more pix from the skyline walk...

thanks for sending on these pix, Crysse - and sorry I'm so abysmally disorganised to get them up so late!

Another packed week...

Work... bit of a struggle to focus this week.
Crysse's birthday Monday night...
Bridport on Wednesday, Golden Cap to Charmouth and back again (makes me feel like one of the Fellowship of the Ring, that 'and back again'. Just as long as I'm not a hobbit...)
Annabelle's for a 'debrief' on progress so far...
the Harm Reduction Strategy meeting...
Helen's...
Mike's...
... and another clothes-swap fundraiser, ably hosted by Marina, proceeds split between my venture and hers... (& another lovely evening it was too - more additions to my wardrobe...)

admin Saturday morning before haring off to Winchcombe. While Kit serviced the Polo, I went for a stroll - a mistake to take the Rover, after an hour's walk I was hot, tired - and compelled to procure a cache of junk food and read the paper while listening to the radio...
& we had a VERY lazy Sunday...
that's the trouble - when you're so busy, you need 'down time'. Which there isn't really time for in my training schedule...
so it has to be the social side which is junked again for a while... that and newspapers!

BATH SKYLINE

This one was a challenge.
I was pretty knackered.
It was HOT.
I was still standing by the end! (well, once I'd got up from the canal bank after a welcome respite in the shade...)
and this one I just couldn't have done without Crysse's and Peter's support (a bit like turning back to look at our descent path on Skiddaw - left to my own devices, I'd have wimped out of this).

We started on the Cotswold Way, and up Kelston Round Hill, over to Bath Racecourse, and on to Solsbury Hill. Down by the toll bridge, along the canal, up the ancient railway built to transport Ralph Allen's Bath stone from the quarry to the canal (that one held memories of some of the Skiddaw trek!), then back down into Bath, as we were running very short on time (and energy - even after a leisurely picnic on Solsbury Hill).

I need to do this one again, when I feel more lively. Even the views didn't boost my system much beyond grim determination - but the sense of achievement after DOING it was worth every gruelling step!!! So thank you, Crysse and Peter - it was a grand day, even if I wasn't exactly at my scintillating best (always I assuming I manage scintillating at my best...)

dreamweaving...

Saturday was lost to sleep.
I know it was a demanding week, but it was still a shock. I consoled myself at the time that I was due to walk with Crysse and Peter the following day...

Nepali Dinner Evening

A gorgeous garden, an idyllic English summer evening... and people sat round on sumptuous fabrics like gaudy butterflies, enjoying the feast Pippa had prepared... A perfect evening of breaking bread together in support of my adventure with the Hep C crew on our trek...

...later, Rod lit a fire in a giant wok, and we sat round the flames in the fragrant woodsmoke...

the total raised yet to be finalised.

What a lovely way to end the week - thank you, Pippa and Rod! - and thanks to everyone who came and supported the event.

Sunset on Cley Hill

Just as Frome is gearing up for the last Saturday of the festival - I'm heading for the hills... or hill. Cley Hill.
This seems fairly typical at the moment - being out of step with the communities to which I belong...

SKIDDAW TREK

This is what I've been just itching to put on my blog all week... Frome Festival week, so two gigs to fit in - and back to work; I always pay for time off with stacks of catching up... training to organise, and the pathway launch to cater for... Not to mention the - er, 'hiccups' - which beleager my work at the moment...

from my journal, 8th July 2006:

'Today, I climbed Skiddaw.
The feeling of elation at the top was wonderful, leaning into the gale as we headed back down...
Done it, done it, done it!'

I've never scaled a big hill before.

I lived at the foot of the Pentlands for 15 years - and never went to the top of one. I rambled around the slopes, but never actually scaled the summit... (to be fair, as a tiny child, I couldn't, really - well not without an adult, and as an adolescent, I wasn't that intrepid). I worked in Yetholm for a couple of years, and never once went hill walking. I listened to numerous tales from triumphant walkers in the Black Swan in Kirk Yetholm, at the Scottish end of the Pennine Way, and wished there was somebody I could try to walk it with... (who would carry the tent...)
But at that time, I traversed the Cheviots on horseback. I might walk the 5 or so (largely flat) miles to the pub and back - but steep uphill stuff? Hadn't the 'oomph'...
Then, I wouldn't have considered walking by myself. A different thing, roaming round the foothills of the Pentlands with my dog. But to tackle hills in my late teens, I'd have wanted company... Probably a good thing - I'd no doubt have got hopelessly lost on my own! Or twisted my ankle or something...

