Unexpected Adventuring

Wednesday evening

It was only a few weeks ago I saw my first
 wild orchid but I'm now totally smitten
with these gorgeous flowers

The wonderful thing about Tiggers is... well, really, what this sentence is about is the wonderful thing about being Tigger. And that wonderful thing is never knowing what might happen next! From a fairly planned out and seemingly set in stone plan a chain of events was set in motion which has resulted in an entirely different plan and one which is exceedingly exciting to this particular little Tigger.

Through the trees outside I can see the last of the evening light fade from the sky, while inside the van which has been my home for the past few days I've treated myself to the luxury of warmth and lit the little burner. It's taken the edge off the evening air and, under my duvet and wrapped up warm I'm feeling really rather cosy. Were this van to be my home for  much longer I might consider some other lighting options (the bulb which is providing light at the moment is functional but doesn't exactly provide mood lighting...) but other than that its treating me really rather well. And reminds me that I am forever grateful that I'm fairly easy to please when it comes to a surface to sleep on - I generally sleep well and different beds and places rarely interfere with that too much. Huzzah.

So! This new adventure: BRILLIANT. Originally my holiday to Devon & Cornwall was going to involve two Mon-Fri weeks of WWOOFing, plus some teaching on the weekends and squeezing in seeing some friends. I had been feeling pretty pleased with myself for having a proper of "genuine holiday" days at the end when I get to play in Oxfordshire with my folks. Because, you know, it's been a really quiet couple of months, not much going on and certainly no real need for me to use a holiday for rest. Of course not. That's just a silly idea. More fool me.

A snapshot of my part of the gardens of my most recent WWOOF host

Turns out that having some rest during a holiday is a Very Good Thing and so I rejigged my plans and am now lined up with three nights of B&B accommodation (both close to the sea - first in Ilfracombe, or Ill-frack-cum-bee as it will now forever be in my mind, and the second at Tintagel), lots of exciting places to visit should I so wish and, if the stars align, I might even get to Lundy Island. Which would be ACE. But most importantly I'm giving myself a bit of space. To catch my breath. To recharge after a really full on couple of weeks / months. To enjoy pottering around. To have some me time. All wonderful luxuries and luxuries I'm in a position to enjoy - so enjoy them I shall!

Getting artistic with
silicon while fixing broken
greenhouse glass panes

 What sights I will see and what tales I will have to tell after this holidaying I don't know. It's unlikely they'll involve attacking the same quantity of nettles, docks and brambles I've been engaged with the past few days. Or, indeed, gluing bits of glass together to cover up small-human-height holes in very old greenhouses. But the mystery of what they will hold is super exciting. Eeeeeeeee!

When words fail...pictures come through!

I'm just back from an amazing and full and rich couple of weeks in Scotland. And my head is a bit blurry but absolutely buzzing! A good night's rest is the final ingredient to make sure the transition back into "Life in Morecambe" is as smooth as possible but I had a yearning to take a look through my photos so thought I'd do a bit of a gallery of some of my adventures...

So, it all started...with a traffic jam trying to cross the Forth Road Bridge. But enough of boring traffic: destination numero uno was the Monimail Tower Project, complete with historic tower, woods, various wooden buildings and shed moving (yes, that's a shed being picked up by a digger about to be relocated...):

The return of the feet - relaxing at the end of a day enjoying the evening sunshine

Welcome to Monimail!

The dome at the entrance

Looking through a new partially constructed building towards the orchard

The gateway through into the walled garden

View of the community allotments from the tower

The walled garden

Shed in transit!

Community allotments again - and a bit of the tower!

Looking across one of the wood stores and walled garden towards the main house

Another view from the top of the tower

My day off at Monimail (which I wrote about here) involved beaches, trees, sunshine, an ice house and an oil rig:

Dunes!

Not desertey - but definitely duney!

