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.

Surrey

"There's a green woodpecker" I said. It seemed like an omen to see something I rarely get to see. The weather was already perfect. The drive down was easy. One of the best perfomances ever, Miles Davis reprised Kind of Blue for me as I'd driven down to meet my walking colleague in Ryka's car park in Box Hil, Surrey. I'd forgotten that John Logie Baird lived on Box Hill; designated an area of outstanding beauty, if he'd looked out the windows from his perch high above the River Mole, maybe he wouldn't have needed to invent television. Then again, Major Peter Labelliere had himself buried head down on Box Hill in 1800 - maybe the views weren't always so beautiful. Indeed, some extreme long term parking reminded us that natural beauty is fragile.

I've mentioned wild garlic elsewhere in this blog. Lot's of it on Box Hill but people here call them ramsons. I should have had some to flavour the sausage bap I had for lunch, half way and some four hours into our walk. And the bluebells have just passed their best yet still add wonderful depth to the woodlands.

We passed the King William IV pub a couple of times. Very abstemious, we did not enter. Had we done so, we might have learned they get bread from the Chalk Hills Bakery, the proprietors of the bakery known to me, and who fed me a big dinner after the walk. I must be fair: we did go to The Running Horses in Mickleham for a deserved swift one after 8 hours walking. We covered 31 km and ascended a total of 1100 m. You should do it sometime: do like us, follow the Box Hill Hike twice, once in each direction and add a few bits for grimaces. Mind your knees. Knees. Human knees don't enjoy the cherty cobbles.

We were looking at concrete cylinders topped with cones, remnants of WW2 anti-tank defences from when this area was a military zone and the Dorking Gap was considered a liability in need of serious defence. I'm not sure there was a connection other than manic tiredness and perhaps the apparent futility of these defences, but I was reminded of something Tim Flannery wrote in 'Here on Earth': "... the Bishop of London said in 1917, an average of nine British soldiers died every hour during 1915, while twelve British babies died every hour through that same year." Things have improved by those measures.

To the folk who help organise the Duke of Edinburgh award: please, please advise the participants that bluetooth speakers blasting anthemic rock music and especially "ffing niggaz" rap (my companion can certify) is utterly inappropriate in areas of outstanding natural beauty. Yes, curmudgeon. But you know I'm right.

We wondered what the Belted Galloway cattle were called. And I remembered to look them up because they looked like works of art, standing in the lush fields under blue skies. As is attributed to Picasso: "Art is the lie that enables us to realise the truth." Beef as art. Art as beef.

Louis Stewart died last year, another jazz hero to me. And 'Out on His Own' played me home, a thought to play it coming after I'd seen someone else playing a new Fender before dinner. And that after I discovered that prescription diclofenac is much better for knees than OTC Voltarol. A great day. And you've read this and maybe you'll want to help Care at the top of the page. Thank you for reading and in advance, for your support.

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.

Coast

A warmer and brighter day, we walked flat along the coast and down the East Pier among Bank Holiday throngs. There were prams, ice cream cones and dogs everywhere. The air was hazy and for reasons I don’t yet understand, there were several ships at anchor in the bay. Is there a storm coming?

Unlike the grafitto says on the wall, in a photo I posted yesterday, the first faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low & faint & whispering, today it was the piercing shrieks of children, the key-yahs of common terns fishing and the barking of dogs that broke the silence. We walked past Joyce's Tower and across to the other side of Scotsman's Bay, where we passed his quotation. Would it have been different if he'd been writing in 2016 rather than 1916?

This time in 2011, I was walking the Galtee Mountains during the Ballyhoura Walking Festival, an event that continues. And back then, Leinster Rugby won their semi-final while we were out walking, before taking the European Cup for the second time with a remarkable comeback, a comeback which was nearly but not repeated last week in Lyon.

In the headphones, Gabriel’s Oboe from Ennio Morricone, Williams playing Sarabande, Chopin’s Nocturne No 2 & Impromptu No 4 and Saint-Saëns The Swan, all frustratingly hard to hear over the light wind.

Thought for the day from Bertrand Russell perhaps: “War does not determine who is right - only who is left”

Talking of left, 228 km left after today’s 5 km.

Stendahl

I did two walks today and thereby achieved my walking goals for April (see chart). It was windy and raining and I was wearing all of my rain gear for the full 12 km. I’m quite pleased with my fitness progress, more so with the lack of grief from my knee. And I see we still sit at 68% of our fundraising goal. Come on, be good and sponsor us.

Overheard snippet between two women: I shared my riding school page with my niece three times and she's never liked it.

And a quote from Mark Henwick in his novel Hidden Trump: My paranoia wasn't always right, but just to be on the safe side, I never went to sleep with a clown in the room.

Three mistakes?

And some other things I was thinking about today. I was on Dun Laoghaire pier again, and I was remembering how lucky I was to have had the writer Gerry Hanley as a family friend. We had many conversations, literary and otherwise, especially during the occasional times I drove him home after dinner chez nous. One such night, he asked me to argue the case for my favourite book. I might have answered Lord of the Rings. I could also have comfortably argued for Principles of Physical Geology, a book that changed the direction of my life. And at that time, The Great Gatsby had also been a big influence on me. Yet I know that I replied Scarlet and Black by Stendahl. I had only recently read it and I identified more with the 'coming of age' theme of the young Sorel than I recognised in any of the somewhat seedy Gatsby set including Carraway. Today, I might give a completely different answer. But back then, Scarlet and Black had deeply impressed me. Gerry told me that it had been banned in some countries for being subversive, which made it all the more interesting to me, living as I did, in a repressed, religion tormented third world country of banned opinions amidst the fear of terrorism. I was reminded of this conversation when I read about a condition called Stendahl Syndrome (and another link is that Gerry died in Dun Laoghaire 25 years ago). Anyway, back to the syndrome, said to be common in Florence, as I understand from wikipedia (and I don’t want to be responsible for sending you down that rabbit hole). 

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.