Fell

With optimism and inclination to determination and my summit inukshuk.

Welcome to a right handed blog post. It's one handed because I broke the other one. I stood on a tussock in a boggy patch among granite boulders and it gave way. I went over, skinning hip, hand, head and knees. And fracturing a metacarpal base.

As the nursery rhyme goes:

Hands, knees
and boomps-a-daisy
what is a boomp
between friends
Annette Mills

Going back in time, the day had started so well, I'd driven to the car park in Glenmalure, a beautiful morning, windows open, music from the XX reinforcing the majestic views, especially along the Military Road from Laragh. I got a text at the start of my walk:

Hope you have a lovely walk

To which I replied

Thank you. I'm just starting 0750. Beautiful here but no mobile coverage.

I didn't know I had the whole mountain to myself. Apart from the sheep, larks, meadow pipits, hooded crows and some Sika deer. The only signs of humanity were the occasional jet trails far above in the azure skies. Indeed, vertical visibility seemed so much more than haze limited horizontal views. Of course humans have long shaped this area; I was on roads and tracks, among fenced Sitka spruce plantations, seeing tagged sheep with red and blue dyes of ownership, modern hiking boot cartouches in the mud, the adjacent Glen of Imaal military firing range warning signage; but there were no other folk around as I headed up Fraughan Rock Glen. And vertically, up past the waterfall beneath Ballinaskea. I'd been here often before, the last time was in 2008 when I came on a family excursion. And the time before that, it was for a 30 km hike. But this time, I only had time for a four hour round trip hike, so I was headed directly to the summit of Lugnaquilla. And I'm not as fit as once upon a time, but getting fit, that's the point. 

I recalled the last time I got lightheaded and puked was 60 km into the 100 km Oxfam Trail Walker on the UK South Downs,  seven years ago. Then, I was very fit but had too many 'energy' drinks and supplements; sugar was the enemy. This time I reminded myself that I only have a month to get fit enough for the Yorkshire Three Peaks. So, I simply had to reach the summit. I rested several times, rehydrating, recovering among the meadow pipits, them saying 'sweet-sweet' when perched and keeping an eye on me, in between their normal business activities, which mostly involved flying up directly to a great height and dropping like hang-gliders, trilling exuberantly on descent. Lovely to watch.

The ascent from the valley of the Glenmalure River to Lugnaquilla feels like the inverse of a volcano climb. Volcanoes get steeper with altitude. The bits on the Lug that feel steepest are lower down, the final climb is along a broad shouldered plateau, popular with sheep. There's a good description here. The point is that I knew how it would end if I could get up to the shoulder. So I persevered, perhaps a bit too fast, perhaps more mindful of the limited time rather than accepting fitness limits.

Once up to the shoulder, I hiked quickly across to the summit where I took in the views, made an inukshuk on the benchmark atop the cairn, took a few photos and had a snack in the refreshingly cool and surprisingly strong wind. Surprising because the hike was otherwise windless.

Then I headed back down, retracing my steps. And took a tumble. And in taking the tumble, I realised, even as I willed myself to be unbroken, just how exposed I was. I found myself speaking out loud for the benefit of the onlooking sheep. I was otherwise alone. On the Lug. Madness. I felt my iPhone digging into my pelvis, stood, checked and saw 'no coverage'. Bottles of Lucazade and orange juice had popped out of the backpack's external pockets. The mouth piece of my Camel-Bak had somehow joined them on the ground. Contused on bony corners, and bleeding from other places, my left hand didn't feel normal as I reached down to pick up the jetsam. But I was standing and everything else felt normally connected. Lucky. Annoyed but lucky. I told myself to feel very lucky. But I was worried that I'd broken my hand. And worried that I was five or six km from the car park. And there was no one in sight.

I walked on down and was only troubled on the descent around the waterfall, scared to fall again. First time I wondered about walking poles in years - said to spare the knees and make you think and therefore be careful on the tricky bits - but despite having two sets at home, I've never got comfortable with them. Are they an age related necessity?