Unexpected sculptures in the undergrowth

The ice house

An oil rig on its way out to sea

From whence I was over to Tillicoultry for a lovely catch up with an old friend (who I hadn't seen for eight years! How did that happen?!), up to Forfar for a bit of teaching, across to Pitlochry to see family, a bit of time at The Hermitage as I journeyed south enjoying the amazing waterfall and then...to Laurieston Hall! Which involved more sunshine (yippee!), hanging out on the roof (well, I was just on the roof - companions got to hang from ropes on chimneys), taking photos of taking photos, and heaps of other stuff I didn't manage to take photos of (like swimming in the loch, using the sauna and amazing pond plunge pool, helping build a woodshed, working in the walled garden, digging drainage ditches, giving lots of Massage, getting a shiatsu treatment, playing Bananagrams and enjoying LOTS of great conversation and amazing food)

The weather vane - which apparently hasn't moved for decades!

Chris and Flis working on the chimney stack

The walled garden from the roof

The original "formal entrance" from the roof

The roof...from the roof!

The West Wing and tower

Photos of photographers (and my feet again)

Not a complete photographic record by a long shot, but a good start!

The Tigger Who Turns Up

Tuesday April 22nd I feel like I've been "turning up" quite a lot in the past few days - descending in to places and then setting off again on my merry way. It's an incredibly enjoyable way of doing things. There's something about an overnight stay with good friends or family that turns a visit into a very easy going occasion: catch up on arrival / talk into the evening / chat over breakfast and then depart. But as I sit here with the most wonderful cacophony of water falling over rocks as my soundscape, I am pondering how often others do this kind of dropping in. I certainly know it happens occasionally but I feel like I'm making a habit of it - mostly because these are people I would not normally get to see and yet, being "in the area" it seems only sensible to make the most of the proximity. And so I do.

Greatly assisted by motorised vehicle ownership, of course.

Virtually all of my trips with the Golden Chariot have been heading south from Lancashire and so a proper jaunt in Scottishland has been a real treat. Last night in particular (driving from Forfar to Pitlochry) took me through some gorgeous countryside, and with sunshine aplenty to accompany me it was a wonderful experience. Even this morning I've been enjoying fairly quiet roads as I potter around Perthshire and, despite it being immediately after a bank holiday weekend, I have found no congestion, no traffic jams - just sparsely populated roads and a sat nav to keep me on track. (Admittedly as I head further south and back on to dual carriageways and motorways I'm likely to get back into normal traffic levels, but having a break from them has been most enjoyable).

After such glorious sunshine for the past week or so the clouds have now joined the party and the contrast of a cooler, wetter day is presenting new challenges and opportunities. Somehow I don't particular feel like I'm in a sauna & steam kind of frame of mind but equally am not quite sure what else may take my fancy. But with trusty travel aids and books aplenty, methinks a cosy cafe may well be the sensible answer...

Wanderings

Friday April 18th Just when I thought this walk would end up not having a writing stop, the perfect spot appeared - complete with Forestry Commission bench, located slap-bang in the middle of a sunny glade, the sound of the waves on the beach and the birds on the trees my auditory backdrop.

Up in Scotland on my hols I was invited to take today as my day off from WWOOFing and take it I did! The Mon-Fri work ethic is so deeply ingrained in my mind that I often seem to find myself arriving and leaving on "working days" and not necessarily taking the "rest days" I have accrued. Which, although well and good on one level, on another (the level where I'm having a holiday and enjoying the locality I've turned up in) is a bit of a shame. So this mid-stay opportunity was perfect.

From the Monimail Tower Project where I'm volunteering I set off into the great (by me) unexplored lands of Fife, first stop the Hill of Tarvit. Although the house and tearooms didn't open until lunchtime my main desire was to drink in the gardens - and the sunshine. This was verily achieved with several hours on a very comfortable spot of grass in the formal gardens, by a beautiful dark-pinkish flowering rhododendron. The book I'd started this morning was devoured and in between bits of pondering and jotting occurred.

