Wednesday 21 December 2011
The solstice is really tomorrow
I saw a bee today, a grand, fluffy black and yellow and white queen of a bumblebee, but I do not know if it was the old year's swan-song, or the herald of the new.
Sunday 11 December 2011
The moon, hidden in eclipse, visits twice full.
We had days in the week with frosts at both ends, but not severe enough yet to need an ice-scraper twice. In compensation came a full moon, cosying up to Jupiter early in the week, but moving with its fullness to a point above Orion. It cast witching shadows when I walked out on Friday night and, last evening, back-lit a sky full of lenticuls, like an Austrian blind for astronomers.
Expecting to keep a constant at my age, I find myself decorating cherry cakes in a grid, distinct from my previous radial patterning. The perception of irregularity when eaten in slices is more pleasing than what I learnt at my Mother's knee.
After a furlough that has lasted since July, I am getting sore fingers again from my appalling ebay mandolin. Still trying to convince myself, and, just as importantly, those that have to overhear my efforts, that I can stick with the learning process and emerge improved. Youngest son recently obtained a distinction in his grade 1 guitar and sounds most proficient and pleasant. We expect a change soon though, since the reward for the achievement was a promise of an electric guitar for Christmas.
Expecting to keep a constant at my age, I find myself decorating cherry cakes in a grid, distinct from my previous radial patterning. The perception of irregularity when eaten in slices is more pleasing than what I learnt at my Mother's knee.
After a furlough that has lasted since July, I am getting sore fingers again from my appalling ebay mandolin. Still trying to convince myself, and, just as importantly, those that have to overhear my efforts, that I can stick with the learning process and emerge improved. Youngest son recently obtained a distinction in his grade 1 guitar and sounds most proficient and pleasant. We expect a change soon though, since the reward for the achievement was a promise of an electric guitar for Christmas.
Friday 2 December 2011
crisp morning snap
A rainy evening, followed by wide open, dark skies had brushed the car's panels with a frozen wave motive, patterned by Esher. I chipped and scraped at the glaze to the warming hum of the engine.
A kiss, applied by a retreating trick-or-treater to the driver's glass, is almost gone after a half dozen spongings and a scrape. None-the-less, sitting there I still feel loved, whatever the intention, noticing that lipstick makes good anti-freeze.
Thursday 24 November 2011
Enlightenment from the Guru
Despite actually being quite keen to get to work this morning, I travelled by the long route. The New Forest is too beautiful to miss at this time of year and, even though many trees have already given up on the whole photosynthesis jive, the custard maple still retains a smattering of leaves and the rest lie, like a sweet vanilla pool, around its trunk.
The roads were blessedly quiet and I enjoyed an unhurried drive, pausing only to watch a lapwing standing on the green and slowing a little to see some huge, half-highland bred cows with horns quite suited to moving pallets.
Last night, in the clear sky, on the way to play badminton, I saw Jupiter shining brightly down. Unsurprisingly, in the second half of November, it was jolly cold as a result.
The roads were blessedly quiet and I enjoyed an unhurried drive, pausing only to watch a lapwing standing on the green and slowing a little to see some huge, half-highland bred cows with horns quite suited to moving pallets.
Last night, in the clear sky, on the way to play badminton, I saw Jupiter shining brightly down. Unsurprisingly, in the second half of November, it was jolly cold as a result.
Sunday 20 November 2011
The shade of trees
Fluorescent kitchen light and the dawn, softened by mist, in the garden set the two apart, as if from alternate realities. The residue of morning brew stuck to the glass made the division tangible, echoing the mist in an optical haze.
An early newspaper, as much for the walk as the news, took me across the green where the fences and hedges and ponies loomed slowly out of the fog, gaining colour and, it seemed, solidity with approaching steps, only to gently lose it over the shoulder. The first pony, cut first in silhouette, slowly resolved to a rainbow of browns; dark flanks, almost black tail and a mane that almost looked fresh from the colourist, with pale highlights amongst the chocolates. The colours spoke to the genetic hamster in me of ripe autumn nuts ready for winter storage.
With the mist there was, as always, a stillness reflected in the standing water. The only ripples raised by falling droplets from the mossy trees. An interesting reversal against the convention of sheltering trees; beneath their boughs was the only rain.
The still surfaces of pools reflected poorly, asthough they had their own coating of condensation. The surfaces were slightly oily, dusty; perhaps with the particles of slowly digesting leaves that have already given up the exercise of floating and have sunk to rest cold, on the mud.
The noise of an inaccessible aircraft rattled the air a little as my stroll turned back towards the ostensible objective. The engine note rose a little, fell, and then I thought I heard the whine of stage 1 flaps extending. I rather hoped that the pilot knew where he was. It was only with the loss of the aero-engine roar that I became aware of the birdscape. A few desultory twitterings raised above the ambience only for short robin disputes, but by the church there was an early practice for the starlings' spring - clicks and chatters and preludes in keys minor and major.
An early newspaper, as much for the walk as the news, took me across the green where the fences and hedges and ponies loomed slowly out of the fog, gaining colour and, it seemed, solidity with approaching steps, only to gently lose it over the shoulder. The first pony, cut first in silhouette, slowly resolved to a rainbow of browns; dark flanks, almost black tail and a mane that almost looked fresh from the colourist, with pale highlights amongst the chocolates. The colours spoke to the genetic hamster in me of ripe autumn nuts ready for winter storage.
With the mist there was, as always, a stillness reflected in the standing water. The only ripples raised by falling droplets from the mossy trees. An interesting reversal against the convention of sheltering trees; beneath their boughs was the only rain.
The still surfaces of pools reflected poorly, asthough they had their own coating of condensation. The surfaces were slightly oily, dusty; perhaps with the particles of slowly digesting leaves that have already given up the exercise of floating and have sunk to rest cold, on the mud.
The noise of an inaccessible aircraft rattled the air a little as my stroll turned back towards the ostensible objective. The engine note rose a little, fell, and then I thought I heard the whine of stage 1 flaps extending. I rather hoped that the pilot knew where he was. It was only with the loss of the aero-engine roar that I became aware of the birdscape. A few desultory twitterings raised above the ambience only for short robin disputes, but by the church there was an early practice for the starlings' spring - clicks and chatters and preludes in keys minor and major.
Thursday 10 November 2011
to the tip and back
Unaccustomed as I am to keeping pets, I had a novel time on Saturday, on my way to the waste tip, with a pet mouse. I rather thought of him as a pet mouse, even though I was only a little certain that he was in the car somewhere. I had certainly seen him run out of one of the bulk-bags of garden waste that I had loaded into the back of the car. He jumped from the bag onto the rear door pillar, up to the ceiling and then downwards, to disappear into the pile of rubbish and the mouse-sized holes left by the folding rear seats.
I wasn't wholly surprised to discover that mice were living in the bags, although they had only been on the drive for two weeks, awaiting some time in the shorter autumn days when the bags were dry enough and the waste site open. I thought I saw, out of the corner of my eye, as I loaded up, a running brown creature leave the bag before I moved it. Evidently it had not been alone.
I left the car door open as I finished loading and, once I was at the waste site, I left them open again, hoping that the mouse would find its own way out. No sign of the mouse as I tipped the rubbish, but no sign that it had escaped either.
Once home I put a tidy blob of peanut butter on an old jam lid and placed it in the shadow under the back seats, where the boy's floor litter already provided a deal of cover for furtive mammals (and, on closer inspection, some food too). Checking the lid an hour later revealed tooth prints, so I continued the search I had already begun for the humane mouse trap I've owned since having mice invade my loft in a house I owned 20 years ago. Although I've seen the trap a few times, I couldn't place it. I did manage to find the base of a mouse trap I made for the boys to use in the back garden about three years ago. Youngest son managed to find the matching lid nearby under something else in the garden border. I oiled the moving parts a little to make the door shut reliably, transferred the peanut butter onto the trigger platform and, with little belief in this untested mechanism, made myself busy for a long enough period, so I thought, for the mouse to get hungry and curious again.
Youngest son followed me out and when I opened the car door it was to find the trap closed. I lifted it, unable to tell from the weight whether there was an additional mouse present. I peeled the lid carefully, and there he was, tiny, with beady eyes and whiskers. I handed the trap to youngest who set out to show his brothers. “Not in the house I advised”, putting the car seats back together before following on. Eldest came out to see and, in the porch, there was a scrabbling and the mouse leaped out, and into the hall.
The pile of shoes and outdoor-wear nearest the door finally revealed a small and scared mouse. Eldest cupped him gently, too gently, and whilst trying to get a better look, released him once again, where-upon he ran into the dining room. I was rather getting over the pleasures of having a pet mouse by this time, but after moving a few toys the mouse was again found, although he appeared to be limping a little; I suspect from trying to make an escape behind a hot radiator, since there were now balls of fluff hanging from its base. Mouse was confined now to another ice-cream container, until safely outside, where, after stopping to clean himself, he recovered the full use of all four limbs and dashed into the shrubbery.
