Its an age thing?

England are doing well in The Ashes, so all is well in my sporting world.  Not so good if you follow football but since when has it been?

There is something a little miserable about shivering away at 3am watching people in T-shirts likely to suffer heat stroke if they clap too energetically but that is the wonder of modern media.

To compliment my Ashes watching I am reading Crickets Burning Passion. The story of how it all came about. (no it is a proper review not an effort to funnel you to my Amazon affiliate page)

As it is winter here in Blighty my reading matter usually tries to mirror the seasons, so it is polar adventure for me.  Walking Home Lynn Schooler.  A book I read in one long sitting, always a good sign.  Not sure if I stumbled on this book myself or some other outdoor blog had mentioned it.  Anyway its worth the read.  Middle aged man in crumbling personal relationship discovers time is passing.  Thankfully this is no ordinary middle aged desk jockey with a midlife crisis, this fellow lives and breathes the wild and going for a stroll along the Alaskan coast is just what he does.

Perhaps like a lot of people, I spend a lot of time wanting to be somewhere else.  Planning for the “next thing” which is usually down a long road and preferably ending with a muddy track.  This sort of changed when I read a book listing Britain’s wild places.  I happen to live in what is considered one of Britain’s top 50 wild places.  Not down the road, not nearby, about 5 minutes gentle stroll.

I have done for years, it is actually inhospitably wild protected by access problems.  Low lying saltmarsh that is pretty much useless for anything humans want to do today, unless they want to get stuck in mudholes which do kill you or get caught by rising tides which will drown you.  Fortunately you need some sort of boat to really get into trouble, but every year some fools have to be pulled from the mud on the periphery as they have sunk up to their middles.  Years ago of course you died, now you get busy on your mobile phone and pray you don’t die.

Its flat, bleak monotonous stuff to my eyes, but the birds love it.  So faced with this fact I have decided to expand my knowledge of birds beyond the seagull / duck / goose / wader / sparrow categorisation which has served me well for many a decade.

I am alarmingly ignorant of this stuff.  I know more about goretex and stoves made out of cans than I do about the natural world going on around me.  I have been putting the cart before the horse for rather too long when it comes to hiking.  Sure I have responded to the impressive landscape stuff, the sort of thing you see when overflying an area but I seem to have missed just about everything else of consequence.

November.

Well October my computer failed me.  Specifically a hard drive failed me, the one that boots the machine.  I could have bought repaired it but it was time for a new computer.

When I say 70 quid on ebay bought me a better computer, you can well understand it was time to upgrade the old one.  I don’t play Call of Duty Special Ops, all I need is enough computing power to get man to the moon.

Anyway, it set my priorities a little differently as a connected up a string of dubious legacy hard drives with the images of years gone by and worded memories.  Backups exist and had to be redone to keep them current.

The weather turned from cold to miserable, to cold and miserable and then November arrived and added wet and windy into the combination.

The last thing meaningful I did was go into the woods and collect chestnuts.  This was just before Nov 5th of course, a spare afternoon where the sun was peeking out from behind a cloud.  Later it rained, but by then I was outside.

Being out in rain is different to going out in rain and I was under the canopy by then, foraging about in the leaf litter.

The strong winds had brought down a happy crop of chestnuts and they had obliging leapt from their prickly cases as well.  Collecting was very easy indeed, a seasonal pleasure.

This all lead to collecting more than totally necessary, or lets say, more than I ended up capable of eating, preserving, cooking, generally making use of.  The remains still await useful introduction to the local wildlife.

Anyway I am back to my fitful best and hoping the North wind at least dries or freezes the mud which passes for countryside all around me so I can get out there without the need to scrape boots and wash dogs.

Swift, I am not.

Just before I left for my ill-fated Dartmoor trip I had a last bit of business to do.

Transport yourself back to the middle of August, it is where you find me now.  My backlog of potential blog/diary entries is rather considerable.

An unusual sunny day broke clear of the dross August has been. It was a reminder that this was late summer, 19th August not 19th Feb and the weather should at least be civilised. Shirt sleeve order, the sky was a clouded blue, strong deep like bulletproof glass.

I am crammed on the last vestige of land before England gives way to sea. At the base of south facing slope linking sea to sky, dotted with scrub but dominated by a large wild rose bush. The red rose hips stand out clear, a scene of strong colour. Bursting with health, nothing wrong with them.

It is the dozens of swifts which are skimming the slope which have attracted my attention. I am not alone on this patch of England but I am alone in watching the swifts. They seem invisible to others even as they come down the slope through them.

The swifts squeak as they wheel and cart through the sky, feeding on insects caught in warm updraft. The swifts themselves take on the appearance of a swarm, flying crazy lines, in out and around, they come close to everything but hit nothing.

So rare to land they are the perfection of flying. As I watch the display more things come into focus. There is a blackbird chucking leaf litter about under the rose bush. Industriously busy he seems oddly earthbound, not prepared to take flight among the swifts.

Not so a number of white butterflies, they flutter seemingly without concern going about the business they have and always will have. A group of wasps take the usual unhealthy interest in me. Wasps seem to take a naughty delight in the reactions they instil. I let them hover and idle about me, arm waving seems to increase their interest rather than deter them.

All this is and so much more I do not see is going on in a bit of land maybe 20 foot by 60 foot. It was wonderfully life affirming. Yes, a newspaper article has just told me the swift population has collapsed and the future will contain less of them, but right there, right then, there were enough to put on a marvellous show for me.

Was it because it is a common enough site that I alone took time to stop and stare or were people too busy relaxing to care. I was the only one there who had business to conduct, everyone else was there to relax and enjoy themselves.

It is just one of those simple scenes which weave themselves into memories fabric for reasons .unknowable

The Heat is on.

Serves us right for hoping we would get a summer this year.  Typically after what seems like years of mediocre summers, which somehow still manage to break records pertaining to things summery, we get this.

The heat in the East Anglian bit of blighty has reached the point where sitting still is now activity enough to ensure the sweat runs down your arms and back.

Dogs have had further haircuts in an effort to make their lives more comfortable but they still show no desire to do much more than lay in a shady spot or on a damp towel.

I have seen people sunburnt to the point it makes me wince to see it.  The combination of a sea-breeze they are not used too, the reflective ability of water and lying prone for hours has taken a nasty toll on some people.

Now there is a heat health warning from the Met.  Heat and humidity does me no favours at all.  32degrees seems on the cards, but they say the temp at night and the humidity is the real concern.  Given 32C already sounds like problem enough I am taking it easy.  Killing yourself for work is one thing, killing yourself for enjoyment is a different level of stupid.

My insistence of being indestructible has nearly killed me on more than one occasion.  So this time I am taking my non-superman status seriously and giving myself a break.

The idea of not getting out into the countryside because it is “too nice” seems insane.  Still, there we go.  I have a lot that can be done that falls into the “pottering about” category.

Hopefully later in the year the stars will align, work, weather and opportunity will coalesce and I will be sleeping under those self-same stars.

What’s to say

It has pretty much rained daily now for weeks.  I am rather glad plans for a trip to Cumbria and surrounds were put on ice because the weather had been pretty poor this year generally.

So far apart from a few simple outings into the woods in the area my autumn/winter has been reduced to reading other people’s blogs, watching Ray Mears and reading some excellent books.

