My dog died last year. Juju. She was 14 years old and had various illnesses that just weren't getting any better, so I had to do what was best for her. A week or so later I got a letter from the vets saying her ashes were ready to pick up. I didn't pick them up. I didn't want to. I wanted a break from crying. It was months before I found enough strength to fetch her remains. I was presented with a box with her name on it and a dried flower glued on top and, as expected, I cried.
I'm not religious, so knowing what to do with a box of ashes was puzzling. She was gone and those ashes weren't going to change it. I hid them away as I had images in my head of sneezing into the box and getting a face full of ashes like in a bad sitcom. These thoughts didn't amuse me though, I worried and obsessed over them.
I had an idea of where I could scatter her ashes. There is a spot in Stanmer Park near Brighton where Juju and I would always stop on an hour long walk of ours. I would lean on a wall there and admire the view over the Downs while she panted in the long grass at my feet. About a year after Juju died I made a pilgrimage but when I got there it had all changed: a muddy mountain bike trail sliced through the thicket and the little path to the wall was overgrown. I scattered the ashes and tried to muster a tear but a pair of day-glo cyclists churned around the corner and I stifled my grief. I took the dried flower from the box and squeezed it into the stone wall and slunk away.
Luckily my partner had suggested scattering half of Juju's ashes somewhere closer to home. There's a river on Exmoor with a path by the side of it that I walked with Juju a few times: Horner Water. It's close to my favourite campsite too. In fact, going to that campsite was what started my decision in choosing a black labrador for a dog. There was a black labrador there who belonged to a friend of a friend and I remember how autonomous the dog was, how he seemed to have his own agenda; he wanted to sit by his owner's tent and not by the fire with everyone. When I had a chance to rehome a black labrador I took it straight away. I went back to the campsite much later with Juju. She ran around all the empty firepits and ate the scraps of food that campers had left, not to mention the lumps of charcoal too.
I drove to Horner Water on a rainy autumn day and carried the remainder of Juju's ashes in my rucksack as I tramped through the woods, cocooned in my waterproofs. The floor was a thick bed of sodden, rusty leaves which squelched and squeeked as I walked down the riverside. Hidden stones tripped me and roots grabbed at my boots. It seemed the right kind of weather, the right kind of atmosphere, for laying to rest a close friend.
I reached the spot I had in mind, a plunge pool where the river calmed for a second before crashing onward. A moment of calm. I crossed a footbridge and crouched by the pool so I could get the ashes out of my bag. I had brought a candle with me; I found a hollow in a tree and managed to keep it alight in the rain for a few seconds while I opened the bag of ashes. I clambered down to the pool side and thought about Juju.
I thought about how much she would have liked to be on this walk. About how the rain wouldn't have bothered her. About her spirit. About how alive she still seems sometimes. And about how vague her memory has become at other times. All these things swirled and eddied in my mind as I let go and her ashes sunk into the flow of the river. Gone.
I washed her from my hands and then, completely spontaneously, washed my face with the cold fresh water. It seemed like the natural thing to do. I wanted to be with her, nuzzle her fur like I used to, and this was the closest I could get.
The flame of the candle went out. I packed up, said a last goodbye and carried on with my walk.
It's hard when you're an atheist to find meaning in what seems to be a very religious ceremony. As much as it might be a comforting thought in a time when comfort is sorely needed, I don't believe that she's gone to a better place or that I'm going to see her again. She's gone and that's the way it has to be. But spreading ashes is rarely pointless. It's a purely symbolic gesture and I took what comfort I could from the metaphors the river, the rain, the leaves and the trees could provide.
Friday, 6 January 2017
Friday, 12 August 2016
Subculture
What is this feeling; this hollow, tired-eyed longing? Why do I feel nostalgic for this morning? And why do I seek this feeling again and again?
What happened this morning? I went for a swim. I was up at 7, southbound on the M5 by 8 and in the sea by 9 for a swim to the Hindu Caves at Livermead, Torbay with my swimming group. Charles Kingsley described the caves as being like ‘Hindu temples’ and the name stuck. The caves are well known to the jolly bands of outdoor swimmers in the area as the short swim can be done in summer with little more than an ill-fitting day-glo swim suit and a neon cap, yet it provides enough high adventure to make it worthwhile.