Wednesday 26 October 2011
Payne's grey
One week ago a hint of winter crusted the tops of the parked cars and the seasonal scraping routine began, but hardly yet in earnest. Two days of soft ice to clear before another front brought cloud and relative mildness. The clouds have intensified this week and, as well as sculpting the sky in fantastic shapes and shades, have dropped a measurable sprinkle of water.
Monday morning's dawn glowed the garden in a striking colour as I looked out while the kettle filled. The sky showed recumbent pink wraiths, supporting clusters of mushroom caps in payne's grey. The colour theme was revisted this morning, with, as I drove to work, the grey intensifying and the pink tones replaced by pale blues, glimpsed through architectural layers of paler cloud.
A couple of cold nights have loosened the leaves a little, but most of the canopy is still shade, rather than litter. The cherries are going over to brittle brown, but the silver birches still show a light golden fortune in leaf pennies and the sycamores have started to dance across the spectrum, even from one side of a tree to the other. The custard maple has begun its descent towards dessert, showing a very pale yellow on some leaves, like custard made with too little powder.
Alice Roberts is decorating our TV screens weekly with a series on the "origins of us". Her assertion last week was that we are designed, as mammals, to run. Long legs, narrow waist, head supporting ligaments and hairless for effective heat control on the pre-historic African savannas. Quite a convincing argument; perhaps better than Desmond Morris' "body watching". This followed through from one of Bruce Parry's "tribe" episodes in which African hunters achieved their success essentially by out-running their prey, not in a sprint but in a war of pedestrian attrition. Convincing though these luminaries may be on anthropology, I feel they may have been beaten to the conclusion by Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run".
I am uncertain how many landscape painters there may be operating in these times of economic uncertainty. Perhaps their numbers have been swelled by a few bankers on gardening leave. I can only recommend that, if the clouds continue as they have been for the last week, that an investment in the production of payne's grey might be worth your while.
Monday morning's dawn glowed the garden in a striking colour as I looked out while the kettle filled. The sky showed recumbent pink wraiths, supporting clusters of mushroom caps in payne's grey. The colour theme was revisted this morning, with, as I drove to work, the grey intensifying and the pink tones replaced by pale blues, glimpsed through architectural layers of paler cloud.
A couple of cold nights have loosened the leaves a little, but most of the canopy is still shade, rather than litter. The cherries are going over to brittle brown, but the silver birches still show a light golden fortune in leaf pennies and the sycamores have started to dance across the spectrum, even from one side of a tree to the other. The custard maple has begun its descent towards dessert, showing a very pale yellow on some leaves, like custard made with too little powder.
Alice Roberts is decorating our TV screens weekly with a series on the "origins of us". Her assertion last week was that we are designed, as mammals, to run. Long legs, narrow waist, head supporting ligaments and hairless for effective heat control on the pre-historic African savannas. Quite a convincing argument; perhaps better than Desmond Morris' "body watching". This followed through from one of Bruce Parry's "tribe" episodes in which African hunters achieved their success essentially by out-running their prey, not in a sprint but in a war of pedestrian attrition. Convincing though these luminaries may be on anthropology, I feel they may have been beaten to the conclusion by Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run".
I am uncertain how many landscape painters there may be operating in these times of economic uncertainty. Perhaps their numbers have been swelled by a few bankers on gardening leave. I can only recommend that, if the clouds continue as they have been for the last week, that an investment in the production of payne's grey might be worth your while.
Thursday 13 October 2011
a sharing of water vapour
My car was an autumn thing when I stepped out into the evening gloom yesterday. Parked as usual under the Westerly hedge, where it avoids the early frost of crisp winter evenings and provides both a parking habit and a regular walk to the side door I use to enter the building, it was slightly immersed in the leaf litter that is steadily obscuring the parking bays there. The Tyres appeared mired in a carpet and, on the roof and bonnet, a few stubborn leaves ignored the gentle tug of an attentuated breeze and gravity.
After badminton, or what passes for it in the Wednesday evening group I frequent, and the swift drink that I think is the real reason that some of the players attend, I had a quiet drive home. My own street, poorly served by municipal lighting, was bathed in the light of a near-full moon which shared its gap in the clouds with, what I take to be, Jupiter.
This morning we all shared a cloud, as mist defined the garden view. Only now burning off in a sunlight filtered through thin clouds. My car awaits another cover and I must work while the sun shines and the leaves fall.
After badminton, or what passes for it in the Wednesday evening group I frequent, and the swift drink that I think is the real reason that some of the players attend, I had a quiet drive home. My own street, poorly served by municipal lighting, was bathed in the light of a near-full moon which shared its gap in the clouds with, what I take to be, Jupiter.
This morning we all shared a cloud, as mist defined the garden view. Only now burning off in a sunlight filtered through thin clouds. My car awaits another cover and I must work while the sun shines and the leaves fall.
Tuesday 11 October 2011
The canopies are still almost full, but as the breeze played with the branches yesterday afternoon, I noticed a slow attrition as, every few seconds, another leaf would pull away and drift sideways to the ground. For now, the reformation of the canopy as ground-cover, is not evident. The abandoned foliage is hiding under hedges and in gutters, unobtrusive.
The trees are turning yellow gently, unless red. When I slowed for the custard maple yesterday I saw it still green, but it exists in a well sheltered spot. In fact, I would say that it is being crowded a little, other crowns are competing for its light.
It is another (perhaps the last?) week of mild weather, and although the evening are rapidly shortening, it is still pleasant, for a short while, to walk out in the evening air in a T-shirt; as far as the chippy or to put out the rubbish at any rate. The clouds have been very pretty and low recently, even when tragically lit by neon from below. Last night's full moon peeped through to provide a full atmospheric effect, but I don't remember the stars, or the satellites.
The trees are turning yellow gently, unless red. When I slowed for the custard maple yesterday I saw it still green, but it exists in a well sheltered spot. In fact, I would say that it is being crowded a little, other crowns are competing for its light.
It is another (perhaps the last?) week of mild weather, and although the evening are rapidly shortening, it is still pleasant, for a short while, to walk out in the evening air in a T-shirt; as far as the chippy or to put out the rubbish at any rate. The clouds have been very pretty and low recently, even when tragically lit by neon from below. Last night's full moon peeped through to provide a full atmospheric effect, but I don't remember the stars, or the satellites.
Thursday 6 October 2011
foals reunited
The end of last week was uncharacteristically warm for the time of year, and I had a snuffle. I slouched indoors for most of Saturday, but felt ready to test myself against the elements on Sunday morning, in pursuit of some contemporary reading. Turning the corner of our road, onto the main road towards the village centre, I realised that I had left the house without a tissue in my pocket. I sniffed.
Another hundred yards and I was following a pony along the road; a mare who was evidently a bit distressed, whinnying and tossing its head around. I guessed it had lost its friends and tried to remember if I'd seen a group of ponies on the green as I turned right, but no. We walked side-by-side a little and then I drew ahead and then heard an answering whinny from a foal; the situation became clearer.
Another local resident was just on their way out to find out what was going on, but I could see that the foal had got itself stuck on the lawn of the electricity board. The pedestrian gate to this property has a broken latch and once in a pony can't open it to get back out. The foal had evidently nosed the gate open and then got trapped. The mare was still a little way off, but now the two were closer, the panic had subsided a little. I propped the gate open and tried to persuade the foal that way, but it skittered along the fence line, failing to see the escape route. I tried to show the gate by walking out and making encouraging noises, but by this time the mare was patrolling the other side and the foal was distracted. I managed to move the mare so that the two could meet at the gate and the foal, after a reassuring nuzzle, walked slowly through the gap. The mare of course, realising the length and quality of the grass on the other side, walked straight in to the enclosure.
I went back in, hoping the foal would stay still, which it did. The mare was easier to corral than the foal, less nervous of humans and probably used to being chased off people's lawns. After a couple of feints, she ducked back out of the gate and the family walked off up the road, keeping close. I was streaming by this time, so I had to improvise with some grass to clean my hand up, before heading to the shops again.
On the way back from the village, by a different route, I surprised a squirrel on a fence. It evidently hadn't planned an escape route from its position of sitting on top of a fence that terminated in an open gateway. The nearest tree was just a shrubby thing and when it leapt in panic it fell straight through the foliage and had to leap back onto a trunk from the ground. I expect it felt embarassed about this all day.
I passed, what I always regard as the most beautiful tree in the village in autumn, an ornamental acer. Tired and emotional with my snuffle, it took me by surprise and took my breath for a second. It looked like a tree dipped, one side, in drying blood and then replanted with hardly a leaf out of place. I plucked one of the rare fallen, stained leaves to take home with me.
Another hundred yards and I was following a pony along the road; a mare who was evidently a bit distressed, whinnying and tossing its head around. I guessed it had lost its friends and tried to remember if I'd seen a group of ponies on the green as I turned right, but no. We walked side-by-side a little and then I drew ahead and then heard an answering whinny from a foal; the situation became clearer.