And yet, I got to the car park in half the time it took to summit. Where I saw my first other people, a family group who had just arrived. They asked about local loop walks and told me they were seeking a one hour hike, practice before a 120 km walk in June on the last part of the Camino de Santiago. By now, my hand felt broken as I struggled to remove my hiking boots. And I can paraphrase what one of the Camino group said of my hand, them summarising a poem read the night before, you're not living if you're not getting knocks and scrapes. And a corollary I overheard ascending Ben Nevis in 2008, on the day of the annual Ben Nevis Run when I was doing another Three Peaks Challenge - the seniors (70+) were descending, two in conversation, one carrying bloody stigmata on knees and palms, he shouted "I'm getting so old that if I fall again, I'll give up fell running". 

The car is automatic and together with Tom Petty anthems, I drove home. I convinced myself it was a sprain until the next dawn light forced me to consider swelling as an indicator of fracture.  X-ray and CT scans confirmed and imaged the damage. Left fifth metacarpal fractured at base. Pinning may be required. And while telling tales of woe, last year's factor 50 sunscreen failed to protect my face and ears.

Four hours, 14 km, 770 m up at 21C. I wonder will I be able/allowed to do the Yorkshire Three Peaks in 26 days time? Our sponsorship status is here.

And by the way, here's something lucid and brilliant I read while in the emergency department.

Contacts

I was going to name this post FOG but the fog receded as I was walking my local loops for 13 km. The fog had been so thick that its condensation dropped off the trees creating rain below the canopies that we more often use as shelter.

I'd been watching three swimmers, so far offshore that I caught a couple of glimpses of a dolphin breaking the surface nearby, where terns and a gannet were diving for fish. Then I saw six naturists on the beach. One was towelling himself dry as I walked towards them. He sat down on on a rock, bare and facing me, and proceeded to insert his contact lenses. Surreal.

The trees had looked ethereal and the beach cobbles collectible and transformable into mock turtles. And these are the iPhone photos I snapped and posted here today. 

I was one of 8800 people who attended a talk by Prof Brian Cox last night. It seems that we are just proton pumps on a mote in a multiverse where an earlier pump, Georges Lemaïtre, asked Albert Einstein in 1933 if there had been a day without a yesterday.

15R

We went for a very short walk with Gus, our dog, the limit imposed in part by foot blisters and the need for knee braces. I’ve added a few pictures of places that Gus will never go - Tresham’s Triangular Lodge in Rushton, Northamptonshire, a random set of instructions from a building site in Haymarket, London and a circular window from the City West Hotel in Dublin - all snaps made on the iPhone over the last few weeks.

Imagine being a seventyish couple on a state pension with a severely handicapped child living at home. Imagine what happens next.

We had a fund raising quiz last Thursday and I set 'American Geography' questions. I sent 15 to the quiz master who chose ten for the quiz. Here's one that wasn't used: You probably know Alaska has the longest border with Canada (1,538 miles) but can you name the state with the shortest? Surprise, it's Pennsylvania with a 42 mile border and no official crossing points because it’s in Lake Erie.

That's it for today, just a month left before the challenge itself. So far: 80 hours, 39 walks, 373 km. 

Wysis

I walked through Henley-on-Thames a few years ago and spotted Isis House, an old name with a new connotation. With a bit of internet searching, I gleaned that Tamesis is an old word for Thames and the shortened versions Wysis or Isis are in common use among rowers. Which gave me the idea to visit the head of Isis.

A few months ago, I was lucky enough to read Thames Way by Diarmuid Fitzgerald, a book of haiku and tenka inspired by his walk from the Thames Barrier to the head of the river. I have less time than needed to begin at the sea, so I thought to start near the Cotswold Country Park, and maybe make it a 25 km round trip and leave the other few hundred km for another life. And then this weekend became 'free' so it was time.

I spoke notes into my iPhone as I walked from the Saxon town of Ashton Keynes, mapless, reliant on the Thames Way signage. A lone cuckoo calls. Coot, mallard, pheasant each reply: no competition. Later I noted The damselflies here. Sheep bleat where Isis springs, swans groan, content. I was trying to keep Fitzgerald's excellent haiku in mind, hopeful of being joyously unlost, finding inspiration for my own thoughts. But in truth, I was bored by the riverside flatness after just a few kilometres. And I made a few basic orienteering errors, bringing new life to one of his haikus.

in the marches

without my map –
joyously lost

Diarmuid Fitzgerald

So I snapped photos to capture ideas and memories for consideration later. 

