temporal experiment

I want to try to take you with me on my journey...

From my dictaphone:

It’s the 9th of October.
Just going up Golden Cap. It’s very cloudy, the wind’s blowing the rainclouds across the hill… So far, I seem to have managed to stay in dry pockets.
There’s a kestrel hovering ahead of me, and the sun is picking out highlights on the sea’s surface…
This is the coolest I’ve walked this stretch, the colours are muted; grey cloud overhead and the sea quite choppy, with those sunlit patches. As yet, most things still look green, although I did see a couple of absolutely gorgeous trees, no idea what kind they are, not just changing colour but changing into a variety of colours… One particularly striking example as I went through West Coker…
Wonderful to get feedback from Lesley at the Fisherman’s on the enormous benefits the classes gave to the people who took part.
It’s quite eerie being up on the top of Golden Cap in the mist blowing in from the sea… you can see a lighter pocket over in the sky, presumably that’s where the sun is - and actually some of the shimmering water is shining through a break in the mist. Otherwise, the top, with its scrubby grass, bracken and gorse is quite disorientating – you can see why people get lost in mist so easily.
My brief today is to go as far as I can, yet take it as easy as I possibly can, try to ease off my [aching] knees from the stepper, ease my body into the realignment that Carla’s shiatsu did last night, and also check out ‘how much ground I’ve lost’ through all the changes over the last month. The last time I was down here [sic], I was still employed at CAAAD, and of course, now I’ve moved…

The silvering of the sun on the water looks like some kind of a mirage as it appears and disappears though the mist…














(from my dictaphone on the way back)

Walking the coast path is like walking on the edge of the world.
That [bank of] clouds… and then the sea – it’s just like colour washes, doesn’t look real… if you went into that, you’d enter a different reality – which of course you do!

I think that’s one of the reasons I find it so powerful to walk by the sea rather than woods or hills.
Interesting. My training for trekking in Nepal – the mountains! – underlined that the place I like best to walk is by the sea!

A cracking rosy light close to the horizon, particularly round by the headland. Everywhere else is grey, overcast… the bracken is beginning to change colour. It looks muted, faded, almost like the summer’s burnt out the landscape…

I passed a man with a rucksack on his back with a Cavalier King Charles spaniel in it, an old dog with blue, rheumy eyes, obviously got tired…

It feels like I haven’t taken in as much of the sea as usual. I’ve been too busy concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other in a slow, steady pace, trying really hard not to tire myself out and trying hard also not to put extra strain on my knees and hips, taking things gentle and steady…

That’s what will get me through Nepal.
Slow and steady.

I’ve emptied my platy for the first time. (Possibly ‘cos it wasn’t quite full! I have got my Sig bottle, too).
I’ve obviously downed a heck of a lot of water today, which is good, ‘cos I’ve been sweating like a pig underneath this waterproof – it’s breathable stuff, but even so, it gets hot and steamy.
In between getting very cold. A bit of exertion and you get overheated, then you slow down, or you come into the wind - and next thing, you’re freezing.
That’s going to be the biggest challenge when I’m in Nepal. To keep my temperature steady enough, so it’s been good to have the practice.

Near the top of Golden Cap, just stopped to let my temperature drop a little bit – I also wanted to note ; the journey today has been marked by pairs of magpies… a definite magpie thing going on since the beginning of this venture...

The sky is really amazing. It’s really difficult to describe it, it’s like there’s a cloud ceiling – a false ceiling, and over in the distance, it stops, and the light shows through… no, that’s not quite right… there’s this ragged rim of light right round the horizon really… even over between those hills you can see it. Utterly phenomenal…
I’m trying to capture it on camera, but it’s just not sensitive enough to pick that up… you’d have to be a painter, I think… it doesn’t seem to show up at all, unfortunately. Nice to think our eyes are more sensitive than a digital camera [except they’re not].