Swimming

 Aquatic being that I am swimming is something I have really missed not only during lockdown but also due to back pain.  It's a moot point if lack of swimming or lockdown itself caused the "sciatica" as I used to swim twice a week as regularly as the irritating Pyramids timetable would allow.

Everything has increased in price - understandably - as a result of extra cleansing measures and limited numbers but what a joy to be back in a pool again!  Exmouth pool used to be a favourite when I lived the other side of the city as I could hop on a train and exit right next door.  Now it's a quick drive and a lengthier walk as I am far too mean to pay for parking.  Unlike the Pyramids where I would swim along and count the submerged and floating hair and plasters - this pool is transparently clear.  The new regime of clothes in a basket, poolside ready, get in and swim and process to your numered cubicle without the unpredictable (Pyramids) shower is very reassuring.

Fewer numbers, but oh there is some pool rage!  It amuses me as the lanes are sufficiently spacious to swim abreast rather than in a head to toe line.  But people like to follow the ropes it seems.  I am happy to do the odd seal-like swerve to avoid other rebellious swimmers but it is much calmer in the middle!

This morning I was amused by the "slow lane club" whose pre swim bitching and ailment exchange irked me.  Until I tried to think a tiny bit more charitably which is hard - maybe they are just sore/anxious/fearful of strangers in "their" pool.  But it has been such a fresh, sea air morning that being grumpy seems a shame.  Pre swim I sat on the flood prevention wall and played the 5 senses game - what can you hear/touch etc.  Before opening all too easy eyes!  Fresh air flowing over wrists and ruffled hair, oystercatchers sounding off and black headed gulls screeching. The pressure of the wall on legs and backside, smooth concrete.  And I could see the lovely vista below but not through the lens - too bright and brisk a day and the reflections of sun on the water meant I was taking photos blind

A House through Time

 Avid TV history buffs like me welcome the reruns of programmes like A house through time.  Thanks to Amazon I have a second hand copy of the book by David Olusoga and Melanie Backe-Hansen based on the series - or in truth supplementing the series.

I have been genuinely shocked by the chapters on the Victorian poor. I remember being told by an Open University lecturer that Dickens never exaggerates in his descriptions of the lowest of the low and the appalling conditions they were forced to live in.  I was aware of the reforms made by the early sanitary reformers and benefactors such as the Quaker manufacturers Cadbury and Rowntree.  But what has totally overwhelmed me has been the blatant disregard of the poor as Victorian London was "developed" - broad new avenues and suites of houses which were deliberately routed through the disgusting "rookeries" of the bottom of Victorian society.  Train lines were brutally cut through districts of the poorest.  The Victorian middle classes villified the poor as shirking, filthy, moral degenerates - some may have been but there are descriptions of the overcrowded, huddled together rooms with absolutely no facilities and the disgusting overflowing rotting effluent laden "shared privies" - so few for whole streets! How the poor could be "moral" seems a tad optimistic!

I know that we have deep wealth divides, I know that rents are immorally high, I know that many children still live in disgusting damp, infested accommodation and that so many live in food poverty.  It's too easy for me to be appalled by conditions which prevailed within the actual lifespan of my own home, and to turn off the TV when documentaries make me uncomfortable.  It's frustrating - not being at that level of poverty myself yet without the wherewithal to make a difference.  Except that unlike the benighted Victorian poor I can vote.

Jack of all trades?

 My friend Hannah Foley, who blogs at "Owling About" is a Renaissance woman of multiple talents - writer, nurse, parent, grower of veg, lover of the countryside and a lovely person as well.  I have just read her latest blog on the craft of writing and can but feel a little bit overawed!  I'm a hobby writer and taker of photos hence my title but oh both give me huge joy.  Today, having finished the two redecorating projects - my bedroom and the kitchen, I drove to Barrington Court again.

It draws me this place. I've written about it before, taken photos of the interior, used it as an escape after an over-intense conference.  Taken friends there.  I think it is just the lost garden feel, the sense of it being a half finished hidden treasure, deserted and deliberately empty. My feet echo the long gallery boards and I am disappointed that today I am sharing it with others! The intricate, delicate gun-reminiscent lock caught my eye on the way out.

The bronze, golds, russets of the flowers below, the perfection of a water lily.  A butterfly suspended in time, the lazy green light glint on weedy water and the homey colours of the brick stack  slowed my pace, restored my soul. The bees and crickets hum in the grass and it is a good to be alive and forget Covid time.  However brief, however personally uncertain the future is.

Dank day

 Dank, wonderful descriptive word. Damp and dripping but certainly not cold.  Overcast, sticky, humid and very foggy on the Tiverton Canal this morning.  I drove out to see if I could find the staff parking for the temp job I start in September.  So, in need of a stroll I headed to the canal.  I've seen kingfishers along here before so my eyes and ears were alert.  