Onwards I found myself heading North to explore the woods just south of Tayport. I ended up on a merry magical mystery tour finding a convenient spot to park and then my aimless-amble began. It's a very unique experience wandering without a map, without a plan, without a deadline and without any expectations. Very soon I de-shoed and spent the best part of the next two hours following the coastline around, enjoying the different textures underfoot and the different temperatures on my skin (in the sun: really quite warm, in the shade: a bit nippy!)

As my amble crossed into the Tentsmuir Nature Reserve I started seeing an ice house marked on the maps. An ice house? In the woods, by a bunch of dunes? What's that all about? Well, it turns out it's a relic of an entirely non-vegan occupation: salmon fishing. The catches would be brought to this really quite sizeable ice house for storage before being transported south for further processing (and, presumably, eating). And this is where I find myself now.

Sunshine. Barefoot walking. The sea. An ice house. Without paying particular attention but just heading off to what felt like a good place to go (and was only one of several options suggested by my hosts) I've ended up on a pretty much Tigger-perfect adventure. Huzzah.

Addendum
On my walk back I realised that the tall towers I had (wrongly) assumed were part of a bridge were actually an oil platform being towed out to sea. Not something I expected to see! But it reminded me of a throw away comment from one of the room guides at the Hill of Tarvit - "Beautiful view - and no wind turbines!" A brief exchange ensued with me expressing support of wind turbines as an alternative to fossil fuel use (and CO2 production) and him countering with "Well, we're breathing out CO2 all the time!" True, yes - but not quite on the same magnitude as power producing combustion. Which brought to mind two of my current "thought projects":

1) the difficulty of doing "the right thing" while living in a very complex and interlinked world where impacts and subsequent repercussions are often entirely unintended and / or imagineable. Climate change and the energy debate is one such area - particularly given the scope of the challenge (and is a prospective future blog area when my thoughts have coalesced sufficiently!)

2) the importance of the Next Step. Humans are faced with an incredible array of challenges, choices and options - both practically and morally / philosophically. There is rarely a definitive right / wrong answer (especially when the whole human is taken into account - a wide range of crimes can probably be agreed upon as wrong, but the approach to dealing with a human who's committed such a crime - now there's a book in itself). But the simple truth is that the lifestyles being lived in "developed" countries at present isn't sustainable - which is where the next step comes in.

For example, I may* have decided that the answer to this non-sustainable lifestyle problem is for the population to live in housing communities, grow their own food and generally travel no further than 20-30 miles on a regular basis. However, presenting this to someone who has lived a life during which they have travelled extensively, generally purchased prepared food from supermarkets and lived only with immediate family is unlikely to have much of an impact other than for them to think of me as an idealistic nutter who should be ignored, regardless of what I say.

Learning more about where they are, what makes them tick and what would feel like a next step (rather than an intergalactic leap) for them as a discussion and exploration is much more likely to produce a long term positive impact.

All fairly sensible and possibly pretty obvious, but just my own exploration of how the world ticks and what I may be able to do to grease the cogs here and there.

*As much as I would love to have decided upon an answer to the question of how to live sustainably I can say with certainty that I haven't! I am really enjoying exploring community living and growing as what can be a very positive alternative to "mainstream living" but very much in the context of continuing to grapple with the reality of what the achievable "next steps" more broadly may be.

Long live parks and open spaces!

I, for one, wouldn't normally associate a visit to London with being outside - and yet this weekend that's exactly what has happened. With my car safely parked for the weekend (a multi-purpose trip, of course) I began my adventures by...going pretty much to the other end of the Piccadilly line. I don't think I ever really understood just how long the Piccadilly line is, but having spent a large portion of this weekend on it I can say with authority: It. Is. Long.