So the sense of achievement on getting to the top of Skiddaw... I didn't even attempt to describe it fully in my journal. (Not like me to be understated!)

'It's lovely walking with a group. You can push yourself more than you'd dare on your own... The VIEWS! Across the Solway Firth to Scotland, across to the Pennines, over toy-town Keswick and Derwent Water beside it. Hills as far as the eye can see...
Space. So much SPACE!
Going down, I look back.'

A steeply winding trail that makes me think of the hell of the fire and brimstone crew - a Sisyphean task; the higher you get, the more there is to climb. If I'd been faced with that as an ascent, my heart would have quailed... As we joked with Jeff, it could have been 'you can keep Nepal! - sod this for a lark!'

'Back at the Blencathra Centre, I'm full of sugar and caffeine and endorphins and achievement - I feel like Tigger...'

I want to bounce off the walls with excitement.
But of course, I don't.

'A shower proves nearly as good as a soak to sluice away the aches...
Hauling myself up on the poles, I get into the zone in the wake of Sergio and Jeff, walking solo between the clots of walkers toiling upwards - safe but solitary. Lovely. Just how I need to be for concentrating on the ascent.'

Another metaphor for my life... The above excerpts were taken from my scribbles on our return. I did manage to write more before going to sleep - which I may have a chance to return to...

As a writer, I can't fully express how hard this time constraint business is. The longer you leave writing about events, the 'colder' they get - and besides, MORE writing stacks up as time marches inexorably on...
I wanted to document the quiz night... setting the questions for the music round with Crysse, 'helping' Jill's team on the night... Brendan's brilliant Retro Cafe night - I was so thrilled at all the effort he'd been to, and profoundly touched by the beautiful poem Alan dedicated to me... the weekend in Totnes - Sam and Sally's unique wedding celebrations, our glorious river boat trip, the Russian ship moored at the mouth of the River Dart, later watching the herons through my newly acquired binoculars (thank you, Mike!) ...

All those things that I listed in my catch-up post have been languishing sadly, awaiting reflection and processing... which hasn't happened; life whirls on and slips through my fingers as through they're coated with lard...
There are about 40 emails in my inbox, and a pile of mail to wade through... Catching up seems impossible, let alone preparing for the next few hectic weeks...

And there's the issue of training. Having climbed Skiddaw, I have a far better idea of what to expect - and how much more time I need to devote to training if I'm to avoid a great deal of pain while trekking in the Himalayas.

The writer in me is hugely frustrated and marginalised - neither wonder I'm more than a bit crazed right now and uncontrollably weepy sometimes...

On a positive note, there's something indefinable about all this walking that clears the mind and helps the process of prioritising. It generates energy and positivity.

If the lesson I learn from all this is how to junk the unnecessary, that's a precious gift.

the Solway Firth

I haven't been to Maryport during such fantastic weather...

It was idyllic.

And check out the dearth of crowds... Just how I like my landscapes - call me greedy, but having all this to MYSELF is the most wonderful way to walk in the world...

Golden Cap

with time at a premium, it's a swine when uploading pix can be such a hit or miss affair...
...is half the world on the net, or something?

I have to say, this was a phenomenal walk. My first time with walking poles - they make SUCH a difference...

IF TIME IS A MERINO WOOL JUMPER...

... then someone has put mine in a boil wash.

Repeatedly.

Four weeks since my last post.


this is the view from the hostel Sam & Sally hired to hold their wedding party... see (much) later below - no way to position these pics that I can find...

A whistlestop tour, then, of the last month:

the Griffin quiz was great fun, & raised about £40 or £50 quid (the actual amount will be on Peter's spreadsheet)
I took the advice of the debt line, and wrote to all my creditors (with a slightly different outcome than anticipated - I'm now paying late payments in addition to the amounts I already owed, but we won't go there for now).
I'm delivering the Frome Times once a fortnight - might as well get a tenner while I do a bit of training...
I had a date, which was an interesting experience (but I'm not going there for now, either).
Mike lent me a digital camera, which I've been practising with.
Rod lent me some equipment for the trek - it's beginning to feel more real, now - horribly so, at times!
(Work, of course, goes on apace during all this).
I went to Sam's film screening at the Cube in Bristol - fantastic! He's SO talented... (well, would a son of Crysse's be anything else?)
I climbed Golden Cap (hope to come back to THAT one, too with pix).
My last class in Swindon was swiftly followed by the Retro Cafe Poetry gig in Bath (we raised £82 -THANKS, BRENDAN!) and on to Sally & Sam's wedding in Totnes - which would be great to get back to at some point, it was the most BEAUTIFUL setting... (see pic above).
Back to Bath from Totnes, met up with Karen and Mike, drove to Cumbria with them (sharing space with my baggage & theirs - the boot was given over to the new fairing for the Triumph Cosworth Daytona).
A few days with them in Maryport was just what I needed. OK, I smoked more than I have for a while, but to be away from all demands was just WONDERFUL. Especially as we had fabulous weather, so I walked along the Solway Firth nearly to Allonby - 'toughening my feet' (!) in the sea... (otherwise known as paddling...)
And on to Blencathra (which I WILL come back to...)
Home to a week's worth of washing-up and laundry - not to mention being short on the rent... (though number one son DID wash up on Monday, and made up his shortfall on pay day). Back to work, and it felt as if everything started to go horribly pear-shaped there, too... I think I was probably more exhausted than I realised from Skiddaw. It got better later in the week - at least, my positivity came back!
So, at least I'm kind of caught up...

Inner landscape....

This will be a VERY swift post - I need to get ready for the Quiz Night in the Griffin in twenty minutes...

My inner landscape on this journey mirrors the geography of Nepal...

We've been enjoying some utterly WONDERFUL weather. Sunny, hot, humid... a real holiday feel to most days (if I get out walking!). OK, maybe not the best weather to WORK in, but I hate to complain about good weather...

Which is why the total plummet of the last week has been so difficult to process. I suspect down to several things - the new supplements, on top of pushing myself damned hard last weekend and on Monday to get a grip on all the admin of my life AND keep up my training (TWO walks on Monday - nearly an hour before work, and over an hour after work; I was chuffed to bits, and making an extra effort to stretch myself - doubling back to do the slope three times, the sort of terrain I'll have to cover on the trek won't be the gentle undulations of Somerset, so the more hilly stuff I can practice on, the better...)

Tuesday was a real struggle - I was totally knackered. Slept in. Struggled to put in a full shift. Warning light - need time off... so I booked Wednesday. Luckily (or maybe not - I could have had the time off sick!) IBS kicked off Tuesday night and continued through to today (Sunday morning) though at least the ulcers seem to have healed over now... I slept most of Wednesday - haven't done that in an age! so must have needed it.

My class in Swindon was OK, but I was practically nodding at the wheel on the way back - this is NOT good. After two hours work? So I was quite badly rattled to be so low on resources - after a day's rest. Managed a visit to a friend - but indulged in several fags while I was there, so I felt pretty grim by the time I got home.

And Friday, between visits to the loo, my least painful position was stretched out on the sofa. Couldn't really sit, couldn't really stand - and I couldn't really drive, either. So a day off sick, which I always feel rotten about...

I finally managed a 'proper' walk today - maybe four miles, much slower than usual - and with interesting visuals, I think maybe I was a little hasty in donning the walking boots! My temperature plummeted on my return so much that I pulled on a fleece to drive to Sainsburys (I was too dizzy to walk, even though I only needed a few things)...

All of which has been accompanied by the most unsettling emotional leakings - unexpected tears, temper flare-ups and the worst 'downers' I've experienced in a long, long time.

The downers don't even feel necessarily connected to the low-level background anxiety about what happens once my contract ends, and about what's best to do with the morass that is my finances. Although I guess they are.

They feel chemical. Biochemical. Like there's a way to adjust that balance...

Which there will be. It's called eating properly, and exercising regularly, and getting enough rest and sleep, and not smoking and MANAGING STRESS.

Which sounds sensible and practical - and not nearly as bloody hard as it IS.

Maybe I just have to accept that I swing wildly between the poles of exultant elation and quiet desperation. Sometimes not so bloody quiet, at that.

The one I don't like to dwell on too much is that maybe it's the virus proliferating in my brain, inducing mood swings over which I have very little control at all...

Time to go - hope the quiz is fun...

next event...

TARGET NOW REACHED & SURPASSED!!!!!

Well, I know Crysse devoted great tranches of time to chasing up classy treats to put on the list of bids for the auction. We shared mounting excitement and delight as the list began to stack up... and up... and up...
I know that she tirelessly publicised the event, and generated a lively email traffic in bids, because she copied me in on all her mails...
I know there is a substantial reserve already as I arrive at La Strada on a gloriously sunny evening, after a day of dashing about. It's a rush to set up, distributing the Trust's leaflets and my poetry competition flyers as Crysse lays out the fantastic goods - many people have arrived ultra-promptly.
Which is probably just as well - I have no time to obsess on the fact that I have actually no idea what I'm going to say. I muddle through somehow, and then Peter takes over as auctioneer extraordinaire.