Another local resident was just on their way out to find out what was going on, but I could see that the foal had got itself stuck on the lawn of the electricity board. The pedestrian gate to this property has a broken latch and once in a pony can't open it to get back out. The foal had evidently nosed the gate open and then got trapped. The mare was still a little way off, but now the two were closer, the panic had subsided a little. I propped the gate open and tried to persuade the foal that way, but it skittered along the fence line, failing to see the escape route. I tried to show the gate by walking out and making encouraging noises, but by this time the mare was patrolling the other side and the foal was distracted. I managed to move the mare so that the two could meet at the gate and the foal, after a reassuring nuzzle, walked slowly through the gap. The mare of course, realising the length and quality of the grass on the other side, walked straight in to the enclosure.
I went back in, hoping the foal would stay still, which it did. The mare was easier to corral than the foal, less nervous of humans and probably used to being chased off people's lawns. After a couple of feints, she ducked back out of the gate and the family walked off up the road, keeping close. I was streaming by this time, so I had to improvise with some grass to clean my hand up, before heading to the shops again.
On the way back from the village, by a different route, I surprised a squirrel on a fence. It evidently hadn't planned an escape route from its position of sitting on top of a fence that terminated in an open gateway. The nearest tree was just a shrubby thing and when it leapt in panic it fell straight through the foliage and had to leap back onto a trunk from the ground. I expect it felt embarassed about this all day.
I passed, what I always regard as the most beautiful tree in the village in autumn, an ornamental acer. Tired and emotional with my snuffle, it took me by surprise and took my breath for a second. It looked like a tree dipped, one side, in drying blood and then replanted with hardly a leaf out of place. I plucked one of the rare fallen, stained leaves to take home with me.
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Feeling busy for the last week and, as a result, my need to blog has not been exercised. It's OK though, I've been keeping notes.
I must begin on a contemporary note. A classic V-formed flock of geese just flew over, initially in five or six waves heading SW, but then a few flew back the other way briefly, honking. Maybe they had left someone behind. It is one of those days when, seasonally, small flies coat the Northerly windows. A light, particulate snack for the fattening spiders, already swollen on daddy-long-legs.
A week ago, exactly: The sun was defeated by the moon-lit phase of the day. Equinox, and on a cooling autumn evening I got out of the car and waved my nose at the starry sky to see, in sequence, the plough upright and ready for harvesting, and, a slow faint satellite heading North West (not the one that crashed on Friday). No surprise to find the car covered in dew the following morning, nor a lifting mist as I drove out across the lawn North of the village. The mist had left the ground, but only by enough to show off the damp ponies, the beautiful highland beasts, the white webs in the tops of the gorse. Just above the road, near-tangible threads of water vapour looked like folded curtains hanging across the sky, just thinner than the dusty spider webs we have in the roof at home.
I drove carefully, engrossed in other mental activities than steering, accelerating, braking. Through the woods, across a main road, swishing back and forth the curves in the next woodland until, bearing left I slowed to let two lumber lorries turn wide into an enclosure to my right. As I sped up again I had time to see the progress of a large grey slug, half way across the carriageway, unmolested, leaving an uninterrupted trail of lubricating slime. This is not a busy road, as I may have mentioned before.
At the weekend, and taking up far too much time, a collection of new PC components got shaken into their new case, with the power supply I never did get around to fitting the last time I did an upgrade, and commissioned with 64 bit linux. I completed most of that job on Tuesday evening, creating an almost perfect Minecraft processor by this morning. The other day at the weekend was taken by a visit to the Southampton Boat Show. The boat show seemed to suit everyone in the end; enough freebies and activity for the boys, some pretty boats for the DW and, for me, just the atmosphere, meeting a few folk we know, a few techy displays, miles of hulls and rigging.
Instantly, with the equinox, cherry trees showed their newly red coats, Virginia Creeper clothed buildings glowed their autumn blood tresses, the tops of the birches reflect yellow back up to the skies, sycamores hold up their dinosaur footprint leaves, spotted with the colours of ripe oats and barley.
And the Morning Pages. Just for the last two mornings; finally putting that difficulty sleeping, or excessive ease in waking, to some use. As sometimes happens, the pages seem more of a symptom of better productivity than a cause. I feel a familiar stress/relief pattern as I write them. A need to Do Stuff when they are complete. I always worry that they replace useful activity, or leave me tired, but analysis seems to show a benefit, at least until I lose the feeling of need to do them. The mandolin practice is lagging a little though, I must keep an eye out for that.
I must begin on a contemporary note. A classic V-formed flock of geese just flew over, initially in five or six waves heading SW, but then a few flew back the other way briefly, honking. Maybe they had left someone behind. It is one of those days when, seasonally, small flies coat the Northerly windows. A light, particulate snack for the fattening spiders, already swollen on daddy-long-legs.
A week ago, exactly: The sun was defeated by the moon-lit phase of the day. Equinox, and on a cooling autumn evening I got out of the car and waved my nose at the starry sky to see, in sequence, the plough upright and ready for harvesting, and, a slow faint satellite heading North West (not the one that crashed on Friday). No surprise to find the car covered in dew the following morning, nor a lifting mist as I drove out across the lawn North of the village. The mist had left the ground, but only by enough to show off the damp ponies, the beautiful highland beasts, the white webs in the tops of the gorse. Just above the road, near-tangible threads of water vapour looked like folded curtains hanging across the sky, just thinner than the dusty spider webs we have in the roof at home.
I drove carefully, engrossed in other mental activities than steering, accelerating, braking. Through the woods, across a main road, swishing back and forth the curves in the next woodland until, bearing left I slowed to let two lumber lorries turn wide into an enclosure to my right. As I sped up again I had time to see the progress of a large grey slug, half way across the carriageway, unmolested, leaving an uninterrupted trail of lubricating slime. This is not a busy road, as I may have mentioned before.
At the weekend, and taking up far too much time, a collection of new PC components got shaken into their new case, with the power supply I never did get around to fitting the last time I did an upgrade, and commissioned with 64 bit linux. I completed most of that job on Tuesday evening, creating an almost perfect Minecraft processor by this morning. The other day at the weekend was taken by a visit to the Southampton Boat Show. The boat show seemed to suit everyone in the end; enough freebies and activity for the boys, some pretty boats for the DW and, for me, just the atmosphere, meeting a few folk we know, a few techy displays, miles of hulls and rigging.
Instantly, with the equinox, cherry trees showed their newly red coats, Virginia Creeper clothed buildings glowed their autumn blood tresses, the tops of the birches reflect yellow back up to the skies, sycamores hold up their dinosaur footprint leaves, spotted with the colours of ripe oats and barley.
And the Morning Pages. Just for the last two mornings; finally putting that difficulty sleeping, or excessive ease in waking, to some use. As sometimes happens, the pages seem more of a symptom of better productivity than a cause. I feel a familiar stress/relief pattern as I write them. A need to Do Stuff when they are complete. I always worry that they replace useful activity, or leave me tired, but analysis seems to show a benefit, at least until I lose the feeling of need to do them. The mandolin practice is lagging a little though, I must keep an eye out for that.
Wednesday 14 September 2011
The stupid pidgeons are still trying to nest inappropriately
Meteorologically, an interesting sort of a week. We have the tail of tropical storm Katia to the North and there has been a deal of blowing and swirling around these parts too. The weekend was a little showery at the start, dampening my children who were turfed out, briefly, to worry the crabs at a local quay, while I visited a library and community centre on Saturday. On Sunday I looked out on the apples on the tree in the garden every time I passed through the kitchen, but I never got around to picking them, ready though they are. The red apple tree has exceeded the appetites of the usual vermin in its productivity this year, so I look forward to eating too many beautiful red, sweet apples (my fruit bowl is already full, as well as half a worktop in the kitchen from the drops).
Crossing the car park at work on Monday, the breeze was like standing in the back-draught of a shop doorway air-curtain heater thingy. The breeze infiltrating the summery clothing was warm, humid; completely un-autumnal. As the week has progressed, the air has grown quieter and cooler, but the shreds of cotton-wool lying on the inverted pale-blue carpet this evening are drifting, not rushing and the trees are waving tentatively, instead of doing cheerleader pom-pom impressions.
The Westerly sun is reflecting quite prettily off the slightly faded leaves of the trees, off the fire assembly point and off the retreating car trim of my departing colleagues. The car park lamps are side-lit parodies of 1950's flying saucers. The rabbits haven't come out to play yet.
I've not been sleeping well. Not due to Internet usage except in a way that is so tentatively linked that I would be embarrassed to mention it. The lack of sleep, despite occasional success in tidying the kitchen before bedtime, has caused a failure to write Morning Pages. I'm unwilling to get up at 4am and write, although I'm familiar with the theory that doing something until tiredness can be a good route back to sleep. The Morning Pages process is not conducive to sleep, nor is it a friend to sleepiness; it requires focus to write, discipline, energy. I try to avoid filling my Morning Pages with journalling; my journals are already fragmented enough with two sites online and a paper journal that I keep infrequently these days, except on holidays.
