South West holiday - The Sea

Today the cheap holiday was briefly derailed so I could go buy a new raincoat, the old one having finally succumbed after years of hard service and The Kinderscout Incident, after which it has never been the same.  I like the new one though, and it's a little bit smarter so it will do for work as well.

That done, I let the sat nav drive me to Burley by any number of tiny back roads.  Some lovely scenery though, and it gave the day time to turn from a misty cool morning into a day of cloud breaks, sudden sunbursts and, dare I say it, warmth.  I stripped right back down to my Tshirt.

South West holiday - The Forest

Sunday today, and it has been raining quietly but insistently all day.  Had a slow breakfast and chat with Grandad, who was doing Bible study before the morning church service.  He was full of rejoicing over the subject, as he usually is.  I was mainly full of tea and chocolate croissants.

Around 9.30, slightly later than planned, I headed off to Lyndhurst.  It seemed sensible to try that far side of the New Forest today, partly in case the rain was less there (it wasn't) and also to see if the visitor centre was open (it was).

South West holiday - The Boat

This blog is fast turning into a travel journal! I think it's because I'm doing so much paid work that the 'Fun Things I've Made' aspect of this blog isn't really needed at the moment.   I'm sure it'll pop back up soon.

At the end of the summer, in the first week of September, I took myself off on a much needed holiday. I'm trying to buy a house at the moment, so I knew it had to be as cheap as possible.  I emptied the contents of my kitchen cupboard into a cool bag, and brought along a sandwich box.  No lunches out for me!  This was also the least planned holiday I'd done in a while.  I'd had no time to look up any activities, other than where I'd be sleeping.  Instead the idea was to turn up at a location, talk to people, get hold of a map, and figure it out as I went.  In some ways this took a lot of the pressure off.

I also knew that that I'd be travelling alone.  Given that I've been very out-of-sorts lately, I wasn't sure if I'd be in the right headspace for this,  so I decided to go visiting.  The week-long trip would connect me with friends and family I don't often get to spend time with (with the bonus of being able to sleep on their spare beds and couches, saving money on accommodation).  Although in the end it turned out that my favourite location was the one where I was completely alone after all...

My first stop was in West London, where I joined my friends Matt and Eloise on their narrow boat, the Tittlemouse, travelling from Hayes to Brentford...

To be beside the seaside - North Norfolk Coastal Path part 2

Holkham to Blakeney - 10.9 miles

After Holkham the next stop is Wells-next-the-Sea, which is a small town with more facilities.  It's a walk I've done before, along the beach, but this time we struck to the path properly and found ourselves wandering down wooded lanes, behind the tall dark pine trees that this stretch is known for.  On another breezy but still sunny day, the shade was nice, and we had company!  A relay race was taking place, beginning at Hunstanton and going all the way round to Great Yarmouth over the course of a day or two.  We kept moving over to let runners pass, each wielding their barcoded baton.  We emerged at the carpark for Wells Beach and followed the sea wall back into the town.  

John captains the clinkerbill boat, so called for the Viking-style rivets in its hull.

TLDR: I hate Esther (or, the Perils of Privilege)

In the Bible, there are two women with stories significant enough to merit their own books.  In a culture where men were the ones writing and women had quite specific roles to fulfil, any named woman in the Bible is worth paying attention to.  One is Ruth; the story of a young widow from the wrong country, the wrong religion, speaking the wrong language, who passes up re-marrying to become a benefits scrounger in order to provide for her ageing mother-in law.  And yeah it ends well, but that that lady has gumption.  I like gumption!

The other is Esther.  Whom I hated.  For years.

Held up as the model of ideal womanhood, Esther appeared to be your Actual Disney Princess, and I mean that in the most scathing way possible.  Plucked from obscurity because of her astounding good looks and apparently nothing else, Esther is made Head Queen of the Xerxes, King of Persia.  Tipped off by her uncle, a minister, she saves the king from assassination, earns a spot in his good books, and later uses this to wine and dine him into awarding the Jewish people the right to defend themselves in a society where they are outcasts and refugees.  The Jewish festival of Purim celebrates her story, being told much like a pantomime, with cheering and booing and 'he's behind you'.
Beauty Queen, actual queen, national hero, Esther was annoyingly perfect.  She was that cute, perky girl from school who managed to be captain of the netball team, head girl, and never without a boyfriend all at the same time.

For teenage me, the moral of this story was that being pretty will get you more or less anywhere.  Which is peachy... if you're pretty.  Which teen me (and sometimes adult me) was not always convinced of all.  Way to make a girl resentful, Bible.  Congrats.

Now I am a decade older, a lot more comfortable with myself, and therefore able to be a little less self-interested, I have to admit something.  I may have misjudged Esther a tiny wee bit.  But not in the way I thought...