Anyway, the length of tube lines has little to do with parks and open spaces - other than the fact that London's best parks and open spaces seem to be at the extreme ends of these lines. Friday's delight was Grovelands Park in Southgate (which isn't South in the slightest - other than in relation to, say, Morecambe). I'd walked past it on Thursday evening and thought to myself "My, that looks like a rather delightful park" and indeed it was. I was treated to a proper little wood, replete with old but still serviceable bench, daffodils, the vivid green of new tree leaves and a woodland play area just far enough away not to be intrusive but close enough to know there were other young souls enjoying themselves.

 

After a lovely chunk of time in the woodland shade I moved on to soak up the sunshine on one of the large expanses of grass. Proper, thick, luscious grass which is a delightful mattress to enjoy. I get a real sense of longevity in these parks - not ancient longevity, but having been designed and developed usually at least a hundred or so years ago they are living still and providing such fabulous outside spaces for us mere humans to enjoy. Deeeeeeeeeeelightful.

When the time was right I then found myself meandering through central London, somewhat aiming for St James's Park but actually ending up in a delightful little square (St James's Square, no less) having stumbled across Saville Row quite by accident. St James's Square offered blossom, vivid tulips in reds and purples (it was the purples that really did it) and more marvellous grass to lie on as the heat of the day was beginning to fade. From thence it was on to Trafalgar Square and the noise and crowds of a plethora of street entertainers. But also: more sunshine. Oh, sunshine sunshine sunshine - what a glory you are! A free recital by a London chamber choir took me inside for about an hour and emphasised how much I was yearning to be outside again - so supper was had al fresco on the Southbank.

Saturday's open space was somewhat different - a friend is developing a growing project at a hostel in Peckham and I was able to join him (along with some other friends) for a Day of Doing. Although long term the hope is to get some of the hostel residents involved in the project it's very much in its infancy at the  moment and so my friend (and his band of merry volunteers) is getting things growing with a view to enhancing the environment if nothing else. Slow and steady is the name of the game and they've already made a noticeable difference with raised beds and benches - and with the growing season now upon us it's all about getting seeds (and the plants that are being grown on window ledges and rooftops) into the soil and letting them do their stuff.

Saturday was also the only bit of outside time I really didn't enjoy: London has many attributes but for me its South London butcheries are not one - and Peckham has a number! The beautiful sunshine and warmth I've enjoyed this weekend didn't help matters but it was but a moment of meh during a weekend of gentle enjoyment.

This morning saw me dropped off at Alexandra Palace, a place I have heard of often but never before visited. I didn't have a plan for the day, other than to make it back to Heathrow (from whence I'm typing) and yet found myself ensconced in yet another glorious parkland and, by great good fortune I managed to get on a tour of the site, provided by local volunteers. My interest and the fact that one of the tour guides took a shine to me meant I was squeezed on to the 11am tour. Huzzah! My curiosity to learn more about Alexandra Palace and, indeed, many of the other Victorian era buildings and parks in London, has now definitely been piqued, as has a desire to hunt down some guides to walks along disused railway lines. Plenty to keep me busy.

And then it was back to the sunshine and the grass (this time immediately in front of the back of Alexandra Palace (the south side of the building, which now could be considered the front, was originally the back - the original palace train station and main entrance being on the north side) to finish a fascinating biography of Edith Cavell. The daughter of a vicar, Cavell trained as a nurse and founded a nursing training institute in Belgium in the years leading up to the First World War. She stayed in Belgium at the outbreak of the war and was involved in helping Allied soldiers and Belgians of conscription age out of the occupied territories - for which she was executed by the Germans. The story of this remarkable woman who had truly devoted her life to the service of others was compelling reading - and somehow reading it in London added another dimension to the experience (London being much more evocative of the Wars for me, somehow).

It's been a glorious weekend on so many levels but the joy of the outdoors has been a true highlight - and has awakened a new interest in finding more of Outside London to explore on my next visits.

So much happening, so little brain power

The rollercoaster of life has been running at full pelt recently and, in truth, I've been running on empty just to keep up. It's truly wonderful to have such a full and fulfilling life - and even better to be able to have space to pause and catch my breath in the midst of it all.