I now know the NATO phonetic alphabet backwards better than I know the English alphabet backwards. Such knowledge is an essential precursor to the RYA VHF SRC course, which is my next stop on the journey towards being able to charter a boat in UK waters. Strange that sailing itself is completely unregulated for pleasure sailors, but that calling the Mayday requires a certificate. I shall soon know my Delta Sierra Charlie from my Golf Mike Delta Sierra Sierra.
Crossing the car park at work on Monday, the breeze was like standing in the back-draught of a shop doorway air-curtain heater thingy. The breeze infiltrating the summery clothing was warm, humid; completely un-autumnal. As the week has progressed, the air has grown quieter and cooler, but the shreds of cotton-wool lying on the inverted pale-blue carpet this evening are drifting, not rushing and the trees are waving tentatively, instead of doing cheerleader pom-pom impressions.
The Westerly sun is reflecting quite prettily off the slightly faded leaves of the trees, off the fire assembly point and off the retreating car trim of my departing colleagues. The car park lamps are side-lit parodies of 1950's flying saucers. The rabbits haven't come out to play yet.
I've not been sleeping well. Not due to Internet usage except in a way that is so tentatively linked that I would be embarrassed to mention it. The lack of sleep, despite occasional success in tidying the kitchen before bedtime, has caused a failure to write Morning Pages. I'm unwilling to get up at 4am and write, although I'm familiar with the theory that doing something until tiredness can be a good route back to sleep. The Morning Pages process is not conducive to sleep, nor is it a friend to sleepiness; it requires focus to write, discipline, energy. I try to avoid filling my Morning Pages with journalling; my journals are already fragmented enough with two sites online and a paper journal that I keep infrequently these days, except on holidays.
I now know the NATO phonetic alphabet backwards better than I know the English alphabet backwards. Such knowledge is an essential precursor to the RYA VHF SRC course, which is my next stop on the journey towards being able to charter a boat in UK waters. Strange that sailing itself is completely unregulated for pleasure sailors, but that calling the Mayday requires a certificate. I shall soon know my Delta Sierra Charlie from my Golf Mike Delta Sierra Sierra.
Wednesday 7 September 2011
The A in ssaw
My children return to school and my wife, perhaps, to sanity. My work continues along with most other aspects of life. Playing the mandolin has not been allocated enough time since I got back from sailing, and I seem to be getting worse at making bread - I forgot the salt last time, which was not an improvement.
Generally I am finding myself unproductive. I sit and think, but doing is not starting well. I found a solution a couple of years ago in The Artists' Way, a process I might repeat in order to rediscover productivity. I didn't follow the whole programme, and I was forced to edit out the God bits, since I don't go there, but the process of writing morning pages was quite successful in my case. In order to write though I have to do my chores in the evening and get up before the house stirs; not simple with children around.
There are warnings of gales in sea areas Dover, Wight and Portland. I believe the air was clocked at around 80 mph yesterday near the Needles. We've had a few days of blow and bluster; some of it quite wet. And, blast them, people are calling Autumn. Although I do not have an active dislike for autumn, indeed it is often a pleasure to watch the leaves turn, the canopy clear and the road verges open up long sight-lines, permitting more active driving styles, I do not enjoy the turn of summer into autumn. The closing light of evenings, the death of another year, my Birthday approaching and then, bloody Christmas ;).
The sky outside is like sliding marble, looking flat despite a few darker patches below an almost complete, thin layer of high cloud. Grey to palest blue and just beginning to show the, still green, tree-line in silhouette.
Generally I am finding myself unproductive. I sit and think, but doing is not starting well. I found a solution a couple of years ago in The Artists' Way, a process I might repeat in order to rediscover productivity. I didn't follow the whole programme, and I was forced to edit out the God bits, since I don't go there, but the process of writing morning pages was quite successful in my case. In order to write though I have to do my chores in the evening and get up before the house stirs; not simple with children around.
There are warnings of gales in sea areas Dover, Wight and Portland. I believe the air was clocked at around 80 mph yesterday near the Needles. We've had a few days of blow and bluster; some of it quite wet. And, blast them, people are calling Autumn. Although I do not have an active dislike for autumn, indeed it is often a pleasure to watch the leaves turn, the canopy clear and the road verges open up long sight-lines, permitting more active driving styles, I do not enjoy the turn of summer into autumn. The closing light of evenings, the death of another year, my Birthday approaching and then, bloody Christmas ;).
The sky outside is like sliding marble, looking flat despite a few darker patches below an almost complete, thin layer of high cloud. Grey to palest blue and just beginning to show the, still green, tree-line in silhouette.
Monday 29 August 2011
What a week a difference makes
That was different. A week of holiday? In a manner of speaking yes. All our boys went to scout camp, Saturday to Saturday. And, in place of a holiday, or carrying on regardless, we decided to spend a week on an RYA Day Skipper practical course.
We looked around for availability and price about six weeks ago and, following a trail of good feedback and confidence building chats with possible course providers we picked Broadreach Sailing in Gosport, run by Simon. They were offering the practical course running 5 days, Sunday evening to Friday evening, which was just perfect for the time we had available.
The details of the course are not very interesting, so I won't bore with a journal of the whole thing, but just mention a few highlights. First I'll mention that the course was a fantastic learning experience, and the week's tutor was called Nick. Nick is a superb sailor and he has his own way of doing things. Almost all the other ways of doing these things are wrong! The boat was a very neat Jeanneau 36 foot yacht, about two years old and just cleaned below the water line.
We left Gosport on Sunday night and circulated between there, Cowes and Hamble. It is, partly, essential to revisit places on the course since part of the practical is to plan and execute a passage plan in familiar waters. It is also essential to gain four hours of experience on watch during a night passage. In order to make my life interesting, these two aspects of the course were combined, so my first ever passage plan and skippering were at night on a route I had seen once, from the opposite direction, during the day. We didn't hit anything we had planned to miss, so that went alright.
There was a good focus on practicing approaching and leaving the quay in various conditions of tide and wind. As a slightly unexpected bonus, with the weather on our side, we also had some huge fun sailing. Top speed through the water was about 7.5 knots and we managed to heel to about 30 degrees a few times.
Everyone, including the boys, survived their week, but I have to say the house has been a little subdued since then. The washing machine has been working the hardest I think.
We looked around for availability and price about six weeks ago and, following a trail of good feedback and confidence building chats with possible course providers we picked Broadreach Sailing in Gosport, run by Simon. They were offering the practical course running 5 days, Sunday evening to Friday evening, which was just perfect for the time we had available.
The details of the course are not very interesting, so I won't bore with a journal of the whole thing, but just mention a few highlights. First I'll mention that the course was a fantastic learning experience, and the week's tutor was called Nick. Nick is a superb sailor and he has his own way of doing things. Almost all the other ways of doing these things are wrong! The boat was a very neat Jeanneau 36 foot yacht, about two years old and just cleaned below the water line.
We left Gosport on Sunday night and circulated between there, Cowes and Hamble. It is, partly, essential to revisit places on the course since part of the practical is to plan and execute a passage plan in familiar waters. It is also essential to gain four hours of experience on watch during a night passage. In order to make my life interesting, these two aspects of the course were combined, so my first ever passage plan and skippering were at night on a route I had seen once, from the opposite direction, during the day. We didn't hit anything we had planned to miss, so that went alright.
There was a good focus on practicing approaching and leaving the quay in various conditions of tide and wind. As a slightly unexpected bonus, with the weather on our side, we also had some huge fun sailing. Top speed through the water was about 7.5 knots and we managed to heel to about 30 degrees a few times.
Everyone, including the boys, survived their week, but I have to say the house has been a little subdued since then. The washing machine has been working the hardest I think.
Friday 12 August 2011
Difficult listening
One way, or another, I found plenty of time to practice playing the mandolin last weekend. I guess I was making progress, maybe learning another piece.
Monday and Tuesday the family went North, visiting. We dropped in to see the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight headquarters at Coningsby, where we were lucky to find all aircraft in the hangar and the Dakota testing an engine.
The weather has been very August this week. Never cold, or not biting anyway. Rain occasional and variable, torrential to light drizzle. Sun, occasional (never torrential) but episodically gorgeous; face the shining bright, arms outstretched and smile warm. The clouds have been dramatic and stormy, flat and high, fluffy and broken or cotton wool patches; never quite a Simpson's sky.
The range of insects is at a peak, butterflies, bees, hover-flies, wasps, blue, green, shiny, hairy. The spiders are having a ball.
And when I picked up the mandolin again, it was absent mindedly, carelessly, and I played something I had learned and I stopped to find that I wasn't practicing, I was playing. Playing for simple pleasure, even if not hugely well. I struggle to see technical progress (I know that I improve week by week, but the days are not always forward), but here there was a big step. I played and had enough self left over to be able to listen too, not just listen to the bad notes, the buzz, the accidental brushes of strings and the notes I miss because the left hand still doesn't talk to the right, or the right is off on its own. I heard myself play.