Going somewhat “stir crazy” within the confines of bricks and mortar but with the wind and rain lashing at the windows continually there are worse places to be (outside being notable on the list of worse places to be).

The Ditch Monkey seems not to have posted for a while, so no idea what is going on with his project of living outdoors for a year.  His last post in mid-Sept spoke of hunting season and the potential he will have to retire to safety to avoid being shot while that goes on.

So here I sit living the outdoor life vicariously through other blog posts.  The well worn maps are out around me and kit is being refined, cleaned, prepared for further adventure.  The idea of being covered in mud from head to toe just fails to appeal while England are beating South Africa in the cricket.

My favourite Jack Pyke thinsulate beanie lies dormant on the desk in front of me, it is almost an accusation but the pile of books is more likely to get the attention, it doesnt ever rain forever.

Time flies

Well it has been a lot longer than intended between posts.  Partially because weather has housebound me and what little time the weather has allowed has been consumed with working outside in it rather than recreational activity in it.

Working outside is a treat itself.  It pays less than the desk job but those are the breaks.  Fortunately the weather in England is rarely severe enough long enough that it becomes life threatening.  The really bad days you just stay indoors.  Usually all you get is unpleasant weather, there are exceptions of course but that has more to do with the circumstances in which you get caught out in the weather rather than the weather itself.

Anyway autumn is well and truly in full flow and a number of days of significant winds has meant the leaves on my garden tree have gone.

Losing the leaves is always a shame.  The tree has a hard time so exposed to the sea as it is.  Often they are wind burnt long before the real warmth of the year can save them in spring and they are “untimely ripped” from branches in autumn.

There is a positive side to it though, those leaves weigh a lot and the tree is now more prepared to stand against the winter winds it will face.

On the way to the local library (Ray Mears Northern Wilderness) I kicked my way through large piles of fallen oak leaves, damp underfoot from the rains they were slippy at the point they meet the pavement.  Sign of the times my mind wandered to the “health and safety” aspect of it all.

Within a hedge as a I walked along were the bright red berries and leather shiny prickling leaves of the holly bush.  Christmas reminder just after Halloween and the witches riding their broomsticks and directly before Bonfire Night.

Bonfire Night and the huge piles of “scrap” wood which will be burnt is quite the celebration.  Burning Guy Fawkes gives the game away as to whose side we are celebrating.

I am sitting here admiring a wooden spoon I have just been sanding down and feeding oil into, it is now  sitting on my desk.  It is nothing special, just a small wooden spoon but there is something magical about it because of its material.  It is a “human” material, you can carve your own spoon and it becomes a reminder of the landscape you have walked over.  You cannot do that with metal or plastic spoons, not in the same way at all.

Hopefully this weekend I will find time to get to my favourite wood and see the last of the autumn display and collect a few sweet chestnuts as I go.

Gone Fishing.

Not been so active recently on the outdoor front, as the indoor element of my existence seems to have taken precedence.  Rather tiresome, especially given the, now fairly, common “indian summer” which seems to follow on from the English lack of actual summer.

It is the usual adjustment to perceived seasonal changes.

Trees are turning golden, but I am hoping they are going to wait on for another few days so I can get out and see it all happening in the great outdoors rather than checking the tree colours from a window.

Cricketers are always complaining they have to play too much cricket.  My heart bleeds, they seem not to care about me.  Collectively they play one heck of a lot of cricket, think for a moment what that means for someone that likes to watch.  There are endless matches, they run almost 24/7 and while a little under half the actual players are sitting in the dressing room earning money, I am sitting watching them, spending money.

It is worse being English as I have to support a team that is going to lose.  Even my trusty 50 over stand-ins, Sri-Lanka struggle.

Earlier this week though a combination of improving weather and a bit of free time, which was not only free but brother and I were actually capable of doing more than sitting numbly in a chair hoping to gather the sort of energy needed to lift an arm, inspiration therefore for a fishing trip.

Every fishing trip has a long list of reasons why we are not going to catch anything.  Tide is wrong, fish don’t bite when the tide is doing something or other which it usually seems to be doing.  The season is wrong, usually some type of fish has gone somewhere else and we are waiting for another sort of fish to turn up.  If by some miracle we are planning a fishing trip when fish are about, the tide will be wrong.  If time and tide is correct the weather is so awful the best we can do is hope we don’t (a) run aground (b) throw up/end up out of the boat and in the water.  If tide/time and weather is with us, usually the current isn’t and the boat swings about alarmingly and it becomes impossible to actually stay in contact with the line to determine if there is a fish on the end of it or not.

So those are the problems faced before catching a fish which will either be (a) inedible (b) to small.

I am no optimist so clearly fishing is not the reason I go fishing.  It is just about being out in another element and spending time with my brother.  Leaving the land and floating about on the sea also sets the mind free, the worries of everyday are left on the land.  When you are on the sea the main goal is to not drown, it is pretty simple.  Not quite as simple as it was 20 odd years ago when mobile phones meant 24/7 contact is now expected.  Not answering a phone within 5 rings is now a reason to call out the emergency services nowadays.

The day before the fishing trip the weather was just about perfect.  The start of the fishing trip in the harbour, it was perfect.  The voyage too the fishing ground it all seemed fine.  It just started to go a bit wrong when the anchor was hurled out and secured to the seabed.  Wind and current were working against each other, which seems to be an all too common occurrence.  The bit of the boat above the water wants to go in a different direction to the bit of the boat under the water.  So we spent happy hours, side on to the waves being bunged about while not really knowing if we had a bite or not.

We stuck at it in the spirit of “fishing” for about six hours.  At first we caught some fish of the too small/inedible varieties.  This was something of a surprise as there were not a lot of fish in season at the moment.  My brother is a keener fisherman than I, he actually professes to like it for its own sake.  Cannot deny he does seem to fish far more than would be deemed necessary by most people.

Eventually though the realisation set in that the elements were going to beat us and we were only going to strain something battling against them.  With that we slumped into our seats and bobbed about with the current, with acceptance often comes happiness.

Being on the water is quite wonderful, being in it is not, a lot of effort is expended on keeping that balance right.  To see the coastline from the vantage point of the sea is great, a novel and interesting view, it gives a whole new appreciation for land and its real value to us.

Eventually though the magnetic draw of the one day cricket tournament overcame the pull of sitting in a boat being randomly rocked about so standing was difficult while not catching fish.  Homeward bound, and as usual almost the instant the anchor came up and we stopped fighting the elements things became a lot calmer.  An interesting life lesson, drifting is easier, but you end up on the rocks.  I wonder what it is teaching.

At the halfway point the conversation turned from how bad the fishing element of the trip had been to how it will be better next time.  It is a conversation we always have.

Really though it was great to spend some time with my brother doing nothing more than not-a-lot.

Air Show.

More of a destination than a journey.  I was transported to the show via the magic of the internal combustion engine (external combustion engines exist).  I arrived early, this is not somewhere you arrive on time, not unless you want to walk 2 miles from car to show.  I didn’t, not because the walk was a dread, but the traffic jam that would accompany the end of the show is going to be horrendous.

Clacton is built on the coast, this means a coast road, which effectively means, one way in, one way out, today cars are parked on both sides of that road for 3 miles and more, bumper to bumper, I do not dare investigate the small side roads.