From the traffic noise and concrete walls of Institute Beach and the oppressive UKIP meeting signs on the Livermead Cliff Hotel it’s a quick swim around a rocky outcrop to the series of sandstone sea caves and tunnels that make up the Hindu Caves. This morning the water is perfectly calm as the four of us glide into the water in our wetsuits. The sun is just rising on a warm hazy day and I lower my tinted goggles against the surface sparkles and leisurely skull around the semi-submerged barnacled rocks. One of our group calls me over. I breathe in, put my head down and, with a flutter of my legs, float over, arms by my side so I don’t scare any sea life. She points down as a shoal of tiny sand eels shimmer in and out of existence beneath us like a ripple of euphoria through a crowd. The sunlight flares through the milky sea like lasers in a dark fog-machined room. Everywhere, seaweed sways in union with the gentle swell. I surface, smiling at such an amazing sight and at having shared it with friends.
So why am I feeling so glum now, a few hours later? It’s a feeling I’ve had before. It’s been with me a long time, dwelling just beneath the surface like those sand eels: unseen, hard to grasp, at the will of the current and easily stirred.
My mind reaches back across the chasm of adulthood to my late teens and I realise... it’s a come-down. It’s the same washed-out, existential, listlessness that I would feel after taking ecstacy at raves in the early-Nineties. It’s the same drop after the high. That brief vision of the elusive sand eels is catalyst to a synaptic connection with my raving days.
While swimming outside will never cause me to gurn or roll my eyes or chew my jaw or make stretching my arms out an orgasmic experience like a good pill would do back in 1992, it still makes me happy like nothing else. There's something about being surrounded by something as vast as an ocean, or as deep as a lake, or as cold as a river, that gives a natural high. It's overwhelming to the senses. Endorphins glide through my veins and dopamine floods my nervous system. It heightens my being, thrusts me into life in it's most elemental. It wakes me up and lets me live.
Now that I have the dull responsibilities of adult life to fight back and the fading health of my forty-year old frame to maintain and, not least, a son to inspire, there's no way I would touch drugs again. It's been a long time since I even dabbled as I thankfully grew out of my drug-taking phase when I left for university. Nobody wants to be the last person at a party. But the feeling, the release from social norms and the euphoria, remain embedded in my memory like a scar and the search for that high, for that union, continues like an itch.
I've searched for it in the rush of adrenaline on stage in a carnival band, reaching nerve-fuelled highs with friends that we would drink away afterwards; in working at a summer camp in America while at university, ingratiating myself into strong cliques. I've found it in sex, festivals, group holidays… always the goal of togetherness, elation and transcendence. And now the simple act of swimming outdoors is providing me with so much of these elusive states of being.
The start of the sea caves come into view and we enter a cathedral of rock. Scrambling on all fours, we explore the arches and columns, the ledges and crannies, clambering when we have to, swimming when we can. The waves shunt into the hollows and produce powerful subwoofer booms that rattle my chest and unnerve me. The spray lands back on the surface in an electric fizz. Heaving ourselves on to a rock platform we stand together wowing at the bizarre sight of a pair of swans on the sea. Even the manky old pigeons hiding in the crevices that flap away at our approach seem exotic in the surreal turquoise glow of the sea. My friends have made this trip countless times but they still exclaim at the wonder of it, at the unrealness. It's like we've entered another world. We've broken through the surface and found a parallel universe right next to our own workaday reality.
I always find this when I go swimming outdoors. The second I put my head underwater, the second my eyes acclimatise to the darkened new world, it's like I've gone somewhere else, to another planet almost – somewhere that's so close to our existence but so alien and intangible; a place that doesn't belong to us, where normal rules don't apply, but that we can visit and glimpse in fleeting gulps. Even gravity surrenders in this domain.
And it's so much like going through the doors of a rave in the Nineties. Raves had an otherworldly quality: entrancing and alluring. My friends and I would go to the same rave every week: Quest in Wolverhampton. After queuing up for two hours every Saturday night we would practically run through the doors and up the stairs into our own little playground. It was a magical, pulsating, urban bubble in the middle of the Midlands where we felt anything could happen. Time would lose meaning as moments became measured in beats and bass. Day-glo images were painted on black canvases hung from the walls providing a surreal background to our silly antics. We would dance, sway, hug and sweat our way through the laser-lit night; proclaim our love, gush to strangers and let the bass wash over us, through us, giving in, smiling. We would make our own weekly utopia where class, race and background made no difference and gravity hardly seemed to matter.