At the weekend I forgot my credit card PIN. I use the card half a dozen times a week for 8 years, then I forget the number. I got it third time; I know numbers, I remember them. I'd forgotten though and, faced with a novel terminal, the pattern just wouldn't arrive. Back in time to find the digit sequence, the digits were easy, but just how many possibilities are there? 4P4, 4! maybe that's why they only give three attempts. Easier than the lottery to guess right. My spare card expired a year ago, cancelled by the bank because I never used it. Maybe I should do something about finding a new spare.
Monday and Tuesday the family went North, visiting. We dropped in to see the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight headquarters at Coningsby, where we were lucky to find all aircraft in the hangar and the Dakota testing an engine.
The weather has been very August this week. Never cold, or not biting anyway. Rain occasional and variable, torrential to light drizzle. Sun, occasional (never torrential) but episodically gorgeous; face the shining bright, arms outstretched and smile warm. The clouds have been dramatic and stormy, flat and high, fluffy and broken or cotton wool patches; never quite a Simpson's sky.
The range of insects is at a peak, butterflies, bees, hover-flies, wasps, blue, green, shiny, hairy. The spiders are having a ball.
And when I picked up the mandolin again, it was absent mindedly, carelessly, and I played something I had learned and I stopped to find that I wasn't practicing, I was playing. Playing for simple pleasure, even if not hugely well. I struggle to see technical progress (I know that I improve week by week, but the days are not always forward), but here there was a big step. I played and had enough self left over to be able to listen too, not just listen to the bad notes, the buzz, the accidental brushes of strings and the notes I miss because the left hand still doesn't talk to the right, or the right is off on its own. I heard myself play.
At the weekend I forgot my credit card PIN. I use the card half a dozen times a week for 8 years, then I forget the number. I got it third time; I know numbers, I remember them. I'd forgotten though and, faced with a novel terminal, the pattern just wouldn't arrive. Back in time to find the digit sequence, the digits were easy, but just how many possibilities are there? 4P4, 4! maybe that's why they only give three attempts. Easier than the lottery to guess right. My spare card expired a year ago, cancelled by the bank because I never used it. Maybe I should do something about finding a new spare.
Tuesday 2 August 2011
hands together and apart
Hot weather for August, a month in which we have become accustomed to damp and bluster, especially when living under canvas. Hot in the car park and, as it to be expected, freezing by my desk at work. There was a moment when the generators were being tested that we thought that perhaps the air conditioning had failed, since it went momentarily quiet, but no such luck. I had my jersey on by 1:30pm.
After a gap of only 29 years, I walked out to be blessed by vampires after lunch on Monday. My blood is red as ever, whilst the rest of me goes gray. I felt it only reasonable to overcome my irrational fear of fainting, given that when my eldest was in hospital in June, there were always a few units available in case of emergency.
I have to go back and forth in my musical education. After a few weeks of trying to find the notes as fast as possible I am reminded that finding them in the correct rhythm is probably a better grounding. I detest the tune of a dance to the beat of a funeral drum, but, it is necessary. My fingers are much less painful now, and my fingers are getting more used to the exercise of fretting. I managed to fret a 3-finger G chord for a few seconds today. Although I have found that accidental disconnection between what the two hands are doing is not advantageous I am now faced with the opposite problem to some extent. If I try to play gently, quietly, I find that my left hand becomes more gentle too and I don't press hard enough on the frets. If I fret with attitude to get clear notes, my right hand jumps in with full volume - the tension travels up the left arm, across the shoulders and down the right arm and it all gets very LOUD.
The G-string has at last been introduced in Hal's book. Texas Gales to learn next.
After a gap of only 29 years, I walked out to be blessed by vampires after lunch on Monday. My blood is red as ever, whilst the rest of me goes gray. I felt it only reasonable to overcome my irrational fear of fainting, given that when my eldest was in hospital in June, there were always a few units available in case of emergency.
I have to go back and forth in my musical education. After a few weeks of trying to find the notes as fast as possible I am reminded that finding them in the correct rhythm is probably a better grounding. I detest the tune of a dance to the beat of a funeral drum, but, it is necessary. My fingers are much less painful now, and my fingers are getting more used to the exercise of fretting. I managed to fret a 3-finger G chord for a few seconds today. Although I have found that accidental disconnection between what the two hands are doing is not advantageous I am now faced with the opposite problem to some extent. If I try to play gently, quietly, I find that my left hand becomes more gentle too and I don't press hard enough on the frets. If I fret with attitude to get clear notes, my right hand jumps in with full volume - the tension travels up the left arm, across the shoulders and down the right arm and it all gets very LOUD.
The G-string has at last been introduced in Hal's book. Texas Gales to learn next.
Thursday 28 July 2011
rhythm
I just put on Making Movies to hear the guitar intro to Romeo and Juliet while I was in the kitchen. If you are feeling energetic the beat of Expresso Love is right for kneading bread, but be prepared to clean some flour up when you're done. I just had a look on yt for the song and found this version, but only suitable for beating eggs I think.
The week of the New Forest Show, and my time is a little strange, because I'm not at work very much. I thought I would have a good opportunity to do some serious reading and play some more mandolin, but I seem to be busy cooking and gardening. The mandolin practice is not quite enough to make progress this week, although I am working a little on my up and down picking, which helps with the speed a bit, but so far, not with the rhythm.
All the boys are done with school for the summer now. I think we need to find them some academic work to keep their minds ticking over, otherwise they will go back in the autumn with sponges for brains - and not in a good way.
Mark has just finished crooning, so I'll go and put on some more energetic music and see what it creates.
The week of the New Forest Show, and my time is a little strange, because I'm not at work very much. I thought I would have a good opportunity to do some serious reading and play some more mandolin, but I seem to be busy cooking and gardening. The mandolin practice is not quite enough to make progress this week, although I am working a little on my up and down picking, which helps with the speed a bit, but so far, not with the rhythm.
All the boys are done with school for the summer now. I think we need to find them some academic work to keep their minds ticking over, otherwise they will go back in the autumn with sponges for brains - and not in a good way.
Mark has just finished crooning, so I'll go and put on some more energetic music and see what it creates.
Wednesday 20 July 2011
the right hand, nor the brain, know what the left is doing
A damper cooler week. The flora seem to have recovered from the dry spring and everything that is still buried up to the roots is green. Even the severely cut lawns are verdant rather than their usual summer brown. Resurgent insects, according to headlines recently, and I can vouch for this. More bees, more wasps, a few more butterflies and, in the hedge at the bottom of the garden a wasps' nest. I have been waiting for a week now for a dry but cool morning to go and spray the wasps' nest - I wonder if I should. They are the small English wasps, not their larger European cousins, and until the de-coherence of the nest in the autumn, they are well behaved and help to remove insect pests from the garden.
I contrived a walk past a music shop on Saturday and while my two of my children were happily engaged in testing electric guitars and keyboards, I sneaked a quick pluck of a mandolin. Quite a pretty instrument, a little quiet, but with such a low, easy action. I played a few bars of the simple tunes I have been learning with and only muffed a couple of frets; my fingers hardly felt the strings. Thanks by the way to Becketts of Southampton. My own sad instrument is still teaching me though, and I still have reservations about my staying power for learning to play, so for now I'll act like I can't afford a new instrument.
I was finding on Monday evening, that I could watch my left hand moving over the frets almost asthough under their own volition. I was a simple observer of this playing hand. Unfortunately, as this was happening, the connection between my hands was falling apart completely and I found myself trying to pluck strings I hadn't got fretted. I have learnt about four pieces that I am willing to play as anything more than exercises, without yet getting to the part of the book where the 4th string (the G) is introduced. This is using Hal Leonards mandolin method book I, which comes with a CD. I had to use the CD once so far because my own rendition of the set of notes in approximately the right order off the stave did not call to memory any tune I had ever heard. I'm practising in bouts of about 15 minutes, after which I find that my fingers are no-longer so willing to press hard enough and my pads are beginning to soften.
Despite any misgivings I may express about my specific specimen of mandolin, I think the madolin is a magnificant instrument to learn as a first, if only for its size. As it happens I also like the sound and the similarity to a guitar (It is partially possible to translate guitar tabs for the mandolin). Some of the fingering skills I've picked up translate to the guitar, others not. Of course with a first instrument there is the fun of learning to read musical notation, of keeping rhythm, of learning to both feel and listen to what the instrument is doing, and of boring other people to death with the whole process, sorry.
We had the pleasure, last week, of my youngest's final primary school production. He will be joining his brothers on the bus to school next term. I remember thinking, as he started school for the first time, that we were right out of babies. Soon will will have only teenagers. I walked to the lounge this morning, 8 minutes before the school bus, to find out whether my eldest had eaten any breakfast to discover that he hadn't got out of bed yet; see? teenagers.