Having arrived with plenty of time I did a little sight-seeing and picked a spot I thought would be a good vantage point.  Near the Pier, but careful to be on the correct side, the bit where the planes would be doing the stuff.  Carefully chosen, my bit of the railings included a thorny bush to my left.  I had no intention of being hemmed in by humanity, that bush was going to stop that happening.  Not inconsequentially the memorial gardens are behind me, a large impressive war memorial, the names of the dead from 1914-18 and 1939-45 on it, with a large sculpted winged figure above them all.  It was the right place to be.

I have no interest in planes really.  I did want to see the Battle of Britain memorial flight and I was looking forward to seeing the Utterly Butterly girls “wing walking”.  Being as the airshow was technically over water, it means the planes can come in very close, the presumption being if something goes wrong there is plenty of water to ditch into and in terms of impact absorption water is better than terra-firma.  Whatever the reason, you can wave to the pilots in the cockpits.

My main motivation for going to air shows is memory.  Many many years ago a friend had an SLR camera which really impressed me.  It was so complex it just had to be good.  He liked airshows and had numerous images of tiny specks on a blue backdrop.  I am re-living the boredom of it now.  Well I wanted that camera and I wanted to be able to take pictures of planes.  The other reason, you should never forget.

The camera thing has gone full circle and I use a point and click device with as few bells and whistles as I can get away with.  I am still trying to taking the plane image that is in my head.  For those that care this mental image has a remarkable similarity to the moment in “Empire of the Sun” when the fighter pilot flies low over the land, canopy open and waves in slow motion as he goes by, all sun glint highlights.

The show begins, I have picked a good spot.  I know this because all around me are people with cameras that could be mistaken for telescopes.  Tripods, monopoles, lenses bigger than thermos flasks.  Oh dear, I am in a nerd forest, the wrong nerd forest, goretex is my element.  Still we are all here for the same reason, taking the image which is in our heads.

I take an endless series of blurry blobs in the sky while imagining all those around me are taking a shot of a Japanese fighter pilot waving in slow motion just above sea level.  Still it is darn good fun trying.  My technique improves a little, but my anticipation is way off, the planes are simply not in the right place at the right time and an error in location is glaring me in the face.  The sun gets in the way of of photographing aircraft heading towards me.  A damn silly mistake, the first one a fighter pilot is told to avoid and often the very last mistake he makes.  Getting home, reveals I still have a long way to go when it comes to aircraft photography.

I know very few things about aircraft but it stands me in good stead.  What a Spitfire looks like is my primary aircraft skill.  I am surrounded by experts, they know it all and in loud voices are keen to let everyone share in their knowledge.  I don’t mind, but am learning rather more about the people than the planes, conversations are about where they last saw the plane (last week somewhere in most cases).

A plane appears over the sea, unannounced, it has caught the BBC Essex outside broadcast team unawares.  Maybe they were looking under their desks for some more joke sound effects at the time.  Actually I am being naughty, the outside broadcast was mercifully free of gimmick and even had co-commentators more used to being in the aircraft than flying a microphone, it added rather than subtracted from the experience, even if some toe-curling cliché was to be expected .

The so far unidentified plane has squared off wing tips.

“Ahhh, there she is” a voice thick with emotion booms from somewhere behind me.  “Spitfire, I would recognise it anywhere, its the shape of the wings.”  I am ahead of the game, its not a Spitfire, its a Mustang.  I know it is not a Spitfire by prior knowledge.  Recognising it is a Mustang has been pieced together by a sneak preview of the show guide earlier in the day.

The DJ sparks into life, “blah blah, cliché, cliché, Mustang, blah, blah.”

Stunned silence around me.  “The announcer says it is a Mustang” a trembling voice sneaks into the silence.

For the next few minutes we are treated to why the identification error was made.  It had everything to do with engine note, the Mustang did not have its original engine.  This redressed the balance a little, nobody pointed out the totally different wing shapes it would be too difficult to explain away.  Much better something as unlikely as a Mustang having a Spitfire engine as a replacement had been the root of the error.

The Utterly Butterly girls were not, they were now a brand of skin care cream girls, but other than that the same.  Still great, rather them than me.  The planes swoop and climb, my stomach flips.  The airstrip they take off and land from is not far away, for a mad moment I consider heading there, but it would be like peeping behind the theatre curtain, the magic is front of house.  They look glamorous and daring, free spirits of the 1930’s, I don’t really want to see them unbuckled, windswept and staggering like some over-exerted nightclubbers.

High on my list of things “I am unlikely to see” then hoved into view, The Swifts.  An aerobatic team complete with glider.  It is a 3 aircraft team.  The glider is towed behind one of them doing a series of very unlikely looking rolls.  This must take some serious skill my initial understated thought.  Then the glider and its tug fly up into the blue gaining height while the third aircraft entertains the crowd.  The next time we see the glider it is free from the rope and doing all manner of rolls and turns and lord knows what.  Timing is everything, getting back to the airfield a serious consideration when you have not got an engine.

The Catalina flying boat was a treat to see, huge graceful, mercifully slow moving, it did a series of arcs over Clacton pier,it was impressive.  I had built a model of one as a small boy, the dual nature of its landing capabilities enthralled me.  I had never seen one in the flesh, an unexpected highlight.

Top billing of the show is always going to be the Battle of Britain Memorial flight.  Hurricane, the last one ever built, “The Last of the Many” was the one flying this day.  The Spitfire that flew was restored to flying condition in 1997 after 50 odd years of being grounded.  Both planes had rolls in the Battle of Britain film.

The star is always the Lancaster for me, only two airworthy examples left, this the only one in England.  I dread the day it crashes as these things have a tendency to do.

Here is the memorial flight website.

The Red Arrows were to end the show, but not for me, I had seen the fitting end to the show already, so I headed back to the car.  Before going though I stopped in at a small public garden where there is a plaque too an Airman that died during the Second World War.

Going home I drove faster than usual, in the brief bits of tarmac that still allowed me travel over 30mph I actually do, I had witnessed too much speed.  It is quite a time since I bothered going faster than 30mph on the 70 or so yard stretches between pointlessly assigned 30mph zones with cameras hidden waiting to apply the points and hand out the fine.  I am daydreaming over the life and demise of T.E Lawrence when a motorcyclist thunders past me, quickly followed by his friend allowing judgement and luck to be the arbitrator of whether he lives or dies stuck to the front of the on-coming vehicle.

Epilepsy of obloquy

Or to put it another way, “Lost in translation”.

It seems my post Give a walk a name was picked up by one of those blogs that has no concerns regarding repackaging original content in an effort to flog some tat for their own profit.

So far so mundane, but what has given this effort an extra edge and makes it noteworthy is the slant it has put on translation.

So here is my text as it appears on someone else’s blog:

“I realised this many eld past with the brainstorm axes went by assorted names, weight and appendage length existence the criteria. In the epilepsy of obloquy you attain your possess up. A artist warning for me existence “Rabbit log”. Rabbit log defines a patch of connector most 10 foot by 3 foot. It is featureless, it has no study on some map. 25 eld past a friend's canid caught a rabbit, such to everyone's astonishment, but having caught it was at a loss as to just what to do next. ...”