I'm utterly awestruck (& guess those who weren't there will be too) that Crysse's amazing creative energy has generated an incredible response, which is picked up on the night and extended...

The total surpassed the entire fundraising so far

- £1,872 !!!!!!!!

With £1,740 already raised, my fundarising target has now been topped.

With our trek training weekend rapidly approaching at the start of July, I can relax about whether or not I'll reach my target... and get on with training and dealing with the rest of my life (like sorting out work during September and October... and to come back to!)

The ball will keep rolling with the other events planned - a quiz, another poetry night, another clothes swap, and possibly a lunch...

I am so lucky to have friends who create joy and generosity around them, and who so open-heartedly invite me into that space to request support for this venture of mine.

And to share in family, too - Crysse became a gran for the first time last week, and I met the gorgeous Florrie on the morning of the auction...

Poetry Workshop on the theme of Dreams...

The last Thursday of the month is when the Grove Road poetry group meet.
Stepping Out financed my delivering a workshop to the group, payment to be added to the trek fund.

The reason I was facilitating this month's group prompted a short Q & A session about the virus, and then we got down to writing. Appropriately enough, our theme was dreams, both sleeping and waking. We had as much fun sharing our efforts as writing them - as always the diversity of ideas which came out of the afternoon was a real delight to us all.

Many thanks to all who participated, and to Steve for requesting the workshop.

trek training back on track

I open my notebook, and it falls open at Rainbow's number. I feel guilty; I promised to ring her next time I was here. Perhaps I should have rung her before leaving Bridport...

No. I need to savour my solitude, recover from having an unexpected observation (! that was a bit of a shocker), and have a play with words before walking.

Yesterday, after half an hour, I was shaky and nauseous. Not so fit, then... It was only six-thirty in the morning, maybe Crysse was right and the time of day had more to do with my physical struggle than fitness per se...

All the same, I take things pretty gently today, with lots of rests.

It's colder today than my last visit. In the - three? - weeks since I was last here, clumps of purple pompom flowers have colonised the cliffs' edges. I want to call them sedge; it sounds right, but of course I have no idea what they ACTUALLY are.

I have always loved basking in summer silence, broken only by the ocean's background murmur and bird calls. Voices drift over on the wind, and cattle crunch contentedly, systematically cropping the hardy thin stems of grass.

The few trees are sculpted by the elements into Marge Simpson hairdos caught in high winds. A dual-rotored helicopter - are they Chinooks? - putters below me, scanning the water's edge for incident or just practising low flying.

How lucky am I?

Being paid to facilitate a workshop with a wonderful group - I was moved to tears earlier while driving through the vibrant landscape, hit by the realisation (while driving through West Coker) that I wouldn't swap this minute of my life with another living soul.
Not for all the money, prestige, or power in the world...
And the Dire Straits track, Why Worry comes over the airwaves...
I played that album to death when I was pregnant (Brothers in Arms and Billy Holliday were practically the only albums I owned!)

My own journey amazes me sometimes. How did I get from the edges of Edinburgh, nestling by the foothills of the Pentlands - to its Gothic centre, out to its sink estate margins, then deep into its black heart... yet end up in a sleepy Somerset market town for twenty-odd years? (recently Frome was featured by the Guardian!)

Trainspotting at the Theatre Royal on Friday was interesting. Ducking and diving in desperation... I'd say the interpretation only hinted at that. Forgoing depth for too much indulgence in ranting; predominantly cursing. While I know only too well how authentic the language is, too much of it is just tiresome. And some dialogue would have been a welcome rest from the lengthy asides.

From a half-life in Scotland's then-impoverished capital, to these riches, this wealth - a miraculous journey. Largely accidental - or should I say synchronicitous...
Now this dreamer, this lazy girl greedy for dreamtime, this rebel who bit off more than she could chew when she entered the city's underbelly (and nearly didn't emerge at all, at least three accidental ODs that I remember, plus a few deliberate ones), now this misfit can roam the South West in her battered peppermint green polo to deliver workshops that are a delight and a privilege to facilitate.

I have a handsome, incredibly bright and nearly-grown son (when do we hit 'adult'? - not sure I have!), a first-class honours degree - and roots in two countries...