I've experienced many sorts of exhaustion over the years but this past week has produced a new version entirely. It's been a version which has meant although I can function at some levels there have been chunks of time when my brain simply hasn't worked. I've pressed the metaphorical "go" button and had a response that simply said "That function is currently not available". Which has been really bizarre. I thought I'd got to know my tiredness warning signals but this one's a new one entirely - and for a thinker like me, a rather stark one!

But even in exhaustion, I get to enjoy self-discovery. It's been an intensive year so far and doesn't look to be slowing down. Not that I'd wish it to - but it's challenging me to be even more aware of myself, my needs, and my warning signals! All of which are things I know I've improved on over the years but, as with pretty much all of life, there's room for improvement.

So welcome to day 2 of Tigger-finally-stops-to-catch-much-needed-breath.

Day 1 was spent in and around Morecambe but most notably involved a mesmerising gig by Beccy Owen. She is an artist with a phenomenal voice, who writes beautiful and haunting melodies and has provided somewhat of a soundtrack to various moments in my life for a good few years now. An old friend gave me her second album (The Singer Kicks) many many moons ago and since then it's resurfaced on many occasions at just the right time. Yesterday's gig was literally round the corner from Chez Tigs in Morecambe at a wonderful music venue called More Music and my decision to go only coalesced on Friday. And oh, how glad I am that it did! A wonderful treat to see her perform live, I've walked away with 2 more of her albums (and the stories of each of the tracks on her latest, Imago, to accompany me listening to it) and having had the opportunity to say hello to this fabulous lady. I suspect the gig will be a very welcome ear-worm for me for the next good while. Huzzah.

And now day 2 finds me at my spa of choice up in Cumbria. Well, it did until I decided it was time to move out into the sunshine for an absolutely glorious day. Just down the road from said spa of choice is Wray Castle, a National Trust property I came to about 4 years ago with a friend who was visiting. At that point there will still plans afoot to turn it into a luxury hotel but, for whatever reason, those plans got kaiboshed and the NT is now plotting what to do with it. In the mean time they've opened it up and on a day like today it provides a wonderful setting for enjoying the sun, having a little sleep, picnicking, reading and generally feeling like I'm on holiday. Which I've decided I am - a one day holiday which will go on for as long as feels right. And may well involve a curry en route home.

I had pondered exploring some of the local footpaths (accompanied, of course, by an OS Leisure map of the area) but got drawn down to the lakeside and am now listening to the lake lap against an outcrop of rock I'm currently inhabiting. I've had motor boats, the passenger ferry, sailing boats and a kayak pass by variously but mainly I've just been drinking in space, time and gorgeousness. Which is altogether rather marvellous.

And, in moments of consciousness and, I suspect, trundling along in my unconscious, pondering the rest of the year. What's already planned, what I might want to fit in, what will happen unforeseeably and regardless of my plottings. But the reflection that has yet to be included in this particular bit of writing is about the tiredness with which I started.

I had a day off last Saturday. A day when I did very little and yet didn't leave me feeling much recharged or particularly refreshed - I just knew I'd avoided depleting my energy reserves even further. This two day period is incredibly different - primarily because I can rest psychologically. Last Saturday's rest came after 4 days in the office, a long day teaching (which was fabulous but, fundamentally, incredibly energy intensive) and preceded the first of four modules of one of our annual training programmes. I am very much one part of a larger team at said training programme but it's my responsibility to make sure all the course materials are prepped, get them there and unload - and on that particular first day of the first module of the year I had additional responsibilities too. So I may have had a day off (a luxury in itself, I acknowledge) but my brain knew there was no chance of relaxing - I was scared that by switching off "too much" I might miss something and create havoc as yet unknown.

This sense of psychological tension also reminds me that although my year thus far may not have involved huge amounts of physical exertion it has certainly had a high dose of psychological work.

Planning. Fitting in. Looking after. Dealing with. Being aware. Making decisions. Living with decisions. Offering support. Seeking support.