The blog is concerned with weight-loss patch flogging by all appearances. (Here is my unexpected guest appearance)

We are most certainly on the wrong side of the looking glass here.  I write in English and the blog that copied my work is in English, but clearly at some point it has been through a translator and then translated back.

It seems to just scan for phrases that might be about articles associated with losing weight, what happens next is something of a mystery.  Now this page has a good deal of weight loss content and words associated with the losing of weight.  See where this is heading?

This is not a copy and paste rant, don’t put anything on the internet if you don’t want it copy and pasted.  There is plenty of my thought scattered far and wide across the internet in various guise, orphaned words with only the vaguest memory of parentage, it is part of the deal.  We all know what it is like reading your own words in unexpected places.

This funfair mirror approach to blogging is great, what is reflected back is a twisted version of what was and is.  It is creating its own partially original form in the process.  Certainly my writing can lose focus, but at no point have I considered axes appendage length.  The phrase “epilepsy of obloquy you attain your possess up” is fantastical and all the more wondrous as my original the phrase is “In the absence of names you make your own up”.

Obloquy is not a word you get to use very often, it can be termed as a disgrace suffered from abusive language, one who denies or disputes (here it is).  I don’t think the phrase “epilepsy of obloquy” is ever going to be bettered, like a small child I am desperate to incorporate it into a conversation at the earliest possible opportunity, it might be a while.

The fact the blog entry was about it being easier to follow and copy than have an original thought just adds to twisted landscape we find ourselves in.  Initially it was a sly dig at my own expense given Martin at Summit and Valley had flagged the Munro changes which was the jumping off point for my blog post. http://summitandvalley.blogspot.com/2009/08/yawn.html

Back to business as usual tomorrow, whatever that actually is, but I could not resist sharing this.

Give a walk a name

A few days ago Martin on his blog highlighted this:

http://summitandvalley.blogspot.com/2009/08/yawn.html

The list of Munro’s is being revised, once again. 

They are named after Sir Hugh T Munro, who in 1891 published a list of Scottish mountains over 3,000 feet.

283 made the list, it also included “tops” which are peaks over 3000 ft but do not have enough re-ascent to be classed as mountains in their own right.  This brought the list up to 530.

That could well have been that but Munro either was fortunate or unfortunate in the timing of his list depending on your viewpoint.  OS Maps appeared soon afterwards and they were not in whole-hearted agreement over the classification of the 3,000 ft hills.

Munro died in 1919 while revising his original list.  Life is a work in progress, but this does seem somewhat harsh on Sir Hugh.

The first two people to achieve compleation, that is bagging (what normal people call climbing), all the munro’s were men of the cloth.  First to do so was in 1901 and then it was done again 22 years later.  There seems to be many energetic clergy during the Victorian era.  It probably bears out the joke about only working 1 day a week, or it might be a desire to experience all god’s work, or it might be because they were stuck into the wrong job as something to do with the “spare” who was not going to inherit the family fortune.  Every hole in Dartmoor at the time seemed to have a clergyman at the bottom of it scraping away, finding “little of interest”.  When not doing that, they could be discovered repairing stone rows and circles, although “re-imagining” might be a more modern term for some of their efforts.

We have got more sophisticated with our measuring techniques over the years, which may or may not include metrication.  This now means Munro’s are 914.4m or higher.  Metrication has not improved the romance of Munro bagging.  The list is revised, like Saints, some hills are promoted, some relegated.

The Munro’s are now a product, and part of the tourist industry.  On the understanding “there is no such thing as bad publicity” change that gets talked about is good and who doesn’t like the idea we can still disagree about the height of a mountain in this day and age?  Local newscasters with that slightly bemused expression they develop when such stories are about to be shown, just love them.  It is a chance to send the new-boy/girl out in hideous weather, hopefully up to their waist in a stinking bog.

So another revision is pending.  In 1997 eight Munro’s were discovered, and one thought to be a Munro was revealed to be an imposter.  One of the new Munro’s was 4,127 ft in height.

All good news for guidebooks, tourism, and generally getting your product back in the public eye.  “New and Improved”

Like any other successful formula people love to repeat it.  Developmental costs of original thought is very high afterall, much easier and quicker to adapt someone else’s work and stick your name on it. “Winterings, made with Munrovium technology”, this sort of thing being a favourite of advertising.  Vaguely scientific names that on reflection are daft.  I spend rather to long making up pseudo-scientific names in this manner.

So now we have a most unlikely series of named elevations.

Corbetts · Donalds · Fells · Grahams · Hewitts · Marilyns · Munros · Murdos · Nuttalls · Wainwrights

Humans just love naming and categorising things, even better if you can get your own name on it.  I realised this many years ago with the discovery axes went by different names, weight and handle length being the criteria.  In the absence of names you make your own up.  A classic example for me being “Rabbit log”.

Rabbit log defines a patch of ground about 10 foot by 3 foot.  It is featureless, it has no name on any map.  25 years ago a friend’s dog caught a rabbit, much to everyone’s astonishment, but having caught it was at a loss as to exactly what to do next.  By the time we caught up with it, the rabbit was in a sorry state, but still alive.  I had the job of dispatching it.  The rabbit met a swift, violent end involving my boot and a log seat, not pleasant.  Rabbit log has long since gone, it is a bare patch of ground, but it will forever be so named on my mental map.

The naming of it has made it a destination, part of a dog walk.

Wainwright created the Coast to Coast walk to show people they did not need to follow guidebooks, there were plenty of walks just waiting to be discovered by those able to see.  Few of us have Wainwright’s vision, so we simply follow his footsteps on a walk that although pre-existing, would never have been done.  Now it is an industry, grinning fresh-faced TV presenters jog along it with rucksacks which put ultra-light hikers to shame.  All you need is a camera crew to achieve this effect.

I am currently walking The Essex Way, among various more nebulous walking ideas.  There is no way on Earth if that named walk did not exist would I be walking from Harwich to Epping.  Why on earth would I do it?

Map it, name it, produce a pamphlet about it and it becomes more attractive.  A few years ago I fell into conversation with another hiker, it is a rare event.  He tells me about his Essex Way experience, it was a group thing.  The idea of getting away from it all with 20 other people talking about blisters has a distinct lack of appeal. I tell him about my early forced march version of it over a long weekend. We really are on different wavelengths but the walk is a point of reference we both understand.  If he had said, “I walked from Harwich to Epping last month with 20 people” the conversation would have been totally different, probably non-existent, as I took a few steps back from what was clearly a mad-man.  The name gives it legitimacy.

More and more walks are being “created” for us, pre-packaged by a tourist industry which knows heritage sells but to keep it selling new angles have to be created to keep it in the public eye.  As our attention span shortens the changes have to come faster and faster, the internet feeds into this.

All this by way of saying, no need to be shocked to discover you cannot even rely on a list of 3,000 foot mountains.  This opens up a whole can of worms regarding what compleation actually is.  That road is for another day.

When does the madness stop?

It is a fair question, but on the understanding prevention is better than cure, the better question is, where does the madness start?

Madness is largely a social construct, I am not worried about overstepping that line.  I am able to survive within conventional society.

But there is another sort of madness, more a turmoil, when you have more thoughts than you have categories to put them in.  An overspill of thought running about free of label.