Although I don't see much racial diversity in the swimming community, people do comment on how it is a great leveller. In our swimming group alone there is a doctor, a yoga teacher and a graphic designer and all sorts of different political persuasions; disparate lives bonded by our in-the-moment experiences, equal in the water. And we look out for each other too, making sure we're safe. I’ve been on swims where strangers have bent my feet back to help me get rid of cramp. Such camaraderie makes strong bonds between us. It's important for our safety but it's also a happy side-effect of swimming in groups. The standoffishness, reservedness and narrow-minded prejudices of normal life wash off in the water.
It was the release from normality that appealed to me back in my heyday, both in taking ecstacy and in the environment of the rave. People were genuinely nice to each other. Barriers came down. All that macho posturing and role playing dissipated in the heady atmosphere. After years of having the piss taken out of me for being lanky I had people coming up to me saying how amazing it was that I was tall. My confidence grew. I shed my awkwardness. I could express myself and I was accepted. I know it was drug-fuelled, I knew it back then. I know the ten quid I had to pay every week to gain access to my utopian society didn't exactly make it a free commune, but I don't care: it was life-affirming and essential. At last, the outsider belonged. I had done that thing so important to all young people: I had found my tribe. As the lights went up at the end of the night, someone always half-jokingly wondered if we could live in the nightclub, leaving our inherited social constraints and lacklustre reality at the door.
It was always a disappointment to find a drizzly Wolverhampton outside, oblivious to the dream we had been living for a few short hours.
And after our trip to the Hindu Caves, back on shore in Torquay, life goes on, and it jars. My wetsuit looks ridiculous. Yet there's still the camaraderie of my swimming group as we shlock out of wetsuits and guzzle flasks of hot tea, happily chatting about our shared experience and already planning our next expedition before saying goodbye and see you again soon.
Some of the happiest times of my raving days were spent after the party, meeting up with new friends on motorway services, swapping stories and squinting in the brash morning sunlight, wandering around in baggy sweat-stained clothes as weird-looking normal people stared at us. Or flopping across couches when parents were away, watching Top Banana on telly as the ghosts of rhythms pounded through us, smoking weed and waiting for sunrise. Or simply down the pub afterwards, nodding on sticky wooden tables and supping on the cheapest drink behind the bar: soda and black. Always trying to decompress and readjust to normal life.
And then the come down. The longing. The thought of another humdrum week of work. The grasping at fading memories that don't make sense. The loss of context. The fear of what could have happened. The question of if the sadness is worth the high. The loneliness. The tiredness. Until... sleep.
Just like in my late teens, outdoor swimming is an experience that’s hard to translate. Other people say that it’s not for them or that they don’t like the feel of seaweed on their legs or that they couldn't stand the cold. Such comments leave me exasperated and alienated but draw me closer to the understanding of the swimming community, just as rave drew me into its subculture and clique. Others just don't understand and maybe it's better that way.
Swimming has become as encompassing as rave culture was. If I'm not swimming I'm wondering where I could swim next. My Facebook feed is full of swim-related posts. Work becomes a chore to get through to reach the weekend. I remember that feeling at college, the days dragging.
Except, this time, things are different. I'm in control of it for a start. My family keep me grounded. Natural highs are, by definition, healthier than stuffing god-knows-what chemicals down my throat. They're a lot cheaper too. They're socially acceptable and, dare I say it, a lot more legal! Although I sentimentalise my raving days, I couldn't go back. Even the thought exhausts me.
The acceptance I gained at raves and from taking ecstacy in the Nineties changed my life. I went from a painfully shy, self-conscious teenager to the somewhat reserved but unabashed man I hope I am today. And now, with all the trappings of family life, swimming gives me an identity and an escape. I sometimes wonder if the highs of taking ecstacy twenty-odd years ago have caused me to have such crashing lows today. Who's to know? But the search for that high, the drive for new and breathtaking experiences, for empathy with others, leads me to a more fulfilling life and I hope it never stops.
What happened this morning? I went for a swim. I was up at 7, southbound on the M5 by 8 and in the sea by 9 for a swim to the Hindu Caves at Livermead, Torbay with my swimming group. Charles Kingsley described the caves as being like ‘Hindu temples’ and the name stuck. The caves are well known to the jolly bands of outdoor swimmers in the area as the short swim can be done in summer with little more than an ill-fitting day-glo swim suit and a neon cap, yet it provides enough high adventure to make it worthwhile.
