Monday 24 September 2012

We started

It's been a tremendously lovely two weeks since I left the world of the employed and started my meanderings on foot not just on paper. In a fortnight of two halves I have experimented with living in Shazza, the camper van.  I think for her and me it's the start of something meaningful, potentially with me needing to learn some rudiments of plumbing and electrics, but no matter, it's part of the road to discovery we'll be driving together. 

I am a cautious soul, or at least, I believe I am.  So the first few days with Shazza saw me within my comfort zone of North Wales, safe in the knowledge that if it all went wrong resolution was only a phone call away.  The van surprised me by offering me even more freedom than I've been used to when camping.  Instead of leaving a tent where it is because of the whole horror of picking up a bunch of wet canvas, attempting to stuff it in a bag, worrying about when to air / dry it or the next night's experience of finding the wet nylon (it's really not canvas these days is it?) affectionately wrapping it's clammy lips around your legs, you just drive off.  That's it, no fuss, you drive off.  This meant I went to places I  hadn't known I was going, simply following the mountain weather forecast for the Snowdon area and rejigging plans accordingly.  Three days walking took me up Cnicht (day one), day 2 Moel Hebog (kind of, most of the way until rain and visibility definitely stopped play), and day 3 a walk from Ybygy Ifan most days seeing me with a 700m plus height gain with 3 to 6 hours walking a day.  Just starting out on assessing where exactly my walking fitness lies after the "summer" of building up to the Mary Towneley two days on the bike.  Oooh, and isn't Cnicht a pretty hill?






And then finally ... I left the country ...

Typing this while listening to The Boss singing

"We sit in the car outside your house
I can feel the heat coming 'round"

Monday 10 September 2012

Instamatic Camera

This weekend I did what's been a long term dream of mine; completed the Mary Towneley loop on the mountain bike.  It's a two day circular ride through the Pennines, and for whatever reason, it has been one of those things which instantly had me yearning to complete it.  Some desires aren't logical, and this was one of those which just resonated with me without having to have a rational drive to do it.  Just something that lit a flame which kept alight.  When I tentatively posted it as a facebook event three months ago I wasn't sure what to expect, and in reality I was so set on it, I would have done it without company.  When this weekend came, the group was a compact threesome, me, Viv & Jason, with Viv's dad joining us on the Sunday, and the weekend couldn't have been more perfect.  After a summer with no summer, the sun shone on us all day Saturday and most of Sunday, interrupted only by brief but heavy rain showers to provide a welcome cooling effect.  It was just a glorious glorious two days at leisurely pace, riding through the landscape, being part of the hills not just an onlooker.  I don't really do onlooker.

I was in the unusual position of being the one with the camera, having been reminded to bring it beforehand.  Normally I don't really bother with pictures; so many friends with photo addiction and so many mobile phones around that I haven't ever felt I've missed anything not taking a camera with me.  But I did as I was told.  Having had cause to reflect on the purpose of photographs, I confess I'm pretty much a non photo person.  When I cleared out Dave's old photo albums they were meaningless to me, lots of landscapes which could have been anywhere, where I didn't know what the background was, what kind of day they formed part of, nothing, just mental blanks because they weren't part of my life or my set of memories.  Looking at my own pictures, I realise that when I take pictures of landscapes or surroundings the impact is equally meaningless. It's just not the way my brain works, I don't remember things through photographs of hills or trees or skies or beaches, I remember things about people.  Yet I don't need photos to remember what's important, there's a whole catalogue stored in my head and it doesn't require a photo to trigger it.  So I don't really take photos.  Words, however, there's a different matter.  Words can conjure up entire scenes, days, moments, everything really, much more so than photos.  That's why I write. Words are my pictures, and if I can't express things right then the memory becomes clouded not crisp and jagged, pointy even.

But yes, I was made to take charge of the camera, although thankfully others did take on the burden occasionally, particularly when I was otherwise engaged ...