The problem with tearing off the blinkers, removing the filters is sensory overload.  We must have all had the experience when surfing the net.  You are reading an article, its interesting to some degree or another.  It has a link to further reading, you cannot resist, “click”.  This is more interesting, it gets a bookmark.  Now thoughts are going through your head, “there must be books on this subject”.  Bring up the library service.  There certainly are books, it is easy to get a few reserved.

A few days later the library informs you the books have arrived.  Excellent, now you have a week or two of reading ahead of you.  You are learning exponentially, the books have further references, you want to read them too.

So far it is relatively healthy but you are fast approaching a line.  This is when you ask yourself, “How can I be actively involved in this?”

For me there is a looping mechanism at work.  I go for a stroll, an insect is seen, I wish to know more.  The internet is the instant educator.  Its turns out to be a common example, but there are many questions to be answered regarding this.  I see there are rarer examples, there is a survey going on, I can get involved, help map out the migratory habits of this brown object.  It can do no real harm to me, it will just be an added element on the walk, it will be fun.

It is fun, it adds something to the walk, I can identify various bugs as I stroll along.

I walk into a churchyard, as ever looking for the old and curious gravestones but the church itself is not of great interest to me.  But then I find an unusual element within the architecture of the Church, something not seen before.  How old is that oak chest that just sits there by the font?  How old is the font?

Now I am sinking deeper, there is easily 1000 years of church architecture to consider in most UK townscapes.  My history education is relatively extensive, British history 1485 – 1700 being a focus of it, religion is a major theme.  It interests me at the amateur level, freed from the constraints of having to learn it to regurgitate it onto A4 for an exam board it has become interesting again.

Things are beginning to get un-manageable.  I contemplate walks which will encompass esoteric church architectural feature.  But it does not come easily, this stuff has to be researched.  It can take days to organise a walk which was once just a matter of stepping outside the front door.

The experience is much more rewarding though, so it is worth the added effort, the planning, the effort is part of the process.  Ideas are springing into my head constantly.  Constructing the shortest possible walk between 3 churches with towers, 3 with spires, 3 with no such thrust, 3 with lychgates.  How many churches can I walk too in 3 miles.  The “Trinity tour” my basic building block.

Now I get there, its no good just seeing it, there has to be a record of it, my record of it.  There might be 10,000 photographs of it but there is a strong need for me to capture the moment I was there.

The photograph does not come out right.  It looks nothing like the better efforts I have seen.  My memory has been cheated, that blurry grey blob was not what I saw.  The answer is simple, more learning, more technique, more practice.

Interest piles on top of interest.  I am walking down the street, trying to see a bug which moments before was just a shadow on the pavement.  I am framing images in my head, trying different sentence forms for blogging.

I walked south of Mistley a few weeks ago, and just through a small section of Manningtree.  Along the walk I saw two hares in the field.  Hares long associated with witches.  Mistley and Manningtree, a dark history of persecution, stamping ground of the Witchfinder General.  He is said to be buried in a churchyard that is now only ruins.  Walks are planned based on witchcraft trials.  Once again the internet is surfed, the library consulted, the process continues, another layer of complexity and interest added.

This is still well within the sphere of the sane.  Planning a walk between my name (an old Hall) and my brothers name (a farm that no longer exists) begins to show signs of flakiness.  Given our names, there is probably only one such walk in England, certainly that can be done within a day.  Other “name themed” walks are considered.

Having discovered I can walk from my name to my brothers name in a day, via a farm that no longer exists a plan forms in my head.  A whole new walking theme.  Walks to places that don’t exist and of course walks from places that don’t exist.  Old maps are studied, place names, farms, barrows carefully plotted.  Can I follow old field systems that are now carparks, is there any evidence of the rural past?  A whole theme of rural walks in an urban environment exist develops in my mind.

This is just the stuff amassed to amuse myself between major, perhaps more mainstream, walking goals.  There is only one certainty, the next time I step outside of the door, it will be the start of many more walking ideas than it will complete.

As long as not for one moment do I think any of this will ever be completed in one lifetime a grip on reality will be maintained.

The madness starts when the ideas stop.

Inner exploration.

John Wayne on-screen tough guy:

“What do you want me to do? Draw you a picture? Spell it out? Don't ever ask me! Long as you live, don't ever ask me more.”

The Searchers.

There is a special Ray Mears programme.  He goes into the jungle with a very eager Ewan McGregor.  I am not sure if it was a pilot concept, but it seems never to have been expanded on.

This was no “I’m a celebrity get me out of here".  Here being a hotel carpark somewhere leafy by the looks of it.  Knee deep mud and if you want a nights rest you better get your camp in order, nobody else is doing it.

The programme charts Ewan from enthusiastic ignorance to knowledgeable misery.  At the end of the programme, the helicopter lifts skyward, Ewan is glad it is over.  But, it gave him the opportunity to work out “issues” he has left a lot of mental baggage in the jungle.

This seems to be a common theme, while out in the “wilderness” inner exploration is going on, you get in touch with your inner being.  Things become clearer, mental knots untie, surplus weight shed.  It is all a bit new age, smacking of rebirth and touchy feely.  Ethan, as portrayed by John Wayne would not be having any of it.

At the age of 11, eager young students, legally obliged to attend students with nowhere else to go, were set an essay.  What is heaven, what is hell.

My effort boiled down to, hell is the repetition of your life for eternity with the sure knowledge of what happens next, it runs on rails, a journey you know.  Heaven is new experience.  Personal growth does not seem to be a priority for me, I’ve not really changed this attitude.

While walking I do plenty of thinking, but it is usually a forward projection from the point of now.

I suspect the “walking cure” is an extension of the “talking cure” concept.  Healthy mind, healthy body.  Talk about it and it gets better.

It cannot be very contentious to assert a persons inner landscape is at least as complex as the landscape of the natural world.  There are many places in the natural world having been mapped that clearly would be a bad idea to go and visit.  The core of a nuclear reactor would be an extreme example.  Not much good is going to come of popping in and giving it a look-see.

Why then is there the idea that exploring your inner landscape is a good idea.  There is much danger to be uncovered and harmful materials locked away.  “Get it out in the open” seems to be the consensus for these thoughts, but people are not so keen to open up plague pits or anthrax dumps.

If you are skilled enough at handling these toxic thoughts and are able to jettison them into the rainforest then by all means do so.  If you are not, medalling might be a very bad idea.

Introspection must be doomed to failure.  There are people that profess if they had their time again they would not change a single thing.  Either they are totally devoid of imagination, incapable of introspection, or lying.

Finish this sentence in seven words or less : “I would like to be reincarnated because…”

I would hope those that write “to do it all the same again” would be eternally damned to wander the earth as shades.

Introspection finds the cracks, the fracture, and like an old gramophone needle gets stuck in it.  “What if….” begins and it never ends.

Even if you divine the correct path, the one you should have taken, the phrase you should have used, you cannot be sure how it would affect the next instant.  Even in the movies, the most controlled of lives, you only have alternate endings, they don’t do alternate beginnings or middles, it makes no sense, the complexity is total.

Imagine the horror if you could plot your alternate life from that crossroads, the result would drive you mad.  It’s a path never travelled however beautiful it will be eternally denied you.

Travelling the backwaters of memory is a bad plan, you could very easily get lost.

