle which were the perfect welcome to Tintagel. It's at its best when the heavens make it seem worst, the wind cutting out the civilisation which separates us from our half-remembered past, leaving just the ruins in their elements of rock and wind and water.


:-)

Surfing

Cornwall is about as far from Norfolk as is possible while still remaining in England. So of course, this weekend Tom & I headed to Cornwall to try surfing again after a gap of many years, on a boys' weekend with some of my cycling friends and their sons.

We had fun. It was something of a special occasion for me, as I rarely do anything active with Tom, let alone go for a weekend together, so there was an emotional element as well as the physical challenge. We did get into the water an both days, even though neither of us could stand on the borrowed board so we used our old boogie-boards much more. Now, my arms and ribs ache from the unaccustomed form of exercise - but I do feel good, mentally and physically.

The weather and the surf were kind to us, with sun and wind agreeing to keep the waves manageable but interesting for us, and Saturday night being perfect for sitting around a barbecue talking and drinking. The stars were out, our corner of the campsite was sheltered from the wind, and we felt that we deserved to be there, just talking.


:-)

Rat the Third

...was found dead upon our dining-room floor this morning. There was lots of blood, so we presume that the cats must have brought it home to play with. Egh.


:-(

Weddings & Coincidences

I was in Norwich to attend a wedding party, following the marriage of my best mate from school's sister (if that makes sense); I've known her since she was only nine and I was eleven. She's lived in Norwich for ten or so years, having settled there after spells in London and with no desire to return to grim Stockton. It's a decent-sized city, with about a third of a million people in its commuting zone.

So why, when Susie found a man to settle with, did she steal a bloke who used to live with my cousin Jo? Susie and Jo are the only two women I know in Norwich, and the city's over two hundred miles both from Bristol and Stockton. The odds of a man moving from one to the other, even accounting for age, social factors etc, must be one in ten thousand, or even less. It's too much. At least, I guess, this means that I am now vaguely related through marriage to my old mate.

To compound the coincidences, Susie and her new man now live in a house that used to belong to Jo's grandmother.......



:-(

Norwich

Top: Bernard Reynolds. Head.
Lower: Joanna Reynolds, Goddess in garden

I spent most of Sunday in Norwich, following an evening at a wedding-party for a friend who is finally marrying at fifty-plus.

I've not been to Norwich many times before, as it's a long way both from Bristol and Teesside, and there's not much around it. However, the city itself is lively, with some beautiful quaint streets and historic areas. Joanna, my cousin, lives there and showed me around the prettiest areas including the ancient Castle Mound. Her father was a sculptor who was locally well-known, and one of his bronzes is located upon the Mound. It's a strange, modernistic piece which looks vaguely parrot-like and partly like a medieval helmet.

Jo is also a sculptress, whose work makes me feel inadequate and uncreative. Her best pieces, I feel, are the Goddess series which she created a few years ago: ceramic ovoids with a serene beauty yet recognisably humanoid. They're the sort of form which ought to found in prehistoric sites, but never are. There's an element of a Minoan Venus and of arrowheads about them, that looks distinctly prehistoric and Freudian, appealing to my most basic aesthetic senses. They're lovely.

:)

Rats again

So, there I was, on my hands & knees clearing out a cupboard to check there were no signs of rat droppings or other traces within it. Except there were signs of rats: many pellets and puddles of yellow. Filthy creatures. Then I put my hand inside an open plastic box to take it out from the cupboard and clean it thoroughly, and the box shifted in my hand. It held a young rat. I yanked the box out from the cupboard and flung it through the open kitchen door into the garden, whereupon the beast scuttled dazedly away across the lawn into a plant-covered corner, before I could grab gauntlets and a hammer to kill it.

Still, yesterday evening there were no sounds from behind the kitchen units, and this morning there were no signs nor sounds of more rats. I hope they're all gone now, and that the cats don't drag any more into the house.


8¬?

Rats

There's another young rat in the kitchen.
I could hear it scratching behind the units, and I've seen its droppings.

Now I've also seen the beast itself, leaping out of the toaster. Small, grey, pointy-nosed. Bastard. I'll kill it, when I catch it.
But we can't poison it, and we can't pull all the kitchen units out of place to find it.

Kill, kill !


8¬(

A normal weekend

It's been a busy summer, and this weekend will my last ordinary, stay-at-home, for at least a month. So, I decided to so some ordinary, stay-at-home type stuff. Friday night, we went to the first gig we'd attended for several months, seeing the Zen Hussies play at the Golden Lion. It's good to get into live music again, and even though they weren't the type of band I'd usually choose, they were great, playing a mixture of '40's swing and '80's ska. Punk jazz, perhaps?

Then on Saturday, I shopped and did stuff around the house. Clothes shopping, too: it's been months since I attempted that apart from knickers and T-shirts. The day was tiring and fun, just very satisfying in the way that overdue tasks were completed. I even managed to swim in the early evening.

Sunday was a Bristol day. This year, I'd missed most of the local festivals for one reason or another; the Balloon Fiesta, the Harbour Festival, Ashton Court had all passed me by. So Moonface & I cycled up to see the Kite Festival (Europe's largest) which for once had strong breezes to make it all worthwhile and to keep the skies busy. That was pleasantly relaxed, with enough visitors to keep the stallholders busy and to make people-watching fun while avoiding crushes and crowds. The show kites were there as usual, from a new fat white cherub 30 feet long, to a purple spider of a similar size,just showing off how fantastical kites can be now.

En route, we'd visited the Emmaus House garden which was open to the public for the day. It was a stunning setting, a huge beautifully-tended small estate in the middle of urban Clifton, overlooking the harbour and Hotwells, split into a series of different gardens ranging from a vegetable-patch surrounded by espaliered apples, to a Japanese-style Zen garden of stones, bamboo and water. In one corner, where the stables had been in previous centuries, the garden still retained the spring that had fed the house's private well.

So, by the time we hit home, we were tired and ready to slump. So we did.

27th August, 1977 - 2007

MMmmmmm.
Obviously, thirty years of living with me is pretty aging. Moonface now looks at least twenty years older than the innocent of our honeymoon.

Aahhh.


;-)

More animals

After seeing a peacock outside our van and a dead wallaby by the roadside last week, nature invaded home. Firstly and unusually, there was the squirrel prancing upon the fence between our garden and our neighbours'.

Then, less welcome, is the wasps' nest in the other neighbours' roof eaves, only about four feet from my office window. I have to leave our window shut even when it's sunny, as the wasps fly by in such numbers. There seem to be more by the day.

Even less welcome was the rat. Our two cats had been acting strangely for a couple of days, obviously looking for something, when Rio came into the kitchen late one night and saw a young rat. It ran to hide behind our kitchen cabinets, then kept reappearing at intervals over the next few nights until yesterday we caught the little sod [so sweet, so young] and I dropped it into the pond. Bad move! It swam to some weed, then scampered across that in a jesus-like fashion and escaped into the garden.

Its freedom didn't last long. Smirnoff recaptured and returned it to our kitchen again this afternoon, obviously wanting something lively to play with. Moonface and I cornered the little rat again, but this time Moonface wore thick leather gauntlets so she could scoop it into her hands, take it outside and fling it hard down onto the concrete paving. It twitched, then died. Its body is in the bin. I hope that the cats don't bring any more into the house: I guess that where there's one young rat, there's likely to be a whole family of the vile creatures.


:0(