One of my navigation errors was a classic. I'd digressed to Kemble to see a Norman church door but my arrival coincided with a mass exit from Sunday services. Standing in my hobo style walking gear, surrounded by tied and frocked worthies, I asked for directions to the river. Not so much the penitent's selfless request of "Where should I go now?", more like finding the inside track with "What's the quickest way back to the river?". They smiled tolerantly. "You won't find water you know." "You do realise it's an hour to the source from here?" "There's nothing to see other than a stone."

Resolute and sensing a little condescension, I overlooked a personal workplace mantra, "Trust, but verify." I failed to verify and it cost me at least five extra km because Mr Betied Worthiest said left was right. And he meant my right but called it left because it was behind him as he faced me. And the curve he suggested I took did lead to a bridge but it was a railway bridge that led to a PRIVATE trail. A map I saw later confirmed the road curved in the other direction too, before meeting a bridge across the river. And indeed, that was how I made the return journey once I visited the head of Isis.

I'm a bit ashamed at the number of mistakes I made. I've come to expect signage on national trails and I adhere to the principle that you don't change bearing until the next sign. Walking until the next sign isn't reliable even on The Thames Way National Trail. But I was tired after walking 20 miles yesterday. And prone to errors. Only now do I accept the sign reading "you're crossing the river Thames" was an admonishment rather than a direction - and the Thames paid me back for crossing it. I noticed potential for other forms of payback too - the Lower Mill Estate is actually lower than the lake across the road. And I crossed from Wiltshire to Gloucestershire, where new roadside signs confused me. What exactly does Quiet Lane signify? There were sheep bleating and the first sign I noticed was underneath crackling and popping electric wires draped from ugly pylons, these all under a busy flightpath for light aircraft heading to the nearby Cotswold Airport.

And in Kemble, silent Lycra clad, bike borne assassins kept me vigilant after some lessons yesterday in Box Hill. Had I witnessed both Giro de Box and Giro de Glox? I could see big, partly scrapped planes at edge of the airfield from down in Kemble. 

What's the meaning of Keynes (pronounced 'canes'? Milton Keynes ('keens') is one example but it's a long way from here where there are Ashton Keynes, Somerford Keynes and Poole Keynes. I read that Somerford Keynes was where beavers were re-introduced to Britain about ten years ago.

I made it back to Ashton Keynes, walking at a purposely sustained pace of more than 6 km/h for the last 8 km. From there, rehydrated, I drove to see some extraordinary pieces of glass in the studio at Avening Glass Art. And I know the folk there so they let me shower and then they fed me. Excellent sponsorship, thank you. 

In summary, I covered some 27 km in five and a half hours. So I was pleased to have walked 50% of my goal for May in the first week. Now, here are some scary aggregated stats to ponder. I've spent 73 hours walking on 36 walks and covered 336 km which is 67% of my goal. And I blog the walks, and each blog takes about an hour, so I've dedicated at least 100 hours to training so far. That's already 8 times the duration of the Yorkshire Three peaks itself. At this rate, I've another 50 hours to find. So, please help us help Care.

Neodymium

After a small tray of sushi and a cup of chicken vegetable soup, we took a 5.5 km walk along the Grand Union canal, dodging overgrown hedging blowing in the gusts of wind. Our discussion covered house prices, tenancy and repossession stories. We also covered the ITV program last night that asked How Safe is Your Pension. Pension fraud is rampant - something the UK government has been slow to address. Meantime, some 11 million people are targeted each year by pension scammers. It's not a simple story. Pension deregulation in 2015 was but another step in the continuing asset stripping by government of cautious savers. It's as if the government are becoming the farmers who intensively farm cows, chickens and pigs, rather than let them roam free range. The wealth in pensions is being redistributed to benefit the masses at individual expense.

Snapseed has added a double exposure option which is how I combined the mallard family with a road sign.