From the traffic noise and concrete walls of Institute Beach and the oppressive UKIP meeting signs on the Livermead Cliff Hotel it’s a quick swim around a rocky outcrop to the series of sandstone sea caves and tunnels that make up the Hindu Caves. This morning the water is perfectly calm as the four of us glide into the water in our wetsuits. The sun is just rising on a warm hazy day and I lower my tinted goggles against the surface sparkles and leisurely skull around the semi-submerged barnacled rocks. One of our group calls me over. I breathe in, put my head down and, with a flutter of my legs, float over, arms by my side so I don’t scare any sea life. She points down as a shoal of tiny sand eels shimmer in and out of existence beneath us like a ripple of euphoria through a crowd. The sunlight flares through the milky sea like lasers in a dark fog-machined room. Everywhere, seaweed sways in union with the gentle swell. I surface, smiling at such an amazing sight and at having shared it with friends.
So why am I feeling so glum now, a few hours later? It’s a feeling I’ve had before. It’s been with me a long time, dwelling just beneath the surface like those sand eels: unseen, hard to grasp, at the will of the current and easily stirred.
My mind reaches back across the chasm of adulthood to my late teens and I realise... it’s a come-down. It’s the same washed-out, existential, listlessness that I would feel after taking ecstacy at raves in the early-Nineties. It’s the same drop after the high. That brief vision of the elusive sand eels is catalyst to a synaptic connection with my raving days.
While swimming outside will never cause me to gurn or roll my eyes or chew my jaw or make stretching my arms out an orgasmic experience like a good pill would do back in 1992, it still makes me happy like nothing else. There's something about being surrounded by something as vast as an ocean, or as deep as a lake, or as cold as a river, that gives a natural high. It's overwhelming to the senses. Endorphins glide through my veins and dopamine floods my nervous system. It heightens my being, thrusts me into life in it's most elemental. It wakes me up and lets me live.
Now that I have the dull responsibilities of adult life to fight back and the fading health of my forty-year old frame to maintain and, not least, a son to inspire, there's no way I would touch drugs again. It's been a long time since I even dabbled as I thankfully grew out of my drug-taking phase when I left for university. Nobody wants to be the last person at a party. But the feeling, the release from social norms and the euphoria, remain embedded in my memory like a scar and the search for that high, for that union, continues like an itch.
I've searched for it in the rush of adrenaline on stage in a carnival band, reaching nerve-fuelled highs with friends that we would drink away afterwards; in working at a summer camp in America while at university, ingratiating myself into strong cliques. I've found it in sex, festivals, group holidays… always the goal of togetherness, elation and transcendence. And now the simple act of swimming outdoors is providing me with so much of these elusive states of being.
The start of the sea caves come into view and we enter a cathedral of rock. Scrambling on all fours, we explore the arches and columns, the ledges and crannies, clambering when we have to, swimming when we can. The waves shunt into the hollows and produce powerful subwoofer booms that rattle my chest and unnerve me. The spray lands back on the surface in an electric fizz. Heaving ourselves on to a rock platform we stand together wowing at the bizarre sight of a pair of swans on the sea. Even the manky old pigeons hiding in the crevices that flap away at our approach seem exotic in the surreal turquoise glow of the sea. My friends have made this trip countless times but they still exclaim at the wonder of it, at the unrealness. It's like we've entered another world. We've broken through the surface and found a parallel universe right next to our own workaday reality.
I always find this when I go swimming outdoors. The second I put my head underwater, the second my eyes acclimatise to the darkened new world, it's like I've gone somewhere else, to another planet almost – somewhere that's so close to our existence but so alien and intangible; a place that doesn't belong to us, where normal rules don't apply, but that we can visit and glimpse in fleeting gulps. Even gravity surrenders in this domain.
And it's so much like going through the doors of a rave in the Nineties. Raves had an otherworldly quality: entrancing and alluring. My friends and I would go to the same rave every week: Quest in Wolverhampton. After queuing up for two hours every Saturday night we would practically run through the doors and up the stairs into our own little playground. It was a magical, pulsating, urban bubble in the middle of the Midlands where we felt anything could happen. Time would lose meaning as moments became measured in beats and bass. Day-glo images were painted on black canvases hung from the walls providing a surreal background to our silly antics. We would dance, sway, hug and sweat our way through the laser-lit night; proclaim our love, gush to strangers and let the bass wash over us, through us, giving in, smiling. We would make our own weekly utopia where class, race and background made no difference and gravity hardly seemed to matter.
