The Chalybeate

Sunday 31 May 2009

First Swim

This year it's the 31st May, after a run of warm and sunny days. I should have been earlier in the week, but other stuff and indolence prevented me from swimming before. I have the other excuse that I have been away for much of the month or preparing for travel.

So, the lake - supposedly 63F, whatever that is in real degrees. It was cool enough to make getting in a slow and uncomfortable minute, but warm enough for my body to manage 300m or so without feeling too cold. That's not bad for the first swim of the year.

:o)

Thursday 28 May 2009

Navigation

North of Minions, crossing the Moor, there were no waymarked paths.

I think that I enjoyed the navigation there more than anything I'd done before, since the landscape is so old. We followed the stones of some ancient boundary, and as we ascended or descended the curves of the hill, another stone would miraculously become visible. The traces led to a six-thousand year-old stone circle where each stone was surrounded by a pool of water where cattle had rubbed themselves against the rock.




The next day, we navigated along an invisible bridleway over plains that looked as if they were Wyoming, using a combination of mapwork, compass, the sun and tiny pimply mounds and irregularities of the hillsides, which led us to the right spot some miles onward. We were following tracks of our ancestors, thousands of years old, using the same markers that they had laid down; and it felt so close to nature.

We passed hut circles of the same age, relics of the old transhumance or summer huts when the moors were only occupied in fair weather and wondered at how the world had changed.



Walking is wonderful.


:o)

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Wednesday 27 May 2009

Little Red Corvette



We were astounded by the number of wild horses running loose on Bodmin Moor, from single mares with their foals to herds of a dozen or more chasing each other unencumbered by fences or fields. They were beautiful and slightly intimidating, especially when the stallions galloped over the grassy moorland with their heads lowered and teeth bared in aggression towards their mares or rivals. We could hear them thundering from a distance, and when seen against the skyline the romance was intense. The horses came in all colours, brindle to grey to roan to piebald and mustang skews, all slightly unkempt and tatty from recently losing their winter coats.

There's a line in Prince's song "Little Red Corvette" that goes: "The place where your horses run free" so the song lodged in my brain for the whole weekend, mixing the presence of Bodmin with my idealised visions of the American plains (which I've never visited) and memories of the preceding New York weekend spent in the company of E and her stories of a complicated past in Texas.





"It was a Saturday night, I guess that makes it alright; and what had I got to lose?"



:o)

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Tuesday 26 May 2009

Contrast



With my previous weekend spent in New York, the zenith of 20th-century city building, the contrast between that and this weekend's walk around Bodmin Moor could hardly have been greater. Moonface & I took four days to walk a little over sixty miles with plenty of stops to admire the views and wild horses.

Although we had initially decided to follow a trail described in a book (The Copper Trail), in the event we augmented & improved the walk by making much less use of roads and correspondingly more use of the high moorland and unmarked access land. The pub food was acceptable and simple, our B&B excellent, the walking utterly lovely. We should return someday.

:o)

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Wednesday 20 May 2009

New York Wheels

I usually enjoy city cycling: I love the feeling of being at one with the environment but constantly aware of its dangers, the exhilaration of physical effort and the stimulation of being menaced from all sides by the metal (or mental) equivalent of mindless bulls. Bristol and London are fun: one can outrun the traffic, dodge the cars, scorn the taxis and dodge the pedestrians.

New York was different. I hired a bike for just a couple of hours, starting by a couple of of circuits of Central Park. So what's the fuss about? Yeah, it's a park. Yeah, it's in a city. Yeah, there are lots of runners, mainly grim faced and joyless, pounding around a circuit which surely must pall after a lap or two. But I did see my first american robin, the rusty blackbird that's hardly a real redbreast.