The advice “Don’t look back” has never been more apposite.  I think there is a simple truth.  Those that do not wish to be lost realise it is not worth travelling back, the surest way to avoid the backward glance is to forget or by sheer strength of will never return to it. 

It is as simple as that, like so much excess weight, the memories are not untied, made coherent, understood.  They are simply dropped as the complex tangle of unexplainable, unchangeable clutter they are revealed to be.  There is no resolution just an understanding, the past has past.

From extrovert to introvert.

 

Those salad days of youth when being seen was about the most important thing.  How stupid I looked was a very distant second place.

Moving forward, not being seen is about the most important thing on the agenda.  How I am perceived is of even less interest to me now, I know I look daft.

In halcyon days of long lost summers the external frame backpack (rucksack was not a term in my vocabulary) was the thing.  It was blue and vile, built to survive nuclear threat, I was not built to survive it.

But the key point was, lots of places to tie stuff.  I must have been quite an event walking through quiet villages, a one man band clanking through.  Small children knowing only marginally less than me would stop, stare and point.  Elders would cast nervous glances, I was too young to be a vagrant, but still, just maybe…

My backpack had travelled through Seth Brundle’s teleporter and come out the other side inside out to all intents and purpose.  It was all hanging and swinging off the backpack frame for legitimate reason.

Naturally the bright yellow rollmat did not fit in, so it was strapped to the exterior.  The tent spars were too large to fit inside, so they lived on the outside.  Given this it made sense that the tent might as well live on the outside as well in its own bag.  After a bit of use the tent had all the form of a bag of unwashed clothes strapped precariously on the pack.  You could compare it with the wet clothing hanging off the bag to dry.

My sleeping bag was enormous, comfort was important, it did not matter it was so wretched hot I seldom got in it.  Too large to fit in the backpack it was strapped on the top comfortably extending above my head.

This arrangement now caused issues with regard low hanging branches which was neatly resolved by hanging a large parka over the lot, blue with orange lining.  The parka, a sacrificial layer, it got snagged, not the sleeping bag.

All this strapped on with a bungee or two and yards of string.

Finally the cooking pot, much to dirty to live within the pack it was on the outside, rattling and clanging merrily with every stride.  It even annoyed me at times, but not enough to do anything about it.

Finally, and this must be the most absurd of all, a spare pair of boots.  The message to the outside world, I walked so far along such un-trodden paths I needed at least two pairs of boots to complete the journey.

I have no idea what was in the backpack itself, some food, but never enough and certainly not enough water.  Food and water was for softies.  I suspect there was all manner of gizmo’s that never got used and backups and spares for these un-used items.

This touches on the reason I wished for the recognition.  I was on a journey, perhaps an epic one, that few mortal men would consider and few in that number would live to see the destination.

I can laugh now, but then I didn’t.  The backpack was digging into my back in all manner of hideous ways as the load simply had no rhyme nor reason, it was heavy where it should have been light, light where it should have been heavy.

The whole shooting match swung precariously without any assistance from me, but as I wobbled and tottered under it I gave it plenty of extra incentive to upend me.

Travelling under low branches (or bridges even, but memory might be playing tricks on me here) I did not so much duck as sag at the knees to get under obstacles without ripping holes in parka and sleeping bag or dumping me on my back.

Getting this backpack on and off without some bit of equipment either dropping off or walloping me was an art to be mastered.

The process by which these items disappeared into the bag was slow.  But it has happened and only last year did I realise it was completed when the sleeping mat was replaced by a self-inflating mat which would live inside the rucksack.

Along the way for reasons of comfort the sleeping bag headed into the pack first.  Having got smaller and more manageable.  A bag was made for cooking equipment, an old pair of moleskin trousers donated a leg for the purpose.

The purchase of a bivvy bag meant the tent could be exchanged for a poncho tarp.

Now all that remains strapped to the exterior of the pack is a pair of walking poles, they look less daft there than they do in my hands.

There was still that nagging feeling this simply did not look the part.  Real men had stuff hanging off their pack, it was manly.  Fortunately Ray Mears came to my rescue.  You cannot doubt his manly credentials and everything is always neatly squared away in his rucksack (or in the landrovers).

Bush Tucker

 

Bush Tucker for me is exactly that, food found on a bush, or maybe stunted tree, easy reach material.  I am not going to be bringing down any deer with a rifle or blasting bunny with a shotgun or well aimed stick.

Although I claim if necessary I’d strangle a pig with my bare hands to get hold of p0rk-chops, its an idle boast, the local butcher has nothing to fear.

As for fungi, I like the advice of one expert, “all fungi are edible, unfortunately some only once”

I let the food chains worry about those details, nothing is tasty enough to die for.

I like the idea you can stroll out into the woods and eat yourself to death.  In an increasingly sanitized world this cannot be controlled.  The chemist is no longer the place to blithely buy poison to kill of friends relatives and most of the village, or drug yourself up to the eyeballs, such luxuries went the way of the Victorians, but you can wander into the woods and collect the means of death and destruction, it looks like a mushroom, even tastes good.

I am not suggesting for one minute buying poison or narcotics from a chemist was a good idea, or that killing your relations with mushrooms is a legitimate plan.  But it’s the same concept that allows cars to do more than 70mph despite the fact they are not allowed too.  It is good to know the option is there, we have not all been reduced to barcodes in a governmental plan.

My autumnal project is photographing as many different fungi species as possible.  They move less than butterflies so I am looking forward to this more relaxed pace.  The downside being, this has the potential to be exceptionally geeky if not controlled.  There might be over 1million forms of fungi yet to be recorded for example.  Apparently there are 22,000 types in the UK.  Most are brown and tediously tiny, nearly sub-atomic by the looks of them.  So I am going to have to set suitable limits on this project to stop myself ending up staring at lumpy sticks through magnifying glasses and trying to pronounce Latin words longer than my arm.

Lets get back to the main track.

The only reason I watch Bear Grylls is to rock with laughter as he scoffs down some disgusting looking item which is wriggling.  The only things he eats that looks worse is the stuff not wriggling.

Just lately other blogs have been waxing most lyrical on the lovely blackberries to be found.  I don’t live in the Siberian wastelands so I could not wait to feast my eyes and tastebuds on this most child friendly of berries.

One of a number of things seems to have gone wrong.  These succulent berries are a product of fevered minds or fisherman’s tales, is one possibility.  The other is I simply have been rather unfortunate in having failed to find a decent batch, or finally berries aren’t what they used to be.

I am discounting the third option, global warming is to the environment what aspirin is to medicine.  It’s the answer to everything but its damn boring hearing about how it cures all.

There might be some fevered minds out there in the outdoor world, but a conspiracy on this scale seems unlikely.

Frankly, its too early for blackberries, so I am not too concerned yet.  But those red miserably hard looking berries are going to have to seriously improve.  I did eat a few of the darker juicier variety but found maggoty wildlife had beaten me too most of them.  This was much to close to a Grylls experience for my liking.

Other blackberries flattered to deceive, they looked the part but tasted foul.

I have hopes though, it was a grand year for strawberries.  Wimbledon fortnight is always more enjoyable when watched with a large bowl of strawberries just picked from the garden.  They taste great and even better when stacked up against the mad expense of the things on centre court.  Strawberry jam will be enjoyed long into the year.