We met a man magnet fishing under a bridge on the canal. He was casting and dunking a strong magnet from the tow path into the canal. At first, I thought it was a hook and asked what he was looking for. He showed us his haul for the day so far: a boat hook he was convinced was over 100 years old, a sword blade, some old bicycle parts, odd scraps of iron from cars and boats. He'd also lifted a bag of at least ten unused shotgun cartridges. We left him as he was lifting some more iron and I could see he was using a neodymium magnet - small and very powerful. Did you realise that there's about a kilo of neodymium (Nd2Fe14B) in the electric motor of every Toyota Prius? Don't panic: rare earths should be have been called diffuse earths because there's more Nd than Cu accessible to us on this planet.

Today I learned of a new word to express something I knew but could only describe with a pen and paper. Boustrophedon describes the surveying system used for land grids in most of the US. Positions on the grid can be hard to visualise for the nonprofessional. Ox turning for ploughing is the etymology and it described an early way of writing such as found on Mycenaean tablets from Knossos (Crete), a script form called Linear B. Printers tend to be boustrophedous, the head printing in one direction, then backwards in the other. 

The chart below is the order of our Yorkshire Three Peaks walk. The steepest bit is first. Aarghh, our rucksacks will be heaviest for the steepest bit. I'll have to practice now as if it was the real walk. I'll have to pack everything I'll carry at the start of the day. Spare socks. Survival blanket. Tissue. The camel-bak. Perhaps a spit roast chicken (joke) or whatever I intend to eat on the day. Like a refugee, everything on my back except not like a refugee at all (let's face it, I had sushi for lunch). Care sends packages to real refugees and others in crisis. That's the point. Please help us help them by sponsoring this challenge using the link at the top of this page.

Haddock

Old anthurium, pavement paw marks, Sorrento and rough seas.

Another loop around the hill. I went down to sea level thrice and back up to the top of the hills. I was on a dinner mission, headed to Robert's in Dalkey to get some haddock, and took the opportunity to make it a 10 km walk, on Trump's 100th day.

Early on, I met a family of five at the top of the Cat's Ladder, where they asked me for directions to the nearest DART station with emphasis on routes with the least traffic. The adult accents were foreign, I presumed tourists, so I showed them the way with Walkmeter on my iPhone before I headed down to Coliemore Harbour. The youngest of the three kids fell over and the kids and I exchanged a bit of banter in perfect English as the eldest told me their ages to lend weight to the need to get the howling five year old to a train. On my way back up from the sea, I met them at Khyber Pass; they had changed their plans and were consulting a paper map. I carried on back up to Telegraph Hill and then went back down again, cutting through Sorrento Park where I met them a third time. I crossed the road, heading back down to sea level in Dylan's Park. And of course, I met them for a fourth time as I left the park. From there I went to Dalkey to buy the fish. And wouldn't you know it, I met them again 20 minutes later for the fifth and final time on Coliemore Road. Which is when I heard the 9 year old use the word 'stalking'. I wondered about that (a lot) on the last two kilometres walking home.

Once home, relaxation in mind, I decided a bath was better than a trip to the jacuzzi in Fitzpatrick's hotel. Best not to dwell on why there's dog shampoo in our bathroom? It was hidden under the anthuriums that have lived there since the Sydney Olympics. Plus a zinc pot of them that arrived two years ago when colleagues in America kindly sent me 'get well' flowers. In a strange coincidence, a local florist chose potted anthuriums, not understanding that a near death biopsy infection, followed by a diagnosis of prostate cancer was why Interflora got involved in the first place. There are three pots still thriving in the light at the top of the house.

Blame

Flowers I saw and arranged as a flag on my iPhone.

Is reality subjective? What is fact?

I was reading about science in 2007 this morning. Elephants were thought to be self-aware because they inspected their reflections in mirrors. Genetically modified goats were expected to produce milk including antidotes to lethal nerve agents like sarin and VX. Opiorphin in men's saliva was thought to be six times more powerful than morphine. Winning the Nobel Prize was postulated to add two years to your life expectancy (and I guess the prize money would cover the healthcare). Staying with Norway, researchers reported that elder children have higher IQs. I'm not sure how these panned out though I know we don't have any goat milk in the fridge.