I contrived a walk past a music shop on Saturday and while my two of my children were happily engaged in testing electric guitars and keyboards, I sneaked a quick pluck of a mandolin. Quite a pretty instrument, a little quiet, but with such a low, easy action. I played a few bars of the simple tunes I have been learning with and only muffed a couple of frets; my fingers hardly felt the strings. Thanks by the way to Becketts of Southampton. My own sad instrument is still teaching me though, and I still have reservations about my staying power for learning to play, so for now I'll act like I can't afford a new instrument.
I was finding on Monday evening, that I could watch my left hand moving over the frets almost asthough under their own volition. I was a simple observer of this playing hand. Unfortunately, as this was happening, the connection between my hands was falling apart completely and I found myself trying to pluck strings I hadn't got fretted. I have learnt about four pieces that I am willing to play as anything more than exercises, without yet getting to the part of the book where the 4th string (the G) is introduced. This is using Hal Leonards mandolin method book I, which comes with a CD. I had to use the CD once so far because my own rendition of the set of notes in approximately the right order off the stave did not call to memory any tune I had ever heard. I'm practising in bouts of about 15 minutes, after which I find that my fingers are no-longer so willing to press hard enough and my pads are beginning to soften.
Despite any misgivings I may express about my specific specimen of mandolin, I think the madolin is a magnificant instrument to learn as a first, if only for its size. As it happens I also like the sound and the similarity to a guitar (It is partially possible to translate guitar tabs for the mandolin). Some of the fingering skills I've picked up translate to the guitar, others not. Of course with a first instrument there is the fun of learning to read musical notation, of keeping rhythm, of learning to both feel and listen to what the instrument is doing, and of boring other people to death with the whole process, sorry.
We had the pleasure, last week, of my youngest's final primary school production. He will be joining his brothers on the bus to school next term. I remember thinking, as he started school for the first time, that we were right out of babies. Soon will will have only teenagers. I walked to the lounge this morning, 8 minutes before the school bus, to find out whether my eldest had eaten any breakfast to discover that he hadn't got out of bed yet; see? teenagers.
Monday 11 July 2011
minuet
I was not driving this morning up the hill, past the last pig field, now fallow. So I watched the standing crows suddenly switch from random to ranked as we drew perpendicular to the low, wide furrows left after the harrow had been dragged out from the road and back. Each bird stood, for best prospect, on the local maximum, the crowns between the dips.
I had a gentle weekend, a stroll around the charity shops while youngest son partied on the beach; a steady, measured clip of the front hedge - looking carefully for the hidden form beneath this year's long tresses. The form I found was flatter than the last two trims, with just a few hollows where the cows had chewed out the thornless patches. I read the children's books and cooked and washed up and relaxed.
The music is still here. Dried out, my finger tips feel like someone else's. I don't think I'll read braille left-handed now. I find that, instead of finger tip pain, it is finger tiredness that stops me from mandolin practice; that and consideration for my fellow humans.
The hedges, the trees, seem to have recovered from the drought. Under the tall herbaceous stems in the borders though, the earth is nearly bare except for a few drawn stems of grass. No mosses cloak it and, yet, no seedlings sprout. The lawn has kept to green, fruit swells and, in the tubs and lined frames, the ponds and pools are near the brim. My fish, I'm sure, has not survived the December weather, but water will always bring forth life of its own accord. The tadpole pond still has some tiny froggish tadpoles, but we also found, on Sunday, delicate ones with front legs dominating; common newts. We had suspected that we had eggs, but we hadn't had newts breeding there before this year.
I had a gentle weekend, a stroll around the charity shops while youngest son partied on the beach; a steady, measured clip of the front hedge - looking carefully for the hidden form beneath this year's long tresses. The form I found was flatter than the last two trims, with just a few hollows where the cows had chewed out the thornless patches. I read the children's books and cooked and washed up and relaxed.
The music is still here. Dried out, my finger tips feel like someone else's. I don't think I'll read braille left-handed now. I find that, instead of finger tip pain, it is finger tiredness that stops me from mandolin practice; that and consideration for my fellow humans.
The hedges, the trees, seem to have recovered from the drought. Under the tall herbaceous stems in the borders though, the earth is nearly bare except for a few drawn stems of grass. No mosses cloak it and, yet, no seedlings sprout. The lawn has kept to green, fruit swells and, in the tubs and lined frames, the ponds and pools are near the brim. My fish, I'm sure, has not survived the December weather, but water will always bring forth life of its own accord. The tadpole pond still has some tiny froggish tadpoles, but we also found, on Sunday, delicate ones with front legs dominating; common newts. We had suspected that we had eggs, but we hadn't had newts breeding there before this year.
Tuesday 5 July 2011
I am a troubadour
I was considering a new blog for a new diversion in my life, titled, "I am a musician". This was due to the purchase of a rather sorry mandolin and an intention, after all my previous abandoned efforts, to learn to play a musical instrument. I was prevaricating over the blog idea, because I felt almost certain to fail in this endeavour and so, to draw attention to my failure in public would seem a foolish undertaking. As things have panned out, I began to play a little two weeks ago, slowed largely by the pain in my fingers, only to discover, following an accident on Saturday one week ago, that after all, I was a parent and not a musician at all.
Our day had begun a little slowly, but the list of things to do was begining to stretch credulity, so we set out around 10 in the morning to begin. A couple of hours of activity at a local scouting centre, before a trip to the coast to watch the round-the-island boat race getting blown over, I thought. Just ten minutes of fun in to the day and eldest son fell off an obstacle. I sauntered over, expecting a winded child.
Eldest son was in pain, a lot of pain and I could tell, from my own experience that it was probably not cracked rib pain. Possible bowel injury I thought loudly, but to myself. Certainly worth a check up at A&E. And so it was that we waited in A&E for 3 hours, and then we were seen, and then my week began. We stayed a week in hospital, son and parent. I escaped most afternoons to keep the office work ticking over, returning for medical progress reports and to sleep over, the unsteady rhythm of worried parent and boy under a frequent observation routine. The staff in the children's ward were supreme, I couldn't have wished for better care or information, but in a curious way it was the other parents that brought the most comfort from the stress of our shared situation. I had a memorable and highly theraputic chat one evening with a Mum whose daughter had landed heavily off a rope swing. Just ten minutes in the tea room, sharing our stories of what terrible parents we were and how it had brought us to that place.
Son is recovering from, as it turned out, a ruptured spleen. A week of bed rest and pain control in hospital, a slow return to mobility this week and then a slow, careful return to normality. Three months before contact sports can be considered. I have to smile a little at this final milestone because eldest son has two brothers, which by themselves constitute a frequent contact sport - they have been asked to tone it down a bit, and perhaps they will remember for a few days at a time.
I am back to work and, just a little, back to being a musician. My fingers are still sore, partly as a result of the unaccustomed fretting, but magnified by the poor instrument which, as a result of a bent neck, has a rather high action. The E strings are 100th of an inch steel, stretched hard and deliver a cutting action to the finger tip. I'll stick with the exercises a while I know, but will I find the energy to practise? I never did before, but then I never had an instrument to call my own before. There are three guitars in the house, amongst other things, but none belong to me. The mandolin is comfy, it is petite. I can sit in my crowded office at home and transpose Internet guitar tabs onto it and the noise needs hardly pass the door. Old, bent and cracked (and poorly played) it may be, but I like the tone of the mandolin. I remain a musician and a parent for now.
Our day had begun a little slowly, but the list of things to do was begining to stretch credulity, so we set out around 10 in the morning to begin. A couple of hours of activity at a local scouting centre, before a trip to the coast to watch the round-the-island boat race getting blown over, I thought. Just ten minutes of fun in to the day and eldest son fell off an obstacle. I sauntered over, expecting a winded child.
Eldest son was in pain, a lot of pain and I could tell, from my own experience that it was probably not cracked rib pain. Possible bowel injury I thought loudly, but to myself. Certainly worth a check up at A&E. And so it was that we waited in A&E for 3 hours, and then we were seen, and then my week began. We stayed a week in hospital, son and parent. I escaped most afternoons to keep the office work ticking over, returning for medical progress reports and to sleep over, the unsteady rhythm of worried parent and boy under a frequent observation routine. The staff in the children's ward were supreme, I couldn't have wished for better care or information, but in a curious way it was the other parents that brought the most comfort from the stress of our shared situation. I had a memorable and highly theraputic chat one evening with a Mum whose daughter had landed heavily off a rope swing. Just ten minutes in the tea room, sharing our stories of what terrible parents we were and how it had brought us to that place.
Son is recovering from, as it turned out, a ruptured spleen. A week of bed rest and pain control in hospital, a slow return to mobility this week and then a slow, careful return to normality. Three months before contact sports can be considered. I have to smile a little at this final milestone because eldest son has two brothers, which by themselves constitute a frequent contact sport - they have been asked to tone it down a bit, and perhaps they will remember for a few days at a time.