Although I don't see much racial diversity in the swimming community, people do comment on how it is a great leveller. In our swimming group alone there is a doctor, a yoga teacher and a graphic designer and all sorts of different political persuasions; disparate lives bonded by our in-the-moment experiences, equal in the water. And we look out for each other too, making sure we're safe. I’ve been on swims where strangers have bent my feet back to help me get rid of cramp. Such camaraderie makes strong bonds between us. It's important for our safety but it's also a happy side-effect of swimming in groups. The standoffishness, reservedness and narrow-minded prejudices of normal life wash off in the water.
It was the release from normality that appealed to me back in my heyday, both in taking ecstacy and in the environment of the rave. People were genuinely nice to each other. Barriers came down. All that macho posturing and role playing dissipated in the heady atmosphere. After years of having the piss taken out of me for being lanky I had people coming up to me saying how amazing it was that I was tall. My confidence grew. I shed my awkwardness. I could express myself and I was accepted. I know it was drug-fuelled, I knew it back then. I know the ten quid I had to pay every week to gain access to my utopian society didn't exactly make it a free commune, but I don't care: it was life-affirming and essential. At last, the outsider belonged. I had done that thing so important to all young people: I had found my tribe. As the lights went up at the end of the night, someone always half-jokingly wondered if we could live in the nightclub, leaving our inherited social constraints and lacklustre reality at the door.
It was always a disappointment to find a drizzly Wolverhampton outside, oblivious to the dream we had been living for a few short hours.
And after our trip to the Hindu Caves, back on shore in Torquay, life goes on, and it jars. My wetsuit looks ridiculous. Yet there's still the camaraderie of my swimming group as we shlock out of wetsuits and guzzle flasks of hot tea, happily chatting about our shared experience and already planning our next expedition before saying goodbye and see you again soon.
Some of the happiest times of my raving days were spent after the party, meeting up with new friends on motorway services, swapping stories and squinting in the brash morning sunlight, wandering around in baggy sweat-stained clothes as weird-looking normal people stared at us. Or flopping across couches when parents were away, watching Top Banana on telly as the ghosts of rhythms pounded through us, smoking weed and waiting for sunrise. Or simply down the pub afterwards, nodding on sticky wooden tables and supping on the cheapest drink behind the bar: soda and black. Always trying to decompress and readjust to normal life.
And then the come down. The longing. The thought of another humdrum week of work. The grasping at fading memories that don't make sense. The loss of context. The fear of what could have happened. The question of if the sadness is worth the high. The loneliness. The tiredness. Until... sleep.
Just like in my late teens, outdoor swimming is an experience that’s hard to translate. Other people say that it’s not for them or that they don’t like the feel of seaweed on their legs or that they couldn't stand the cold. Such comments leave me exasperated and alienated but draw me closer to the understanding of the swimming community, just as rave drew me into its subculture and clique. Others just don't understand and maybe it's better that way.
Swimming has become as encompassing as rave culture was. If I'm not swimming I'm wondering where I could swim next. My Facebook feed is full of swim-related posts. Work becomes a chore to get through to reach the weekend. I remember that feeling at college, the days dragging.
Except, this time, things are different. I'm in control of it for a start. My family keep me grounded. Natural highs are, by definition, healthier than stuffing god-knows-what chemicals down my throat. They're a lot cheaper too. They're socially acceptable and, dare I say it, a lot more legal! Although I sentimentalise my raving days, I couldn't go back. Even the thought exhausts me.
The acceptance I gained at raves and from taking ecstacy in the Nineties changed my life. I went from a painfully shy, self-conscious teenager to the somewhat reserved but unabashed man I hope I am today. And now, with all the trappings of family life, swimming gives me an identity and an escape. I sometimes wonder if the highs of taking ecstacy twenty-odd years ago have caused me to have such crashing lows today. Who's to know? But the search for that high, the drive for new and breathtaking experiences, for empathy with others, leads me to a more fulfilling life and I hope it never stops.
Thursday, 21 July 2016
Thurlestone Rock
The hottest day of the year so far. So hot that even the air-conditioning has given up for the day as I drive down to South Devon after work. I swelter down endless country lanes until I round a corner and see it: an arch in the middle of the bay like a noble statue in the middle of a town square: Thurlestone Rock.
I meet up with the Happy Wild Swimming group with the aim of swimming out to this tiny tidal island. I've been so hot all day that I wonder about swimming without my wetsuit on. A quick reccy at the waters edge soon dissuades me. "Sod that." I go and get my wetsuit from the car.