I spent some time discussing age-related change with people now planning for such change. One feature of today’s discussion was that planning has become reactive. There had been time for planning but the act of planning was perceived as premature, defeatist, greedy, divisive, manipulative, demeaning or a mix of those and other excuses I can’t recall. So the planning was left to “others”. And the recommendations of those "others" were ignored because gerontology professionals advised that self-determination prevails. This version of historical and present reality is both true and sad. And because of it, the future of the individuals concerned is less predictable than it should have been. There will be revisions in the retelling of this story, much like corrections to blog posts, and there will be others to blame. Always others. Thanks be for the blames of “others”.

A walk around the local hill, some 6 km averaging about 100 steps a minute, including approx 200 m ascent equivalent to 60 flights of stairs. My knee is fine. And there's lots to think about.

Maundy

I set out this morning to test my stamina. I thought I should try to ascend some 500 metres but stay local. Experience tells me can be done in three trips up from sea-level to the dominant landmark, the obelisk. I did four ascents but only two from sea-level, and it took just over four hours. I also had ambitions to walk 30 km but had to stop after some 20 km because my knee began to hurt. My iPhone tells me the 564 m I ascended is the equivalent of climbing 165 flights of stairs. No wonder my knee twinges. Anyway, I engaged in some banter with people at work in the office because one of the team had proposed a stair climbing challenge and I had just done two days worth. In real terms, this is just a start - the Yorkshire Three Peaks are each 500 m.

Orienteers fruit machine with sigma 6 9 and rho perhaps?

Increasingly I feel like I should call my blog walkingcurmudgeon rather than walkingcommentary. When out walking, especially locally, I often get annoyed by the intrusions and in my mind, diminutions of the scenic beauty. There's a race on, not an arms race but a views race fuelled by post-crash rebound cash that seems to be pouring out of the banks again. Trees once used as privacy screens or wind shields are disappearing faster than ever. Homes emerge as if shouting to by-passers "Hey, look at what you don't have" and I don't mean their triple glazing. Planning permissions defy comprehension as new builds are allowed exceed the scale of the landscape by ever increasing margins. Wilfully blind planning authorities? Large plots that were formerly built with discreet homes are long subdivided and now redivided in a dispiriting modern recreation of gavelkind. These shrinking plots are being filled with tall houses that are anything but discreet. We understand that views are not a right but overviews negate indigenous privacies and this appears to be forgotten by our planners. Is demand-driven house price inflation worth the degradation of living conditions as home packing density is allowed increase? Is this a ruse to increase property tax takes by the Exchequer or An tAire Airgeadais? As Naomi Klein put it in The Shock Doctrine: “When it comes to paying contractors, the sky is the limit; when it comes to financing the basic functions of the state, the coffers are empty.” 

Sticking with a whinging theme, let me first say how much I enjoy the wild garlic and bluebells appearing all over the area. However, the curmudgeon in me wonders why oriental people think of these as nursery plants and take them home? And I specifically mean people who appear to have oriental origins. I saw the same walkway being stripped of what they called snowdrops both today and last week by different oriental families. Removing them conveys private pleasures to the few, denying public pleasure to the many. It's unfair and mean spirited and just wrong. I wanted to share my exasperation but didn't know how to do it. So who will educate them?

I watched some kids on the beach dipping their toes in the gentle lapping of the water while I was watching terns and gannets hunting and diving. I wondered if the kids and their parents were Christian and understood the symbolism of feet washing on Maundy Thursday. I also wondered about the guys sitting in the nip beyond normal view, taking in the intermittent sun. (Nothing should be inferred by my juxtaposition of these two observations. It's simply what I saw.)

When I got home, I ate four hot cross buns and probably destroyed the value of my workout. I must admit that I enjoyed the buns, washed down with several cups of tea. And I'd have eaten them even if I hadn't walked. So I'm ahead. Well ahead.

By the way, that's an aplite between my boots. It's been there on The Flags for generations and I remember when I first saw it for what it was.  That was after a field trip to study the granite contact and schists down on the beach. Which is where that barred door photo is from, down where the kids put their toes in the water. And the other 'flag' flies over the Dalkey Town Hall.