I am back to work and, just a little, back to being a musician. My fingers are still sore, partly as a result of the unaccustomed fretting, but magnified by the poor instrument which, as a result of a bent neck, has a rather high action. The E strings are 100th of an inch steel, stretched hard and deliver a cutting action to the finger tip. I'll stick with the exercises a while I know, but will I find the energy to practise? I never did before, but then I never had an instrument to call my own before. There are three guitars in the house, amongst other things, but none belong to me. The mandolin is comfy, it is petite. I can sit in my crowded office at home and transpose Internet guitar tabs onto it and the noise needs hardly pass the door. Old, bent and cracked (and poorly played) it may be, but I like the tone of the mandolin. I remain a musician and a parent for now.
Monday 16 May 2011
Dry, but springy.
Last Wednesday, the 11th of May, I ate the first wild strawberry from the front garden. A taste of summer in what is supposed to still be spring. A dry spring it has been; a day of rain since I last wrote.
Foals are blooming in the hedgerows. Two weeks ago, on the scenic route to work, I saw a total of four foals. I can see as many in the first two miles now. The mares are grateful for the relief, the weight off their legs, still patient to let the new life suckle. The foals are in that flaky phase of existence, as likely horizontal as standing and feeding. They stay close, unready yet to threaten passing cars.
I had a slightly frantic walk on Friday evening, on my way to collect the boys from their evening out. I left myself a little too short a time to walk a circuit on my way there. Across the green and thence into the thin strip of woodland that follows the Western boundary hedge. I saw deer, I got within a tree's length of a cuckoo (I must have heard a round half-dozen calling on my way). I passed a field of 50 rabbits and then, following its side hedge, saw a fox duck through the wire part way up. After four miles, I arrived home with sons, having paused only for an ad-hoc game of blind-mans-buff, in just over the hour.
Over the weekend, in our garden, I sawed fallen hawthorn. Eldest child found a slowworm, youngest thinks he was buzzed by a rose chafer. I saw the first holly-blue of the season. On the drive, the cotoneaster is feeding the new crop of bumble-bees.
Foals are blooming in the hedgerows. Two weeks ago, on the scenic route to work, I saw a total of four foals. I can see as many in the first two miles now. The mares are grateful for the relief, the weight off their legs, still patient to let the new life suckle. The foals are in that flaky phase of existence, as likely horizontal as standing and feeding. They stay close, unready yet to threaten passing cars.
I had a slightly frantic walk on Friday evening, on my way to collect the boys from their evening out. I left myself a little too short a time to walk a circuit on my way there. Across the green and thence into the thin strip of woodland that follows the Western boundary hedge. I saw deer, I got within a tree's length of a cuckoo (I must have heard a round half-dozen calling on my way). I passed a field of 50 rabbits and then, following its side hedge, saw a fox duck through the wire part way up. After four miles, I arrived home with sons, having paused only for an ad-hoc game of blind-mans-buff, in just over the hour.
Over the weekend, in our garden, I sawed fallen hawthorn. Eldest child found a slowworm, youngest thinks he was buzzed by a rose chafer. I saw the first holly-blue of the season. On the drive, the cotoneaster is feeding the new crop of bumble-bees.
Wednesday 27 April 2011
Speckled play-off
For a few years, in my blogs and journals, I have felt the rising sap of spring force its way up from my toes to drip gently across my writings and typings, but this spring, exciting though it has been, has gone unmarked. This is not the time to question why, but I feel it may be time to catch up a little.
Spring started, by my recollection, about 7 weeks ago, although I've heard reports of earlier brimstone butterflies which are one of the earlier heralds. I can only claim to have seen brimstones, small whites and a distant brown of some sort so far, but there have been quite a few moths, most of which I have no chance of identifying.
At the Easter weekend we had the pleasure of watching a couple of dragonflies emerge from one of our lilly ponds, without looking it up I would guess they were broad bodied chasers. The ponds also contain tadpoles (mostly frogs I expect) frogs, common newts, dragon and damsel larvae, stone-fly larvae, pond skaters and innumerable small floating and wiggling creatures, including shrimp and leech. We were also visited in the garden and the conservatory by a hornet, one of the early brood even, not just a queen.
On Thursday last week, my slow walk was interrupted briefly to watch the hunting of a slowworm, on the verge by the local football ground. I've seen them there before, but not since the field was re-fenced. Good to see the habitat still suits these golden reptiles.
The apple trees have largely lost their blossom now, although the may is glowing white still. Tree canopies are expanding and glowing verdant greens.
Blackbirds, again nesting in the garage ivy have brooded and been destroyed by a cat (again), jackdaws are in the chimneys and starlings in the eaves. I have seen swallows and heard a cuckoo, an unusual visitor to the village.
The village is gently overrun by the first lapping wave of tourism, the usual contrived flood has been allowed to cross the village road, by someone's judgement then we expect no more frost. Litter has begun to bloom again in the hedgerows, more than is usually dropped by the college crowd.
I saw my first foal a week and a half ago, and a donkey foal a week ago. The cow herd I pressed through this morning on my way to work had a number of small calves. Some of the lambs, I'm sure, have already been dressed in mint.
The weather has been dry for a couple of weeks. Monday was so warm I wore shorts, to the beach, but I was not as brave as my two youngest boys to enter the water. The waves waxed and waned in height, from a gentle lap to six foot high crashing monsters that chased the rising tide-line up the beach and surprised the younger members of a few families, dampening the trouser legs of their guardians and causing splashing dashing into the shallows to retrieve small buckets and floating spades. Th ice-cream choice was a hard one. Rain is now promised, and not just to wet William's wedding, but I hope, to bring a little relief to the stressed parts of the garden flora and the forest trees and heaths.
I saw, from the kitchen, a speckled wood and a new-fledged robin. Speckled play-off.
Spring started, by my recollection, about 7 weeks ago, although I've heard reports of earlier brimstone butterflies which are one of the earlier heralds. I can only claim to have seen brimstones, small whites and a distant brown of some sort so far, but there have been quite a few moths, most of which I have no chance of identifying.
At the Easter weekend we had the pleasure of watching a couple of dragonflies emerge from one of our lilly ponds, without looking it up I would guess they were broad bodied chasers. The ponds also contain tadpoles (mostly frogs I expect) frogs, common newts, dragon and damsel larvae, stone-fly larvae, pond skaters and innumerable small floating and wiggling creatures, including shrimp and leech. We were also visited in the garden and the conservatory by a hornet, one of the early brood even, not just a queen.
On Thursday last week, my slow walk was interrupted briefly to watch the hunting of a slowworm, on the verge by the local football ground. I've seen them there before, but not since the field was re-fenced. Good to see the habitat still suits these golden reptiles.
The apple trees have largely lost their blossom now, although the may is glowing white still. Tree canopies are expanding and glowing verdant greens.
Blackbirds, again nesting in the garage ivy have brooded and been destroyed by a cat (again), jackdaws are in the chimneys and starlings in the eaves. I have seen swallows and heard a cuckoo, an unusual visitor to the village.
The village is gently overrun by the first lapping wave of tourism, the usual contrived flood has been allowed to cross the village road, by someone's judgement then we expect no more frost. Litter has begun to bloom again in the hedgerows, more than is usually dropped by the college crowd.
I saw my first foal a week and a half ago, and a donkey foal a week ago. The cow herd I pressed through this morning on my way to work had a number of small calves. Some of the lambs, I'm sure, have already been dressed in mint.
The weather has been dry for a couple of weeks. Monday was so warm I wore shorts, to the beach, but I was not as brave as my two youngest boys to enter the water. The waves waxed and waned in height, from a gentle lap to six foot high crashing monsters that chased the rising tide-line up the beach and surprised the younger members of a few families, dampening the trouser legs of their guardians and causing splashing dashing into the shallows to retrieve small buckets and floating spades. Th ice-cream choice was a hard one. Rain is now promised, and not just to wet William's wedding, but I hope, to bring a little relief to the stressed parts of the garden flora and the forest trees and heaths.
I saw, from the kitchen, a speckled wood and a new-fledged robin. Speckled play-off.
Wednesday 9 February 2011
I return to people
I see I have missed blogging in a headlong rush of panic that dissipated last Thursday lunchtime, when the capability to deliver my urgent work arrived almost simultaneously with the knowledge that the customer was not ready to receive it. Deadlines still loom, but not in a sleep disturbing way, no longer to a frantic rhythm, just a small rush.
I was, anyway, going to take a day off on Monday this week. A sad excuse to catch up with family members presented. A sincere feeling of sadness, even though in the presence of slight hypocrisy on my part, shared in a religious structure, and a spot of gardening up on a windy hill. Then an opportunity to mourn, chat and celebrate in various measures.
Most of those present have not been seen for ten years or so. A cousin, who I last saw at his wedding, arrived with three children. I caught up on careers, classes, qualifications, subsidiary matches, hatches and other dispatches without once mentioning the fact that people had grown since we last met. How I have missed these people in the chaos of bringing up small children.
The weather was disturbed. Not a dignified frozen and still event, but a wind-swept, rustling, coat flapping one. The earth was damp and the trees shook. The vicar, her back to the storm, flapped like a tethered magpie. The people though, remained calm, unflappable, dignified. Quiet as, at times.