And today was brought to you by BabyBird

"You took an instamatic camera
And pulled my sleeves around my heart"

Thursday 6 September 2012

No End

So here we are, the eve of my last day of work after 14 years of being the go to person for the GB Cycling Team.  I suppose it's some kind of an ending, but it really doesn't feel that way.  In many ways, for me, it's a beginning, and because my life is now so wrapped up in cycling, I don't really feel I can ever leave it.  Because cycling is not just an adjunct to my life, it's there, it's with me, and I expect it to stay.

It's a huge beginning, and I anticipate even more reflection than usual as I look at life events and realise that actually, I can't shy away from it, this is a big life event.  At least I more than think it is, I really hope it is.  It's not about change though.  I'm not looking to change me, who I am, what I do, more to embrace my own sense of me-ness.  I know who I am, and I like me.  This is all about me.  Ha, it is, after all, it seems, all about me.  Excellent.

Facebook allows for you to note (and publicise to anyone who cares to read) your life events.  You can put all kinds of crap down there, dates you met friends, dates your first pea crop ripened.  Whatever really.  As planned life events go, this is clearly one.  That's weird, isn't it, a planned life event.  It seems to me most of the biggies are pretty much unplanned.  I didn't plan the day I met my husband or the day that he died.  I didn't expect the day I walked up Tryfan with my friend Tim to turn into what, for me, was a big life event.  For some people things like marriages, christenings, first this, first that, last this, last that are all part of a plan, all events to be celebrated, but somehow they don't really turn out to be the biggest of your life events.  I wouldn't classify many of those traditional moments as my life events, it's other things which make a life event.  Remember doing half of Offa's Dyke Path with Sue, when we took forever to climb up into the Black Mountains and the minute we sat down to eat sandwiches the cloud came and surrounded us so thickly we could hardly see each other, up there on the dark peat pathway, all bleak nothingness for miles which wasn't nothingness, it was Sue and it was me and it was good.

So, all in all, will the planned departure be, in fact, a life event?  Who knows.

And the original of Love is All Around was brought to you by the Troggs.  I googled it so I know it must be true.

"My mind's made up by the way that I feel
There's no beginning, there'll be no end"

Tuesday 4 September 2012

Good Girl

Last week at work, and I'm sorting out CDs for the van, and also books.  I've given myself restrictions which wouldn't exist in a world where I owned a Kindle and an i-pod.  It's kind of fun this way, forces me to make proper real decisions in Desert Island discs style, to really consider carefully what works for every occasion.  There's a book basket with interesting contents, it has mountain bike guides, walking guides, climbing guides, a bike haynes manual, just one book of poetry, one book of fiction, one cook book, and it probably speaks volumes about me to anyone who cares to attempt that analysis.

Equally the CD collection is interesting, a mix of old and new and it becomes clear to all that I'm a lyrics girl.  I like edgy twisty songs, I don't like romantic love songs, I like things that make me think.  Equally I love a good rhythm and I quite like a folky tune, and enjoy a beautiful voice, either male or female.  Billy Bragg is not making the cut because he only ticks four out of five boxes, that's how picky I've had to become.  Train's California 37 looks like making the cut, as does Fort Minor, but so too will Bruce Springstein.  Finding something to suit every mood is interesting, will anything classical make it in or perhaps for that there's the radio.  Chumbawamba as a voice from my past might just squeeze in, who knows, and maybe I'll start to breach the rules on just how much space I use to accommodate music.  Because even self imposed rules are there to be broken. No more "ought", "should", "have to" here.

I'm loving my last weeks of handover from one life until the next.  It's been about appreciating what I have and what will stay with me, it's about acknowledging and loving the people who make up my life, my friends who give me joy.  It's about climbing in the sunshine with a lovely lady from Manchester Uni, it's about planning a road ride and having a meal cooked for me with a friend only made in the last year, it's about giggling with a friend of 20 years duration as we organise a weekend, it's about good friends where contact is easy and life is laughter.

And because I'm nostalgic, I bring you Chumbawamba's bad dog.  I still have ticket stubs from the very early 1990s when I first became transfixed by this band.

"This is heaven This is hell This is living This is tale to tell"