Spectacular

I often dictate the blog to my phone as I walk. Not today. Instead I was wondering what to blog about on this evening's walk. Should I include ideas sparked from books and discussions of current interest?

"Time goes you say ? Ah no !

Alas, Time stays, we go"

[Austin Dobson The Paradox of Time (1886) after Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnet a Marie]

"Capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their own interests as narrowly as possible. This was once achieved by extensive deprivation. Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing a false standard of what is and what is not desirable."

[Ways of Seeing 1972 John Berger]

Or rugby? - earlier, we were at the RDS to see Leinster beat Cardiff 22-21.

Or analytics? - the privileged are processed by people, the masses by machines (after Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil). 

Or judgement? Or photography? Or colour constancy?

Two blue plastic gloves as installation art, stuck into a wall, a wall painted with green anti-grafitti paint, a green that my iPhone camera couldn't render.

Then the sun set. Spectacular. Enough said.

Another 7 km walked off. Time to donate here?

Underfoot

In my beginning is my end [TS Eliot East Coker, The Four Quartets (1940)] Yes, I started where I finished, though Eliot probably meant optimism and despair, renewal and decay, all of which works for this walk too.

In fact I did two walks. For the first, we took Gus who after three wet and muddy kilometres, shook himself dry in the hall. The floor was cleaned - looks like the white wall will need to be repainted.

Then, alone, I walked in the rain along the beach to the Boat House in Bray where I had a deserved latte. It took a lot longer there than back because the tide was full and I was limited to walking on the conglomeratic shingle banks. Fortunately, for the return, the tide had fallen to reveal the easy walking wet sand we know and love. A flat 20 km but the walking surfaces made it harder; there was one place with a welcome mat on the muddy path.

In the place where we have often watched dolphins cavorting, there were two people on paddle boards. One of them had a barking dog standing beside him. Thoughtless if they expected dolphins. Thoughtless anyway: this is the treacherous Irish Sea not a lake. Mind leap: it reminded me of a woman we know who played a gramophone to a small island harbour some 25 km north of here: back in the 1940s, it attracted curious seals to a place where there were no rivalries for fishing-pot owners.

The recent storms have done damage to the ice-age mud cliffs, especially along the less well known section between Shanganagh Castle and Woodbrook. More collapses and erosion than I have ever seen before. The sand martins will return in April and have to build new nesting burrows in the freshly exposed sandy layers. On a positive note, there was much less flotsam and jetsam than in years gone by - hooray if the MARPOL regulations for ships is even vaguely responsible.

So, in sum, 23 km today, leaving 411 km, which keeps me on track for the magic 500.

Overweight

I woke up to the start of March worrying about The Yorkshire Three Peaks. The event is on June 24 and time is compressing. My concern was that I pledged to walk 500 km in training as a fund raiser.

Then I weighed myself and found no comfort in being 9 kg over ideal. I recalled the mind altering book 'The Things They Carried' by Tim O'Brien from the 1970s. Inspired, without intending to trivialise the sacrifice of soldiery, I found another purpose for half of the books in the bedroom, books also in mind because tomorrow is World Book Day. I collected and piled them on the scales until their weight allowed me visualise my excess. That's a 60 cm tower of books. I really need to keep walking.

So I took a lunchtime walk, choosing a route I'd blogged in April 2010 for another challenge. This date I know with precision because I still use Walkmeter on my iPhone and the track is still stored there all these years later.

There was a great variety of scenery with lots of chatter from hedgerow birds. In Harefield Place between the lakes, long-tailed tits were mobbing a jay. And the waterfowl on the lakes and canal were in courtship. I even saw two swans going through the entire ritual on the canal - fascinating and so elegant.

A few observations I dictated to the phone as I walked along The Drive - a road naming pun (?) leading to the Uxbridge Golf Course, passing Harefield Place and the former Blockbuster HQ, now being block busted, judging from the demolition advisories, four years after video streaming killed their rental business.

6.5 km today which leaves me 470 km to walk which is about 115 km per month. While nothing is impossible, some things are unlikely.