Finding balance is, perhaps, the greatest challenge. Life has dealt me a hand in which I am balanced and supported on many of Maslow's needs but as I reach the upper echelons of that infamous pyramid the challenge to find balance is all the greater. Perfection is certainly not what I strive for and the balance I have carved out is something of which I am proud and pleased with - and makes the moments of imbalance all the more pronounced. Life being the ever-changing beast that it is means this process of finding balance is one I know I will continue to dance anon but discovering this new side, this new recognition of psychological weariness has been momentous and exciting. Long may living continue.

Today I climbed a Hill

Some would call it a Mountain. Others, a Fell. But I feel like calling it a Hill as the purist in me feels like I cheated somewhat by getting to the high car park so missing a big chunk of the climb. That said, it was a memorable day despite this "cheating"...

The fabulous samba band I play with, Batala, have a habit of doing a slightly off-piste gig / event at least once a year. Last year it was the amazing gig in the Thornton Force at Ingleton. This year there are plans afoot (boom boom...the pun will become apparent imminently) to do the three peaks (Ben Nevis, Scafell & Snowdon) in 24 hours finishing with a gig a-top Snowdon. And with this in mind a couple of our members have been organising training walks. I made it to the first (and made acquaintance with my new favourite local-ish spa, at the Langdale Hotel, who do an awesome dual-entry day pass for less than a tenner. Win) but had missed out on the past couple due to other commitments. Not so today.

With indications of sunny weather I set off nice and early to get in a chunk of time pre-walk at the spa...but fundamentally the weather wasn't looking too clever. Ah well, a bit of a grey stomp in the hills isn't too bad, thinks me. We were about 5 minutes out of the car park when a kindly gentleman asked if we were heading for the top - only to advise us there was sheet ice up there. Hmm. On we strode. We didn't find any sheet ice, but we certainly found plenty of snow:

On the way up...

Visibility had been pretty abysmal most of the way (catching glimpses of tarns that were less than 50m away emerging from the mists) but having been well trained in my youth my drive to get to the top was simple: word had it there was a trig point and everyone knows that climbing to the top of a hill, regardless of conditions, is always worthwhile if there's a trig point to jump on top of. The truth was true and there was, indeed, a trig point.

I admit. This could be anyone. Anywhere. Well, anywhere there's a trig point. Or trig-point-looking-thing-to-stand-on. But it is me, on top of the Old Man of Coniston trig point, earlier today. Promise.

Having got to the top it seemed like a good place to pause for some lunch. Aside from the snow, wind and rain. But, you know, having brought a packed lunch it seemed rude not to eat it on top of the object of our efforts. That said, I wasn't feeling particularly hungry and, having stopped moving, was beginning to feel a bit cold. Which is where things got mildly interesting. When I'd been getting ready at the crack o' dawn I, in my infinite wisdom, put on one of my Batala T-shirts. Further, while climbing aforementioned hill I ended up taking my jumpers off as I was rather warm.

And so it was that I found myself at the top of the Old Man of Coniston, getting a bit cold, knowing there was only one layer between me and a Batala T-shirt, a trig point that I'd already proven to myself I could get on top of and not get blown off and some time on my hands while others were munching. Only one option, really.

Slightly more recognisable as me. Certainly recognisable as sans jacket. And a bit bonkers.

Sadly my camera phone isn't the high tech gadget required to render this moment in even great technicolor but you get the idea.

We set off again but, unfortunately, the wind got stronger and the rain heavier. Hmm. Didn't realise quite how wet & cold I'd got until, on reaching the car park, I realised I was struggling to press the button on my car key to unlock it. And it was a good few minutes before driving was a sensible option. And it took a good while in the gorgeously warm jacuzzi at the Langdale before any semblance of normal body temperature came about. But it did. And I've lived to tell the tale. This time!

All that said, it was a good tromp out with an excellent set of people (and a brilliant reason to revisit the Langdale) and has reminded me of trig-point-joy. Huzzah!