It was a bumper year for rabbits too, so the rest of the garden was eaten long before it reached my plate.

Earlier in the year I walked past a pea field, and I have to admit some sampling went on.  Not on an industrial scale, a few pods were experimentally popped, untimely ripped, but peas can barely do wrong.

This looks to be a good year for sloes, they are everywhere.  Described as eating a fruity deodorant stick, these astringent horrors I steer well clear of.  These are in the theoretically edible category, along with my leather shoes.

I have spied some abandoned apples and pears on some walks, they have looked pretty meagre efforts but maybe the latest batch of weather will have done them good.  I shall be keeping a keen eye on what goes on there.

Carrots are seen with their heads above the soil now, I resisted the urge to free them from earthy grasp.  I admit it was because the farmers windows were very much in evidence.  Cultivated crops are straying somewhat from the remit though.  It is about like walking into someone’s kitchen raiding the fruit bowl and claiming to be living off the land.  Maybe Bear G would consider this TV material, but not for me.

The real success this year in terms of wandering along footpaths have been cherry plums.  The tastiest most juicy fruit hanging in large groups, often by quiet roadsides.  Nobody seems to care about them.  I make them feel loved and wanted.  They are loved and wanted. 

I saw an elderly woman collecting them in a churchyard to make jam with them to sell to the churchgoers.  This seemed a time honoured traditional sort of thing.  I fondly imagined the right to pick the berries having been handed down the female line of her family for multiple generations.  Those generations, now feeding the tree on which the fruit comes, slumbering happily, tradition maintained.  No doubt total nonsense but it enriches the inner landscape which, when it comes to the crunch, is all you actually have.

So I wait eagerly to see if blackberries are edible soon and on a longer term scale I noticed Sweet Chestnut trees heavy with prickly casings.

Last year was a miserable sweet chestnut year, even by the lowered expectations you need due to the English climate.  They were small and spongy and overfilled with wriggling grubs, a lot of effort was expended for not a lot of eating.  So I have my fingers crossed in that regard.

Technorati Tags: bush tucker,wild food,blackberries,bear grylls,sloes,plums,fungi,mushrooms

Harvest.

The seasons in England seem to be in terminal decline.  Perhaps there never was a spring, summer, autumn and winter, it was just a prank the elderly teased the younger generation with.

“Oh daffodils come out so much earlier than in my day”.

We look at them enviously for their late flowering daff memories.

There has always been the joke “if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute”.  So determining what season you are in via a quick glance out of the window was never likely to be possible.

The six week summer holiday existed so the children could assist with the harvest.  Well 100 odd years later, its the school holidays, kids are playing on video games and the harvest is coming in.

As dogs were strolled, I watched the first crops force themselves out of the ground, watched oil seed rape grow at an incredible rate, turn yellow, then turn into that brown tangled mess making walking near impossible.

The barley turned golden in the fields, with the wheat following on behind.  All manner of crop was growing large underground, un-noticed, largely unloved.  I spoke with farmers when they were out examining the crops.  None were particularly pleased with the weather this year. 

Dry when it should have been wet.

We would stand in silence and consider the possible reasons for this, but there have always been bad years and not so good years.

Now though, the interesting displays in the fields are being mowed down and turned into huge industrial sized rolls.  This process started a few weeks ago, but now it is in full swing.

Machines the size of farm labourers houses trundle within the field processing the crops.

Fields are being turned into a pygmy punji stick crop.  Not pleasant to walk on if you have footwear, a real challenge if you are ten inches off the ground and have paws.

The harvest is very much the end of a colourful chapter in our year.  The fields are going to return to earth colour, ploughed up.  I can almost feel the mud sticking to my boots already.

There is a certain regret of this special time passing, but it comes around again, and it is foolish to want to hold a moment in time because its passing is the only thing that gives it relevance.

Already the days are getting noticeably shorter.

My mind is turning to the autumn season, plans for walks to take in woodland, so the changing colours can be admired, the fungi examined.

I am looking forward to that, lots of new things to discover and old sights to be reminded of.

A fashionable Mr Jones.

 

I have a sneaking feeling the fashionable Mr Jones sells a lot of gear.

Who is he?

Well Mr Jones is often your neighbour with the double glazing just going in.  It is fun to see who is keeping up with Mr Jones when you walk down the street.  Whole groups of houses take on a similar appearance until there is a firebreak either because of financial constraint or individual expression a house breaks the pattern.

Mums on school runs don’t need 4x4 people carriers but to not have one is nearly a social crime.  All manner of justification will be trotted out as to why the monstrosity of the road is needed.

But the fashionable Mr Jones is more subtle than you give him credit for.  It is easy to laugh at others persuaded by his sales patter, it is not so easy to laugh at yourself having been gulled into it.

In a world of a myriad choices you need Mr Jones to help you focus and make sense of it all.  Given two choices it is easy to make a decision, given a million it becomes bewildering.

Mr Jones is a tool, don’t let him turn you into one.

Spot the Mears-a-likes in their olive drab labouring under Karrimors bulging with survival gear with maybe a copy of an alarmingly expensive knife weighing them down.

A knife is the most important thing in bushcraft is the general message.  It has certainly sold a lot of knives and as these things have a certain sex-appeal Mr Jones need not be too persuasive.

Spot the Walts.  These chaps are festooned with SAS equipment with flinty 1000 yard stares, maybe with cheesewire hidden somewhere on their bodies.  About as far from the heroes they imagine themselves to be as it is to get, they are suffering a media overdose.

The SAS and Ray Mears labels get attached to some very weird and wonderful ebay items.

Then there are the hardcore charge of the light brigade, the Jardineites, walking sandals crippling them and the nth degree of a gram removed from their waterproof stuffsacks which have rendered them useless.

Tee-hee-hee indeed.

I try to keep in mind, form should follow function, and as many functions as possible should be embodied in the simplest of forms.

Trying to lower the “keeping up with the fashionable Mr Jones” function of an object to is a constant struggle.

I am just as much in the thrall of the fashionable Mr Jones as anyone else.  His influence is so much easier to spot in hindsight.  How I chuckle/cringe at my past self under his influence while I stride out purposefully not noticing his current.

Not sure how much fashion plays in decision making?  Ask how long a successful manufacturer of outdoor equipment takes over colour choice on a product range and how much it occupies your own.

The National Trails

Paddy Dillon (new website here)in his book points out there are 19 of them and a useful map shows me where they are.

Further inside they are described, each having its own character and purpose.

What he fails to mention is the sense of time passing and marginal panic this all induces in me.

Here is a classic case of wants as opposed to needs.

I want to walk the National Trails and to not be able to makes me unhappy.  However in no way do I need to and understanding this releases me from the burden and allows me to be happy with what I can attain.

Lets stick with “wants” for now, coz pain ridden angst is so much more intellectual than an imbecilic grin of contentment.

If I walked one a year (fat chance) my potential active years will have passed me by and I will have been long reduced to the vicarious enjoyment of such trails via whatever comes after blogging and podcasting.

Right now, vicarious pleasure is fine because I can get up and actively participate if the mood takes me (or at least the pretence is everything that anchors me to the daily grind would just fall away) but the clock is ticking, and it’s probably only my diminishing hearing which stops me from hearing it.