Then I went onto the roads. Ummm. The traffic's faster, accelerates and decelerates harder, drives closer and pays less attention to other users. The roads themselves are more pitted and potholed than I'm used to, with deeeper holes and sheets of slick steel at intervals, all designed to throw off unwary cyclists. To be honest, I didn't like it that much, especially as the traffic intersections are controlled by lights instead of roundabouts, so there was too much waiting around (except when I jumped the lights, which is fun)

I went from Central Park to Times Square via Broadway, 5th Avenue to East River and around. I felt Manhattan's nerves, but I'm unlikely to try it again as I had two traffic touches, two too many in that time. The first was when a taxi cut in front of me then slammed on his brakes. My front wheel hit his fender, and my testicles hit the cross bar, which hurt. I cycled somewhat slower after that, not entirely by choice. Then later, when I swerved to avoid a deep and wide pothole off 1st Ave, my bars touched a taxi which was passing me very closely. My confidence waned, so I cycled back to the hire shop somewhat more sedately than I'd otherwise have done.

As a morning's entertainment it was great, but I'm not sure that I'd live long doing that every day.

:o/

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Tuesday 19 May 2009

New York Doll

At least the natives are friendly. Well, some of them.

As I said, the architecture is the main attraction of the city so I wandered into Grand Central where I was appropriately amazed at the space and grandeur of the main concourse; larger than most concert halls, better lit and more decorative. It's a beautiful, symmetric and spacious hall, airy and artful. It puts any European station to shame.

Trying to leave, the exit signs & directions meant nothing to me so I asked a nearby woman which of the many exits to take in order to head towards my hotel's street. We fell into conversation and she confessed that she'd just been stood up for the Friday night by her girlfriend - so we agreed to eat together. So we did. She knew the city, we headed for a familiar tapas bar and ate well and drank and talked until it was time for her to get the train home to her distant suburb and husband.

But we got on well. I like rocky music in small venues and it turned out that she also did, having been a musician in a semi-successful punk band years ago and managed bands as well. We swapped musical preferences and tastes, talked histories and families and just felt easy with each other. Since her man isn't into music she offered to take me to a club on Saturday night and of course I accepted.

Hence after my Saturday siteseeing and her domestic day, we met again in the station, took a trip into Brooklyn, ate a good Chinese meal (which she paid for), listened to a crap band, found a good couple of bars, didn't bother going into the club she knew, and had a fun night out in a part of town where I felt quite at home; the equivalent of Southville or Easton for the Bristolians reading this.

Then we parted at midnight at Grand Central station where we'd first met, probably never to see each other again although it would be really good if we did. So "E", if you ever read this - thanks: you made my weekend. And if you're ever in Bristol - I owe you a couple of nights on the town. And probably more.

:o)

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Monday 18 May 2009

New York Greys

Skyline from across Central Park, misty day.

I took a 36 hour stopover en route to Washington for a business trip.

New York, at least Manhattan, is overwhelming.

It's noisy, crowded and the buildings are huge. I'm not a fan of London, but this place was the Square Mile squared. I felt intimidated at first. It's vertical, sheer cliffs of stone and brick and granite and glass only missing pterodactyls to be a scene from a man-made hell. Yet it's thriving and busy and at ground level more than the equal of anywhere else I've been, every frontage occupied with eateries and shops. Most were busy from the huge numbers of people living around only a few blocks from wherever they needed to be.

With only a day and a bit in the city, I chose the wrong weather since the tops of the skyscrapers were dressed in mist, grey ladies in veils. My site-seeing was limited to two hours cycling, lots of walking and a visit to MoMA....next time I'll do more. At least I'll have someone to do it with. Perhaps.



:o)

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Sunday 17 May 2009

Google !

I was looking at the Google Streetview visualisation of our house and street, and discovered that in one shot, I'm visible for all the world to see. Of course, you have to know which viewpoint to see me from, and what I look like, but there I am.

Fame at last!

:0)

Thursday 14 May 2009

Crow

I didn't know that crows were such vicious predators.
Walking back from the Wellington across Horfield Common, we heard the racket of squawking birds from a tree, but couldn't see what was happening because of the density of the fresh new leaves. It was obvious that some birds were unhappy, but not how many there were.