Today, I have a guide called Eve who navigates the least steep slopes - saving those knees this time! - to deliver me to the foot of Golden Cap. I think of Jean breakfasting there on her walking retreat, and remember my promise to John that we tackle it together. At the pub, I munch through a bag of crisps and knock back a virgin Mary; should keep me going...
... til hot doughnuts and a welcome cup of tea back in West Bay. And a fag on my return to the car. After at least seven (strenuous!) miles, I feel like I deserve such simple pleasures.
A little of what you fancy...

Duck-egg blue airbrushed with cloud, intense green slopes in the setting sun.

Time to go.

Coastal town flaneur...

I sit in the weak pre-noon sunlight, sipping Italian coffee from a corrugated paper cup. The plangent sound of classical guitar soar above the market day and traffic bustle. A Strauss Waltz - Blue Danube - this is no wayfarer but a professional musician, supplied with breakfast and coffee by his attentive girlfriend.
A flock of pigeons congregate around the dappled trunk of a plane tree, fussing with dropped fragments. Sun reflects bright mauve iridescence, shimmering mantillas with bright scarlet finger-feet like brazen sandals on demure senoras.

This scene could be Anytown across Europe; I recall leisurely breakfast writing in Southern France, Barcelona and Majorca. However, the portly bearded traders in their plaid shirts and baseball caps are unmistakeably English.

It's a sunny May Wednesday in Bridport. Later, I will head off for my fix of the sea; for a few moments I am a flaneur, soaking up the sounds, sights, smells of now...

Lots of media coverage...

Hardly hitting the broadsheets, BUT I'm chuffed to bits that the Auction of Promises and Dreams was in the Frome Times last week - plus a review of madabout... AND a piece about the poetry comp!
Cracking support from the FT - just hope my fellow Frome folk don't get thoroughly peeved at my phisog in the local pages!

ANOTHER OVERWHELMING FUNDRAISING SUCCESS!!!

I'm trying to catch my tail here... 31st of May already, and this event was on the 20th!

ANOTHER £300 added to the total!

Jill and John Miller hosted a cracking fundraiser supper - it was a lovely gathering, and we all had a great evening; there was stacks of delicious food, plenty wine (for a donation) and entertaining conversation with a variety of lively guests. The evening began very auspiciously when it turned out that the woman who'd contacted me because she saw the Kerouac piece in her local paper knew Jill from years back, when Jill led a women's group that Claire was part of... a lovely piece of synchronicity for us.
Claire lost her husband to hep C a couple of years ago, and she's so thrilled that awareness-raising is happening at last, and campaigning for services and treatment is becoming more evident.
It was indeed a nurturing evening of lovely energy, and I was profoundly touched by the effort both Jill and John had made to make it all possible - I have to say, skills that are beyond my organisational capacities and catering expertise. Which makes them all the more precious.

madabout words...

Another triumph for Crysse as spoken word co-ordinator - performing in the Merlin Theatre foyer on Friday 12th May, part of her madabout words event.

Not a trek event, but Crysse took the opportunity after my Twenty- first Century Trenches poem to give the Auction of Promises and Dreams a plug - listings on the www.wychhaz.co.uk site, brilliant Mike, thank you! Although my collecting tins hadn't arrived, we collected nearly £10 from just that passing mention during the show (aren't people round 'ere supportive!).

and here's the poem:

Twenty-first Century Trenches

I’m still too young to remember how

after the war

everyone was glad – but still cautious

not yet free from rationing

or fear

there was nuclear war to beware now

before

it was all much more immediate

you could dodge

targeted devastation

bomb-dropped from above

run from

strafing tank turrets

if not

storm troopers pouring through ghettoes

pursuing hiding, hidden Jews

slip-sliding trench warfare

howitzers and diseased mud

culling humanity

a massive mincer chewing through nations

nuclear warheads upped the ante exponentially

I’m still too young

will always be too young

to remember that

we have our own war

our own 21^st century trenches

where drugs and blood-borne viruses

alcohol and anxieties

cut swathes through society

sick with cancerous debts

our young men stripped of vitality and dignity

our women rendered bereft of self-respect

by dependencies

shame hides with cowardice

in dark and lonely places

Not a 19th nervous breakdown... Shirley Holmes and the Body in B Ward

I may have missed the Bristol run, but I made it to Cardiff for Stepping Out's nineteenth production. A thoroughly entertaining evening - and overheard while leaving the auditorium: 'So glad I came,' 'Wonderful!' 'Really makes you think, doesn't it?'
Another huge success, I reckon!
Read more about it on their website www.steppingouttheatre.co.uk/
And for one night, I was Steve and Cheryl's 'madwoman in the attic'...