It's been a while since I've swum in the sea and I'm nervous. I don't know what I'm scared of exactly but the rock seems a long way away, the sea feels gargantuan and intimidating at eye level as we enter the water and it's cold and smells of rotten seaweed. I get my head under the surface for a second and loose tendrils of seaweed appear in front of my goggles making me jump and splutter. Clouds begin to encroach on the sky and darken the water. Through the murk I see the shadow of a shoal of fish. They're making way for us as we swim towards the rock. The sight fills me with delight and dread in equal parts.
As I acclimatise to the cold sea, I swim with my head down in the water, surveying the crevices in the rock beneath me for creatures. I stop for a break and all of sudden the rock is right there in front of me. Now I can see the arch properly as it lies perpendicular to the beach. It's a grand sight, towering above us like a jagged slice of cathedral dome. We swim through and play on the slightly submerged rocks. Someone spots a compass jellyfish beneath them, its dirty brown crossed dome sinks into the seaweed as I float over, its tentacles sprawling menacingly. Then a blue jellyfish, neon and otherworldly. As the slight current moves the seaweed and me at the same time I have the disorienting illusion of enormous boulders on the sea floor washing around in the waves.
A group of teenagers in bikinis and shorts have swum out to the rock and start bombing each other, shouting and laughing. I feel like a wimp.
In a wave of melancholia I wonder why I've driven for two hours in a hot car just to swim to a rock. Do I like swimming as much as I convince myself? Is it worth it? Really? A gush of cold water floods down my back.
I take my time swimming back, not wanting to be in the hot car again, chatting to a swimming friend as we scull backwards to the shore, the rock towering over us with translucent clouds behind it backlit by the setting sun.
In the shallows some of us get our wetsuits off in the water to save the usual squeaky wrestling match on the beach. We throw them in a pile of neoprene and dive back into the water with just swimming costumes on. It's a fresh jolt and we whoop with the shock. It feels good.
Then, without discussion, without foresight, we swim back towards the rock. I swim with a fast pace to try and warm up, grabbing lungfuls of air as I power along, shoveling sea water behind me. The sun finally breaks free and lights up the sea beneath me as it rushes past, seaweed fronds billowing. My body feels free of restriction and I stretch my arms to the horizon with each stroke, the cold tickling my ribs, my muscles taut. I look up and my friends are doing the same, heads down, racing to the rock. Even quicker than before, we're back in the shadows of Thurlestone Rock. I swim away from the others, full of confidence now and too cold to stop and chat anyway. As I round the rock the low sun appears from behind it and blasts through the water in front of me, showing up its deep range of aqua hues.
I look around me and take it all in: the hotel on the headland bathing in the last light of the day; the crowds on the beach slowly dispersing, sticky with suncream; the multi-layered clouds above me and, framed through the arch, Burgh Island in the distance with it's magnificent Art Deco hotel. I'm buzzing with the light and the cold and the view.
On the drive home, Book at Bedtime on the radio, I know it was worth it. Swims always are.
I meet up with the Happy Wild Swimming group with the aim of swimming out to this tiny tidal island. I've been so hot all day that I wonder about swimming without my wetsuit on. A quick reccy at the waters edge soon dissuades me. "Sod that." I go and get my wetsuit from the car.
It's been a while since I've swum in the sea and I'm nervous. I don't know what I'm scared of exactly but the rock seems a long way away, the sea feels gargantuan and intimidating at eye level as we enter the water and it's cold and smells of rotten seaweed. I get my head under the surface for a second and loose tendrils of seaweed appear in front of my goggles making me jump and splutter. Clouds begin to encroach on the sky and darken the water. Through the murk I see the shadow of a shoal of fish. They're making way for us as we swim towards the rock. The sight fills me with delight and dread in equal parts.
As I acclimatise to the cold sea, I swim with my head down in the water, surveying the crevices in the rock beneath me for creatures. I stop for a break and all of sudden the rock is right there in front of me. Now I can see the arch properly as it lies perpendicular to the beach. It's a grand sight, towering above us like a jagged slice of cathedral dome. We swim through and play on the slightly submerged rocks. Someone spots a compass jellyfish beneath them, its dirty brown crossed dome sinks into the seaweed as I float over, its tentacles sprawling menacingly. Then a blue jellyfish, neon and otherworldly. As the slight current moves the seaweed and me at the same time I have the disorienting illusion of enormous boulders on the sea floor washing around in the waves.