Put bluntly, if I don’t buck my ideas up, death or incapacity will mean some (or all) of the National Trails will remain theoretical to me.

Does it matter?

Yes it matters, sometimes I can kid myself it matters less than other times, but deep down its “unfinished business” and the realisation its going to remain so is unsatisfactory in the extreme.

I am not sure what to do about this, and that is the problem right there.

To do one thing means to not do something else, it’s a priority thing.  But even if I devoted all the “time off” I might have left in my active years to hiking” these trails there still might not be enough time left.

I’d like to think I had made an active choice of not hiking some/all of the National Trails before the choice was thrust upon me.

That is probably all I am saying, in a world of near infinite choices, it would be nice to make the right ones.

Fat chance.

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Go With Noakes

Go With Noakes was an early spin-off show spun from Blue Peter.  Removed from the deadweight of his fellow presenters John Noakes was free to indulge in the daredevil antics of the shows resident action-man. 

Peter Purves prolly had a sicknote exempting him from such activity and Valerie Singleton was a woman in a time when washing up was all the adventure and exercise needed of that 52% of the population.  Anyway those two had to get John “gooseberry” Noakes out the studio from time to time for reasons Valerie felt the need to reveal in  The Daily Mail.

We don’t need to know it, but clearly enough people want to know it that it sells newspapers which in turn must mean bigger payouts to those flogging their personal lives in exchange for another turn in the spot light and a few quid.

If I have digressed, sorry, but not half as much as Val by the looks of it.

Noakes did all manner of things un-ordinary.  I might have a fleeting memory of him in spandex on a trapeze, its buried deep under layers of motivated forgetting.

I remember clearly him playing a game of rugby as a hooker in scrum cap.  More like it John.

But the clearest of all memories is him hiking “The Pennine Way” (the internet tells me he also did some of the SW coastal path, I don’t remember it).

I had never heard of the Pennine Way, but it made a huge impression on me.  This action man role model had a dog, a digital watch and a tent.

He also had some bad weather and a free pint at the end of it.

What he did not have was equally important, basically he had nothing else bothering him.  His Ma was not telling him to pick his stuff up and there appeared to be no homework.

Heady stuff.

This was the beginning of my desire to explore the great outdoors, which was clearly much more extensive than anyone had led me to believe up this point.

But it also began my list of wants.  I wanted to walk the Pennine Way just like Noakes (a prototype hero for me).  My success with the National Trails has been notably zero up to this point.  This could be depressing when viewed in the context they were the very first thing on my walking “to do” list.

I would like to be able to watch the program again but YouTube seems to let me down on that front and the BBC seem to only have a clip of the Red Arrows.

But, there is always a but, in a clear example of life being just an exercise in loss management my young memories have been trampled on.

John Noakes had a backpack stuffed with newspaper and was transported out to the bits of the walk they needed to film before being transported back.

I bet it was not even morning when that very cool digital watch woke him from his slumbers, hanging as it was on a strap above his head.

It was not only Purvey and Singles that had a naughty secret.

In a very odd way it diminished my desire to follow in the footsteps of my childhood hero, coz there were very few footsteps to follow.

In the absence of The Pennine Way, here is Noakes having a go at the Liffey Descent.  Pay special attention to some of the spectacular “safety” helmets most competitors were sporting.  Perhaps most impressive was the chap that sported extra curly hair just in case he came into contact with a rock.

Technorati Tags: John Noakes,Blue Peter,Pennine Way,Hero,River Liffey

Exploration – it’s all in my mind

 

The golden age of exploration is no more.  People are not going to discover great landmasses and put them on the map.

In one of Benedict Allen’s books his gives thought to this, and looking over his website the other day, I noticed he still gives thought to it.

Benedict is an explorer in a manner I will never be, but now it is about scale not absolutes.  His scale is simply larger than mine.

There are places in the world where the maps lack a certain detail but more often than not it is because there is not a lot to map.

It might be possible to tread where no human has trodden but it is now on the micro not the macro level.

In England the OS mapping service ensures every square inch is accounted for and often named.

Via google earth I can zoom pan and pry, retracing expeditions of yore and following adventurers today.

It is all very cozy but it divorces me from the reality, I can be lulled into the delusion I have explored these places.

The truth is, someone else has, not me.

The Royal Geographical Society will not be handing over any gold medals when I reach my walking destination.  There will be no biding war for my journal.

Even when the world was composed of blanks filling them in was an occupation of a very few, and a good many of them lost their lives in doing so.

It was never a mass participation sport.

Some people push back the boundaries of human achievement, some increasingly ludicrous such as the “firsts” Everest seems to endlessly attract (I await the first ascent by pogo-stick).

I will never climb Everest, but I will reach my highest point and in almost every significant way that is more important to me than any number of Everest ascents I will never do.  I believe Benedict considers these adventurer’s athletes, not explorers.  Certainly it is what he considers the people trekking to the Poles etc.

It is an interesting viewpoint and has merit, but the term exploration can be expanded and contracted to cover and exclude almost anything you wish.

Benedict would not consider me an explorer and really you have to agree on almost every level but one.  I am discovering things for myself in a continual exploration of the world and the people around me.

It is a mindset and one that should be nurtured and expanded upon.

Until close enough to touch something and gain an understanding I cannot really say I have begun to explore it.

To say there is nothing left to explore is to confuse someone else’s achievements with your own.

It’s my birthday

So another year has slipped its moorings and sailed for good.  A new age for me begins.

Feels very much like the last one, but don’t they all.

I try not to do the reflection thing.  The past is a pit of misery, regret and clearly defined opportunity missed, the future is uncertain but it is just a path set by past errors so cannot be expected to be anything more than a calamity waiting and philosophers have argued the present doesn’t really exist.

Does not really leave a lot of room for manoeuvre.

I might sound a little depressive, it is my nature, but I learn to cope with it and exist within the moment.  The idea that this might not actually exist I find very amusing.  Not in the sixth form common room type philosophical way, or the intense proto-beard stroking of University hothouse way either.  It is more the certainty that exist or not, it works for me and I cannot alter it so will try and accept it.  Someone else can tie (or pretend to tie) their brain into complex knots and get nowhere in the process.

Birthday pressies comprise some walking items I have wanted for a while, or replacing things I have had for a while and now not functioning so well.  The compass which is more air bubble than fluid is finally being replaced.

There will be few surprises as I have bought most of the things myself and just told people how much they cost and they choose what to “buy”.  Saves them racking their brains as to what to buy “the bloke that wants nothing”.

Remember when you always got socks as a present and had to make efforts not to hurl them across the room in disgust.  Now I buy socks for myself and get them wrapped up so I can open them on my birthday.  They are nothing clever or technical, just some polyester socks (black) but I am looking forward to getting my feet into them.  15 pairs actually.  I like the certainty of restricted choice.  If all you have is 15 pairs of identical socks the choice of what socks to wear becomes redundant.  The trick is making the initial choice from the myriad available.

Still I am enjoying it, all the presents are stuff I want, everyone can relax in that knowledge.  It has removed all the stress of wondering if I have to grin and bear some “wacky” present someone has racked their brains to find.

I took the day of my labours with the intention of going outside and enjoying the summer.  It is raining so now I feel slightly annoyed about taking the day off.  Afterall my birthday could have always waited for a sunny day.