Then a young starling flew out from the cover of the leaves, pursued by a large crow. The chase didn't last long, as within a few seconds we saw the crow returning towards the lawn of the common, with the starling held in its beak. The crow landed, deposited the fledgling on the grass and then proceeded to stab the poor thing several times, swinging its bill hard onto the soft body beneath it. The victim dead, the crow flew off with it again, presumably to either eat in peace where it couldn't be disturbed, or to take the body to feed its own young.

Red in tooth and claw, indeed.

:o/

Tuesday 12 May 2009

Dope

Although I am an occasional tobacco smoker, taking from perhaps one or two per week down to less than one a month, depending upon whose company I'm in, I hardly ever smoke any dope. I do (did?) like the mild effect that one or two drags on a joint can give me, so when I was offered some last weekend I accepted and enjoyed the slight enhancement of sound and vision that makes cannabis fun. It must have been over a year since I last had any.

Then, this morning while walking Moonface towards work I spotted a plump little plastic bag on the pavement close to the Gloucester Road. Being an incorrigible skip-diver and scavenger, I picked it up without thinking then discovered that it had a little portion of tightly-pressed grass inside it. Hmm, I thought, while putting the bag into my pocket. Then on my return journey I saw another similar little bag close to where I found the first. It also contained weed. Hmmm again.

So, what do I do with this? Pass it to my dope-smoking friend? Smoke it myself as a small luxury? Throw it away? Store it for twenty years like the last lot I acquired, then dispose of it?
It's sitting in a tin at the moment, waiting on a decision.

:o/

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Monday 11 May 2009

Tits



Bloody cats. Smirnoff brought this bluetit in through the cat-flap this morning. Tommo rescued it from the cat, and we watched it huddled in a corner for some time. When we disturber it, the poor thing flapped around the kitchen for a while before flying away through the window we had opened. I hope it lives for while - at least there are plenty around.

By the way, its perch is the water heater which I need to replace.

:-/

Sunday 10 May 2009

Two in One

One of the things I enjoy most about summer is that it's possible to fit so much more into a day, as they are just so much longer. It's light late enough to actually do things in the evening, and the earlier daylight wakes me up more effectively.

Saturday was a case in point; it felt like two days crammed into one.
Moonface wanted to buy a summer coat so in the absence of our daughter as arbiter elegantiae, she asked me to go with her. We pushbiked down into the city centre in ten minutes, hitting the TK Maxx shortly after nine. Two coats, a fleece, a pair of shoes and an airline cabin bag later, I returned home an arranged meeting to sell some stable paving blocks to someone renovating their garden. The pavers had been cluttering our side passageway for at least a dozen years, and it looks much tidier now.

Then, coffee with Lou on the Gloucester Road (meeting Drew & Elaine as well) , and a short stroll to browse and buy some odd items. After lunch, Moonface trotted off to her allotment while I cycled around town attempting to find a water heater for one which died recently. A long cycle ride later, I was recommended to try the internet. Heigh-ho. Then I cut the lawn. Nice trim, Moses.

In the evening, we staggered around to Caroline's for her birthday party, where Matthew her son showed how easy it was to pour too much wine into our glasses, with the result that staggering home again at midnight was even more difficult than getting there. But in the interval we talked and ate and generally had a lovely convivial evening. And I was exhausted.

:o)

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Friday 8 May 2009

Doves

No, not more birds: the band. We saw them play last night.

It's the second time we've seen them at the Academy, and this time was a good as the last. In spite of the gig being a sell-out, Moonface & I had a great vantage point, at the front of the balcony. FOr a change I didn't reckon much to the support band (Malakai) whom I thought to be a bit twiddly-diddly wankers as the Greek translation of their name suggests.

But Doves were great, with a consistent heavy wall of sound and songs to think to. I suppose that I didn't really put my body and heart into the music as usual; it was somehow very cerebral and allowed me to drift into daydreams easily. Moonface enjoyed it more, I think, although this may just reflect the drifts of our respective musical tastes. We both remembered the videos for There Goes the Fear and that certainly sent me off into another, '60's, world.

............horror of horrors, we drove to the Academy instead of walking.


:o)

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