A group of teenagers in bikinis and shorts have swum out to the rock and start bombing each other, shouting and laughing. I feel like a wimp.
In a wave of melancholia I wonder why I've driven for two hours in a hot car just to swim to a rock. Do I like swimming as much as I convince myself? Is it worth it? Really? A gush of cold water floods down my back.
I take my time swimming back, not wanting to be in the hot car again, chatting to a swimming friend as we scull backwards to the shore, the rock towering over us with translucent clouds behind it backlit by the setting sun.
In the shallows some of us get our wetsuits off in the water to save the usual squeaky wrestling match on the beach. We throw them in a pile of neoprene and dive back into the water with just swimming costumes on. It's a fresh jolt and we whoop with the shock. It feels good.
Then, without discussion, without foresight, we swim back towards the rock. I swim with a fast pace to try and warm up, grabbing lungfuls of air as I power along, shoveling sea water behind me. The sun finally breaks free and lights up the sea beneath me as it rushes past, seaweed fronds billowing. My body feels free of restriction and I stretch my arms to the horizon with each stroke, the cold tickling my ribs, my muscles taut. I look up and my friends are doing the same, heads down, racing to the rock. Even quicker than before, we're back in the shadows of Thurlestone Rock. I swim away from the others, full of confidence now and too cold to stop and chat anyway. As I round the rock the low sun appears from behind it and blasts through the water in front of me, showing up its deep range of aqua hues.
I look around me and take it all in: the hotel on the headland bathing in the last light of the day; the crowds on the beach slowly dispersing, sticky with suncream; the multi-layered clouds above me and, framed through the arch, Burgh Island in the distance with it's magnificent Art Deco hotel. I'm buzzing with the light and the cold and the view.
On the drive home, Book at Bedtime on the radio, I know it was worth it. Swims always are.
Monday, 18 July 2016
Plan B
It was a weekend of the plan B.
I'd been promising Elliott that we would go camping for, what… a year? With his mum going away for the weekend the promises became more authentic, acknowledged and inescapable. So, with a car full of tent, firewood and potatoes, and a very excited boy, I pulled up to the campsite on Exmoor that I'd been talking about for the last two weeks.
Campsite full. I stared at the sign in disbelief. I read it apologetically to Elliott and it didn't quite register with him either. "Does that mean we can't get in?" he said. His hot face crumpled and tears instantly welled up.
"Don't worry, we'll find somewhere else." I said quickly, just about managing to plug the dyke.
Plan B.
A quick map consultation and I found the pink mark highlighting the splendidly named Cloud Farm Campsite and we were on our way. Thankfully it wasn't full (don't think I wasn't dreading that scenario) and we pulled up in the loveliest of campsites and parked next to the river. One happy boy, one parenting point to me.
I wanted this trip to be more like the camping I did on the Duke of Edinburgh Awards when I was a teenager so I thought we would sleep in a smaller, two-man tent that I had enjoyed for years before Elliott was born. Quite a few years. 16 to be exact and it was second hand when I bought it. I unravelled it and ignored the musty smell. I looped the poles through the frail elastic hoops and overlooked the bird poo on the roof. I pegged out the flysheet and dismissed the strange shape the dome made. Elliott looked inside and said "It's too small". Then there was a slight gust of wind and the whole tent sagged and flattened like a wet cardboard box.
Plan B.
A last minute decision to put the massive family-sized tent in the roof box paid off. I bundled the broken tent back into the car and rolled out the new one. Elliott ran over to me and gave me a big hug. "Yay! I love this tent!" Camping gods: 0, me: 2.
I don't think of myself as the kind of person who deals with adversity well. I come from a family who, when plans don't go well, will turn the situation into a catastrophe, immediately abandon hope, blame as many others for their misfortune as possible and retell the story as a Shakesperian tragedy. But, for this weekend at least, I didn't. I dealt with each problem like it was just another twist in the tale.
Even though the campsite wasn't the one I had chosen and the tent wasn't what I imagined, the weekend was a success (my camp chair fell into the fire but that's by the by). Elliott went feral and came back from playing with two new friends covered in mud and marshmallows. I got to sit in front of a fire and stare at a darkening river for a moment. And we both went home having learned a few good life lessons.
I'd been promising Elliott that we would go camping for, what… a year? With his mum going away for the weekend the promises became more authentic, acknowledged and inescapable. So, with a car full of tent, firewood and potatoes, and a very excited boy, I pulled up to the campsite on Exmoor that I'd been talking about for the last two weeks.