The banks' foliage was high and reedy, beautiful brown velvet looking bulrushes, tangles of brambles in the hedges.  The water had drifts of yellow and also white and pink water lillies which I stopped to admire.  Lots of ducks - drakes still in eclipse plumage.  A big family of swans sailed upstream. Six fawny brown babies paddling away and peeping their calls to mum and dad as they swam ahead.  Walking in their company I found myself passing moorhens and a couple of their chicks who swam away with the head back and forward motion that looks so inefficient and tiring!

Past the kingfisher tree where I'd seen them before and no such luck this time - the water had a green algae scum and the drizzling damp got steadily more unpleasant - a waterproof jacket and hood in a heatwave is not great.  And still no kingfishers on the way back. 

Jacob and Blackberries!

 It's a frabjous day for earlyish morning blackberry picking.  Mainly because it is cool up in Mincinglake Park and climbing gentle, rough ground is my next bit of "training for Pembrokeshire" - getting my iffy back used to uneven ground which it still doesn't like too well.

Lots of blackberries, lots of prickles too and I'm wearing shorts. Not so good! It is a lovely way to concentrate, relax, avoid spending money on a "take to dinner out" present and breathe.  Breathing is good.

The main drag of Mincinglake is broiling hot and it's only 10am.  Definitely to be avoided.  

I had another walk at 5.30am up on Ludwell Valley's rufty tufty slopes.  As I was listening to Nick's sermon on I have no idea where in Micah he mentioned that some word was used for limp - it was super early and I was half asleep - but my mind went back to poor old patriarch Jacob. Since I was also admiring the cornflowers, it just proves you shouldn't multi task.

Like Jacob I wrestle - with ideas - with big books that look intimidating, and with over thinking.  And I remembered that poor Jacob also suffered from a sore hip - his wrestling partner (?God) cheated somewhat and smote him what must have been a cracking blow on the hip.  I can't imagine how that must have been without painkillers!! Poor Jacob limped: did he have L4 nerve irritation too (aka sciatica?) I really hope not. No wonder he comes across as a whinger in his later life.

And I came away home from my lunch with a six pack - of windfall apples to accompany my own over stewed blackberries.

Candle smoke

When I pray and read the bible I light a candle.  Gives me something to look at when I pretty frequently can't think what to say.  Goes along with a coffee cup to huddle over. Blame the heavy duty pain medication I have been on and a host of other tedious reasons for feeling less than charging on all cylinders in the mornings!  This morning I had a tough job snuffing the candle - it wouldn't blow out.  It made me think that my faith was sufficiently tenancious but God has definitely not given up and there is a brilliant verse about Jesus not "putting out a flickering candle wick" Somewhere in the gospels - I think in Luke - it encourages me when for whatever reason I feel a bit less than stable.

Much later after tedious job applications and the usual round of chores and petrol station I walked into town and drifted into the cathedral mainly to escape the rain and to pray.  And lit a candle for a friend with cancer.  For a preaching friend, for a stressed nursing friend.  It felt decidedly odd and a real privilege to be back walking around the place. Prayer as incense, prayer as candle smoke....

Tyntsfield - 5 mile walkies!

Yesterday I went to Slimbridge, avoiding the children.  Drakes skulked, flashy green heads reduced to manky little stripes of dull green.  Collected together, they looked like morning-after-a-hard-night blokes - apparently it is called "eclipse plumage" - that should have told me that I wasn't likely to see too much in early August.  But it was so lovely to be back; to watch the otters sinuously swirl through the water and wish I could join them, to potter round the bird hides pretending to be an expert.  I don't have the patience but it was quiet and I spotted lapwings and heard them calling, and what I think is probably a sandpiper.  There are interesting new sections opening up but, scuppered by Covid they look half finished with no actual wildlife, just structures.

There is also a lovely summer walk along the estuary and it was so good to feel the breeze riffling my hair into spikes and to hear both breeze and the crickets murmuring in the grasses.  I'm not the best at bird identification, but I learned one trick - birds are, like me, creatures of habit - so find what they like to eat and watch.  In this case, thistle seeds; baby goldfinch was my reward.  I also know that the clunky rustling of leaves in undergrowth is usually Mr or Mrs Blackbird making a racket in search of breakfast.

Which leads me nicely to the delights of having a proper Premier Inn Breakfast.  It was a one night away day so I took a pot of porridge for rescue.  But thankfully a streamlined version of my favourite in the world meal was available.  Plus copious amounts of hand sanitiser after using hot water machine/toaster etc.  Poor hands! 

And so to Tyntsfield despite the satnav which tried to route me through Easton in Bristol.  Which I know from experience is a crawl.  The only times I have been to Tyntsfield it has rained or been pretty cold and dull so today's parkland 5 mile walk was such a delight.