Having gone North with my family, I returned with my sister, and a train. A small entertainment, a distraction, for the weekend, was the procurement of cheap rail tickets for Monday evening. I booked these on a tablet device, eyes straining in the write-only form font, but made the simple error of using a debit card which the ticket machines could not read. The train-line's technical support proved pathetic, but, fortunately, the desk clerk was up to such a small challenge. We got our cheap tickets, and they were accepted by sundry machines along the way. The cross-London route surprised me, because I had forgotten it. A route I knew intimately only (only!) 14 years ago, the corridors, the platforms, which carriage to board. It soon came back and with such speed I had to wait an hour for my onward connection. Time at least to sit, to chew, to reflect and to smile about the people again.
I was, anyway, going to take a day off on Monday this week. A sad excuse to catch up with family members presented. A sincere feeling of sadness, even though in the presence of slight hypocrisy on my part, shared in a religious structure, and a spot of gardening up on a windy hill. Then an opportunity to mourn, chat and celebrate in various measures.
Most of those present have not been seen for ten years or so. A cousin, who I last saw at his wedding, arrived with three children. I caught up on careers, classes, qualifications, subsidiary matches, hatches and other dispatches without once mentioning the fact that people had grown since we last met. How I have missed these people in the chaos of bringing up small children.
The weather was disturbed. Not a dignified frozen and still event, but a wind-swept, rustling, coat flapping one. The earth was damp and the trees shook. The vicar, her back to the storm, flapped like a tethered magpie. The people though, remained calm, unflappable, dignified. Quiet as, at times.
Having gone North with my family, I returned with my sister, and a train. A small entertainment, a distraction, for the weekend, was the procurement of cheap rail tickets for Monday evening. I booked these on a tablet device, eyes straining in the write-only form font, but made the simple error of using a debit card which the ticket machines could not read. The train-line's technical support proved pathetic, but, fortunately, the desk clerk was up to such a small challenge. We got our cheap tickets, and they were accepted by sundry machines along the way. The cross-London route surprised me, because I had forgotten it. A route I knew intimately only (only!) 14 years ago, the corridors, the platforms, which carriage to board. It soon came back and with such speed I had to wait an hour for my onward connection. Time at least to sit, to chew, to reflect and to smile about the people again.
Sunday 23 January 2011
cold and dry or warmer and wetter?
Since we are having a proper winter this year, the debate about which sort of inclement weather is preferable is alive and well in the kitchen at work. I have always been something of a fan of warm damp weather, in fact I prefer it to sunny weather in the summer. I love the long drizzly days when the rain is so light,and the temperature so balmy, that it is possible to walk around without actually getting any wetter than is comfortable.
Winter wet though is a different kettle, but with temperatures above freezing I still think it is better than the sort of weather that makes your nose hair tingle with the first deep breath of the morning. (I will make exceptions here for the occasion of skiing holidays)
Wednesday last week was the first day of car ice scraping for a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks in which my preference for water over ice might have been tested somewhat, were it not for the fact that none of my journeys by car were actually interrupted by impromptu rivers, even if the views were dominated by lakeside scenes more than usual. My longer route to work was visited by a half acre of water on one side of the road, at a point usually blessed by a bridge, unfortunately at this time the water levels differed by about a yard from one side of the bridge to the other. Quite a pretty lake, with an unusually large number of trees for a regular lake.
As I stood and scraped on Wednesday, I was reflecting on the mild atrophying of my scraping muscles, and the comparative ease of running, head down, to the car and jumping in, damp. The change from wet to cold occasioned a few slippery patches on the way, including the return of a width of frozen stream across my route, where someone had made an unfortunate dive into the hedge back last January. I turned on to the lane that passes my workplace thinking that it might be a bit tricky and aware of the familiar memories of the sorts of things that had gone wrong on this stretch of road in previous years. I was somewhat relieved that none of my colleagues were meeting me, having been forced to turn round due to accidents, as has happened before. Nearly at work, I arrived at the scene of someone else's accident. They had had the decency to have most of the accident on the verge, although there was an inconveniently parked wreck and a lady standing on the verge appearing to wish to take off as she waved both arms in an attempt to encourage cars from both directions to slow. I concluded, from an eye witness account of the event I heard later, that the problems had begun for this particular driver when she herself had been forced to slow down, on the regular stretch of sheet ice that forms on that particular bend, by an oncoming vehicle.
An early start on Thursday might have made me reconsider my preferences. I drove across a quiet and flat part of the forest, with the full moon hovering over the horizon to the West, as the rising sun slowly filled a pool with molten lava in the East. As the dawn advanced and the moon sank, the thin clouds in the East turned from red to orange and the con-trails lit up like flying rapiers, short, pointed and glowing with metallic reflected light. I suffered a moment of disbelief listening to the local radio traffic report, with the news that cars were finding trouble in the icy conditions and that the A35 Dorchester bypass was slow due to a car spinning on the Puddletown slip-road. This message was delivered completely straight, but I laughed for at least 5 minutes.
Friday made it a hat-trick of window scraping, but with promises of a warmer weekend.
Winter wet though is a different kettle, but with temperatures above freezing I still think it is better than the sort of weather that makes your nose hair tingle with the first deep breath of the morning. (I will make exceptions here for the occasion of skiing holidays)
Wednesday last week was the first day of car ice scraping for a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks in which my preference for water over ice might have been tested somewhat, were it not for the fact that none of my journeys by car were actually interrupted by impromptu rivers, even if the views were dominated by lakeside scenes more than usual. My longer route to work was visited by a half acre of water on one side of the road, at a point usually blessed by a bridge, unfortunately at this time the water levels differed by about a yard from one side of the bridge to the other. Quite a pretty lake, with an unusually large number of trees for a regular lake.
As I stood and scraped on Wednesday, I was reflecting on the mild atrophying of my scraping muscles, and the comparative ease of running, head down, to the car and jumping in, damp. The change from wet to cold occasioned a few slippery patches on the way, including the return of a width of frozen stream across my route, where someone had made an unfortunate dive into the hedge back last January. I turned on to the lane that passes my workplace thinking that it might be a bit tricky and aware of the familiar memories of the sorts of things that had gone wrong on this stretch of road in previous years. I was somewhat relieved that none of my colleagues were meeting me, having been forced to turn round due to accidents, as has happened before. Nearly at work, I arrived at the scene of someone else's accident. They had had the decency to have most of the accident on the verge, although there was an inconveniently parked wreck and a lady standing on the verge appearing to wish to take off as she waved both arms in an attempt to encourage cars from both directions to slow. I concluded, from an eye witness account of the event I heard later, that the problems had begun for this particular driver when she herself had been forced to slow down, on the regular stretch of sheet ice that forms on that particular bend, by an oncoming vehicle.
An early start on Thursday might have made me reconsider my preferences. I drove across a quiet and flat part of the forest, with the full moon hovering over the horizon to the West, as the rising sun slowly filled a pool with molten lava in the East. As the dawn advanced and the moon sank, the thin clouds in the East turned from red to orange and the con-trails lit up like flying rapiers, short, pointed and glowing with metallic reflected light. I suffered a moment of disbelief listening to the local radio traffic report, with the news that cars were finding trouble in the icy conditions and that the A35 Dorchester bypass was slow due to a car spinning on the Puddletown slip-road. This message was delivered completely straight, but I laughed for at least 5 minutes.
Friday made it a hat-trick of window scraping, but with promises of a warmer weekend.
Thursday 6 January 2011
Did Pigs Fly?
The weekend after the first snow in December, after a couple of days carrying a thermos flask in the car and wearing sensible shoes, I took to my bed for the weekend with, largely, exhaustion, but also general muscle and head ache. I had a day off work on the Monday, because, as I told myself, I needed a weekend, after the one I had been through. I discovered quite quickly though, that having enough crud in my lungs to drown in was a good excuse too. On Tuesday, feeling slightly better, I went to work. Now really I was in work because I had a deadline for the Friday, but my symptoms were quite bearable and I was expecting to improve, thinking I was over the worst. Wednesday I felt no better and on Thursday I gave up pretending to work half way through the afternoon and went home again. My intestines had a couple of days off and I was exhausted, hot and headachy; another weekend in bed.
Since then, I have steadily recovered. December was not good for energy, I vegetated the evenings away. It was not really until the Christmas break that I finally got to feel human again. So was it flu? was it even swine flu? I'm reasonably certain I've not had anything that would grant immunity to H1N1 in the past. I know one or two people who've had swine flu diagnosed and that have been very ill with it, particularly with secondary chest infections. I was as ill as I've been in ten years.
Since then, I have steadily recovered. December was not good for energy, I vegetated the evenings away. It was not really until the Christmas break that I finally got to feel human again. So was it flu? was it even swine flu? I'm reasonably certain I've not had anything that would grant immunity to H1N1 in the past. I know one or two people who've had swine flu diagnosed and that have been very ill with it, particularly with secondary chest infections. I was as ill as I've been in ten years.
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