To be beside the seaside - North Norfolk Coastal Walk Part 1

My birthday falls in May, conveniently between two bank holidays, and with the weather getting warmer I'm wanting to be outdoors all the time.  My mum and I (occasionally accompanied by my dad and youngest sister) have been walking the North Norfolk Coastal Path between Hunstanton and Cromer.  We did stretches on it in May and September 2016, and this May did our final section.  It's not a massive walk - about 45 miles or so, but that combined with the incessant flatness of my home country it makes for a really manageable hike that's less about clocking up the miles and more about appreciating the scenery of one of the most beautiful places I know...

Although I admit I am heavily biased.

The dunes at Holkham

Highland Fling! - 2 of 2

Day 5 - CairnGorm and Loch Morlich

You can get the Funicular Railway up the UK's 6th highest mountain, CairnGorm, but for some reason we decided to walk between the two stations along the very aptly named Windy Ridge.

A Highland Fling! - 1 of 2

This year the family had our summer holiday early - we went to the Scottish Highlands!  When I was young we had a holiday by Loch Ness, going as far north as Fort William, but it was long enough ago that I only remember bits and pieces of it. On my last solo trip I went to Edinburgh and Aviemore, and had wanted to explore further north again, so this was the perfect choice for a trip away together.

Jacob Wrestles 2: The One Who Struggles

Uncle Laban seems a decent enough guy, and even gives his nephew a job as a herdsman.  Jacob settles in to watch the flocks... and also to watch Rachel, Laban's younger daughter.  Older sister Leah might not be much of a looker but Jacob thinks that Rachel is the cat's pajamas and offers Laban seven years of labour to pay the dowry he doesn't have and make Rachel his wife.

Seven years is a long time.

TLDR: Jacob Wrestles

Night has fallen in the wilderness.  Beneath dim moonlight there's not much to be seen, and only the soft rushing babble of water somewhere down the bank.  A man sits by the river, his mind like the landscape, full of darkness and the inexorable coming of tomorrow.

Now he stands; a figure is approaching.  He's hard to make out, a shadow among shadows.  Is he a tall man?  Does he come as a friend?  Are there more following him?  
Perhaps these questions are asked, but they go unanswered as the two men fall, somehow, to grappling with each other.  Hooking limbs with feet and clinching necks with stubborn arms.  They wrestle to throw, to try and take the other to the ground and overpower him.  The river's rush is forgotten amidst grunts and panting and the sounds of grasping hands and flesh on hair.

Hours pass   This was not what the waiting man had intended, to spent the entire night contesting with a stranger (Is he a stranger?  He's no longer sure.  Can you be so close to someone for so long without beginning to know them?) when he has so much occupying his mind.  

He does not want to DO this now.  He could surrender.  He could stop the fight, and try to deal or negotiate.  But something in him knows it's pointless.  They aren't even speaking.  There are no tricks left that he can play, nowhere left to run.  He plants his feet, pushes back, and despite the ache in his bones, and the hollows under his eyes, he stays.  He endures.  He does what is before him.  He wrestles.

Wonderful Welsh Waterfall Walk - Day 2

On our second day, we took a longer, windier walk up to Sgwd yr Eira.

Wonderful Welsh Waterfall Walk - Day 1

It's all about the alliteration this month!

For her birthday, my friend Hannah decided that what she really wanted to do was Waterfall Hunting.  Having located a good spot for this (Pontneddfechan, about an hour west of Cardiff) we all assembled to go strolling through the hills and dales of Wales.  After all the buildup, we tried to curb our expectations, but it turns out we needn't have bothered.

At Sgwd yr Eira

Oodles of Bloobles

It's that time of year again!  Time to head up to the woods, and watch the little bell-headed blues bob in the breeze.

A Gentle Stroll

I have been adventuring!  Two friends from my church group announced that they were planning a two day hike-slash-camp in the Peak District and my ears pricked up.  I've walked with a full overnight bag before, and I'd done the suggested distances before, but never both at the same time.  However after a little of my usual fretting I decided to go for it - you don't know if you don't try.  Phil was expedition leader, with Harry, Manny, myself, and Hendrix the dog along for the adventure.

The walk we ended up doing was great, but also slightly more of an expedition that we'd been banking on!

Most of these photos are mine, but some are by Manny.  The nice thing about adventuring with other people is that you actually appear in the photographs, and he has kindly permitted me to take advantage of this.

Slices of Quince!

My friends have a quince tree!  I have never seen a quince, nor eaten one.  All I know about them is that the Owl and the Pussycat ate them with a runcible spoon.  However, on the reliable information that they can be poached, and with half a dozen quinces straight off the tree, I had a go at making my own autumnal dessert.

Sometimes A Wild God

Something marvellous has arrived in the post. 

This is 'Sometimes A Wild God', a poem by Tom Hirons, partner to the wonderful artist Rima Staines whose work I've been following for about seven years now.  I have a couple of prints of her work.  This beautiful artefact, however, is a collaboration between the two of them.

I first came across the poem almost by accident, and it's rare that I'll stop for poetry that isn't spoken aloud, but I read it all the way through three times and then stopped and looked at it for a bit.  There's no telling why some things hit you and other things don't, but Hirons seemed to catch on something that rings true.  Something terrible and horrible and beautiful and incomprehensible.  The kind of thing where it's more a feeling than anything you could put into words yourself, but when someone else says it, you go 'Yes.  Yes, that's exactly what it's like."