Campsite full. I stared at the sign in disbelief. I read it apologetically to Elliott and it didn't quite register with him either. "Does that mean we can't get in?" he said. His hot face crumpled and tears instantly welled up.
"Don't worry, we'll find somewhere else." I said quickly, just about managing to plug the dyke.
Plan B.
A quick map consultation and I found the pink mark highlighting the splendidly named Cloud Farm Campsite and we were on our way. Thankfully it wasn't full (don't think I wasn't dreading that scenario) and we pulled up in the loveliest of campsites and parked next to the river. One happy boy, one parenting point to me.
I wanted this trip to be more like the camping I did on the Duke of Edinburgh Awards when I was a teenager so I thought we would sleep in a smaller, two-man tent that I had enjoyed for years before Elliott was born. Quite a few years. 16 to be exact and it was second hand when I bought it. I unravelled it and ignored the musty smell. I looped the poles through the frail elastic hoops and overlooked the bird poo on the roof. I pegged out the flysheet and dismissed the strange shape the dome made. Elliott looked inside and said "It's too small". Then there was a slight gust of wind and the whole tent sagged and flattened like a wet cardboard box.
Plan B.
A last minute decision to put the massive family-sized tent in the roof box paid off. I bundled the broken tent back into the car and rolled out the new one. Elliott ran over to me and gave me a big hug. "Yay! I love this tent!" Camping gods: 0, me: 2.
I don't think of myself as the kind of person who deals with adversity well. I come from a family who, when plans don't go well, will turn the situation into a catastrophe, immediately abandon hope, blame as many others for their misfortune as possible and retell the story as a Shakesperian tragedy. But, for this weekend at least, I didn't. I dealt with each problem like it was just another twist in the tale.
Even though the campsite wasn't the one I had chosen and the tent wasn't what I imagined, the weekend was a success (my camp chair fell into the fire but that's by the by). Elliott went feral and came back from playing with two new friends covered in mud and marshmallows. I got to sit in front of a fire and stare at a darkening river for a moment. And we both went home having learned a few good life lessons.
Tuesday, 12 July 2016
Goldfinch in Longrun Meadow
A woman stopped her bicycle on the riverside path to ask what we were looking at. A blackcap, one of our group said. She peered across the river to where we were looking. "It's well camouflaged isn't it?" I couldn't see it either but I had it on good authority that the Emperor wasn't in the altogether because natural historian Stephen Moss said so as he led a guided walk around the centre of Taunton.
I followed and asked questions and looked around me like a dog snapping at flies. It was the end of the day and after-work runners bounced past, rush-hour traffic settled down into a hum and a warm sheen descended on the town. A white blossom wafted around in great drifts and crunched like snow underfoot.
Stephen strode on and knocked out bird names: goldfinch, dunnock, green woodpecker. He pointed to the ones he could see. Too well-hidden for me to distinguish.
We walked across Longrun Meadow, a big area of long grass and coppiced trees close to the town centre, to what has become known as the Willow Cathedral, a domed structure grown from willow. We sheltered in its half shade and perfect bird hide quality.
And then, a small bird landed right above me. A goldfinch. I knew its red painted face and bright yellow patches from the porcelain birds my parents had on their mantelpiece when I was growing up. I watched it for a quiet minute as it twittered on top of the willow branch, looked around and then fluttered away. A moment of communion in the centre of Taunton. A moment of realisation, too, that I needed to slow down and look, and listen, for the life around me to sharpen and focus.
I followed and asked questions and looked around me like a dog snapping at flies. It was the end of the day and after-work runners bounced past, rush-hour traffic settled down into a hum and a warm sheen descended on the town. A white blossom wafted around in great drifts and crunched like snow underfoot.
Stephen strode on and knocked out bird names: goldfinch, dunnock, green woodpecker. He pointed to the ones he could see. Too well-hidden for me to distinguish.
We walked across Longrun Meadow, a big area of long grass and coppiced trees close to the town centre, to what has become known as the Willow Cathedral, a domed structure grown from willow. We sheltered in its half shade and perfect bird hide quality.
And then, a small bird landed right above me. A goldfinch. I knew its red painted face and bright yellow patches from the porcelain birds my parents had on their mantelpiece when I was growing up. I watched it for a quiet minute as it twittered on top of the willow branch, looked around and then fluttered away. A moment of communion in the centre of Taunton. A moment of realisation, too, that I needed to slow down and look, and listen, for the life around me to sharpen and focus.
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