So I bought a copy.

It came in the post.  It's small, and neat, and unassuming.  The paper is solid, not flimsy or cheap (as someone who draws, I'm a student of paper), and it manages to be professionally smart yet subversively tactile at the same time.  As I say, it's nothing half-done, it's an artefact.  Not just a carrier for the poem, but an object in and of itself, made with care.  There are six illustrations, and the cover, all done by Rima in simple black and white.

You can read the poem for yourself Here.  Perhaps you'll feel the same, perhaps you won't.  Who can say why some things hit you and other things don't.

Stories from Summer

It's been a long summer this year, or at least it's felt long to me.  Lots has happened, good, bad, and somewhere in between, in a lot of different areas of life.  A strange season, and a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, but that's life for you.  Things can't be peaceful all the time or we'd be bored and never grow at all.
In some ways it's been a struggle, but as always there's been time to regroup too.  To take time out, to spend time with the people I care about, and to be contemplative, which is something I'm finding more and more essential...

... and to watch seals.

Seals!!!

TLDR: ‘Sodom & Gomorrah’, or ‘How the Heck did That Get In My Bible?’

Ah, Sodom and Gomorrah.  The tale that launched a thousand picket lines, almost all of them in the southern states of the USA.  Yes this is THAT Sodom and Gomorrah – the one from which we get the word ‘sodomy’.   As in "What he was doing to that poor sheep was a bit Sodom-y, don't you think?"

I can feel you all bracing yourselves already.  Don’t worry, it’s gonna be fine.

(Also, for the 'Mean Girls' fans out there, you have no idea how much I wanted to entitle this "Sodom and Gomorrah: too gay to function?")

The Protest Vote

It's May 7th 2015, and it's election day.  I've cast my vote, and with it my hopes and ambitions for the country I live in.

I've also been looking back at the history of politics.  As this excellent video points out, so much progress in law and citizens rights have come from the bottom up, not the top down.  Ordinary people have protested, fought, sometimes even resorted to extreme measures to make themselves heard by those in power.  Suffragrettes threw themselves in front of racehorses and endured the indignity of force-feeding when they tried to starve themselves in protest.  Black communities and their supporters suffered power hoses and organised resistance by armed police (this is still troubling areas of America right now, as race has affected class and caused more inequality).

It's important to remember this history of humanity pushing to gain it's own freedoms, and in Britain so much of it is recorded in folk music.  I love that there's a great tradition of this; people making up their own protest music, remembering struggles, triumphs, and civil disobedience, and the old stories getting handed down through the years.  Here are three of my favourites.

1) 'Palaces of Gold' by Leon Rosselon. 

He wrote it after a coal mine slag-heap collapsed at Aberfan in Wales in 1966, running downhill onto a school and killing 116 children and 26 adults. The National Coal Board were slow to respond and largely escaped the consequences of this tragedy.  The song is mainly about how we might be a little quicker to deal with the trouble of others if they affected us personally. This beautiful cover is by Lady Maisery.

2) 'John Ball' by Sydney Carter. 

John Ball was a 'hedge priest', a travelling preacher with no parish of his own, whose belief that the extreme inequality between the rich and poor was wrong made him a figurehead for the Peasants Revolt that marched on London in 1381 to address the king. They failed and were violently repelled, although some workers rights were secured in the long run by their efforts, and Ball was hung, drawn, and quartered. Thank goodness that that won't happen to any of us today, whatever the results of the election! This song is based on a sermon of his, and the Young 'Uns sing my favourite version.

3) 'The Nailmakers Strike Part 2' by Hannah Martin and Phillip Henry

 There have been a lot of strikes by nailmakers over the years. Some were due to poor working conditions, others happened when new technology and cheaper foreign imports cost local people their livelihoods. Some strikes were more peaceful than others. In Dudley in the 1840s the army was called in when nailers dying of starvation had their wages cut by their employers and desperation turned them to vandalism and capture of the nailmasters. When the authorites had distributed bread, ending the riot, most prisoners were given light sentences after pleading Starvation

Schrodinger's Churchgoer (or 'Why You Haven't Seen Me Around Lately')

I'm not going to church at the moment.  Except I am.  But I'm also not.

What I mean is, I'm not going to the main gatherings on Sunday.  Skating is an hour away, I train for three hours every Sunday between 12.30 and 3.30pm, and although I could just rock up to Late Church in my sweaty skate gear for 4.30 I suspect nobody wants that.  I don't want that!  This is not me quitting church, this is not me becoming an apostate or drifting in my faith, and this is not me breaking up with my community.  They are still my People.

I had to make a decision, service or skating, and if I'm honest in the end it wasn't that hard to make, for the reasons below.  What I'm doing now is a bit of an experiment, it's not a permanent arrangement, and I'm certainly not recommending it for everyone, but this whole thing has made me think a lot about what Sunday gatherings provide us with, and what we think church actually is.  There are things I miss and want to keep, and things I don't mind letting go.