Breathe deep

Saturday was delicious.  After a Friday night out in Manchester, drinking champagne, eating good food with an old friend at Jack Spratt we found ourselves watching the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony in Manchester's Corn Exchange Square on the big screen.  Along with a suitably mellow and multi nationality crowd who cheered at seemingly random intervals at the different flag bearers.  Personally I couldn't speak for gaping at the Fijian lead athlete.  But because I had an appointment with the television Saturday afternoon (men's Olympic road race) Saturday morning had to be early and slick if I was going to sneak out into the countryside with the trusty Boardman hardtail. 

A slightly disappointing start to the day when Tesco were out of almond croissants but a guilty pleasure instead of starting the day with chocolate as the substitute chocolate croissant was selected.  And then there was me and the bike, in the car travelling along the motorway to the good old reliable Rivington.  Which proved as much pleasure as ever, and indeed possibly more. 

There's something rather wonderful about Rivington.  It feels so personally mine, a quiet and solitary pleasure, something which feels like it's there just for me.  A hum of belonging and love.  Today, I mixed it up.  Changed the route.  Searched for more joy and was not disappointed.  I took my normal route and reversed it.  Realised that normally the hardest climbs are the knobbly ones, which is absolutely fine but somehow leads the the most glorious descents being on the road.  Surely, I thought, I can do better than this on the downhill.  And it proved beautifully and perfectly true.  The swooping lanes I normally glide down became slightly less than unrelenting climbs, perfectly do-able and a medium challenge which mostly related to a mud induced reluctance of the bike to get into the inner ring (note to self, bike maintenance ...).  And the normal climbs became rather perfect descents.

I admit to myself quietly I am attempting something you could possibly, if you were being particularly probing describe as "training".  A bit of an anathema to me really.  Bike riding is just that, riding, it's not training because implicit in the word training is a longer phrase of "training for ..." which does actually start to fit the bill now flights are actually booked for a MTB holiday in the Pyrenees.  Me, spend consecutive days in the saddle?  Long days?  Oh. To properly enjoy it, I realise I should at the very least make sure I can cope with being in the saddle for longer periods, which is more a shorts and saddle issue than anything else.  So I'm working on it, OK?  With this in mind, I added loops to the Rivington ride. 

The first loop I added in was Healey Nab, a delightful volunteer purpose built mountain bike single track run through the hillside woodland.  I've never done it before because previously the Rivington route has meant that this is somewhere towards the back end of the ride and I'm always worried about how long it will take and will I survive.  But doing the route backwards means it's in the first quarter, so what the hell and why not, and crack on were phrases in my head.  And it was spectacularly solitary, that feeling of just you sweeping through a forest, even though you know it's a somewhat contrived trail, it feels suitably real, and indeed joyous.

Much to my own surprise I also added in a lengthy road climb.  Just to have the joy of being here: Belmont Road which is a relatively flat (well, a slight incline then a slight descent) bridleway of a few miles in length.  It's so knobbly there is no point trying to pick a line.  The road fights the bike, the bike fights you, and it's a masochist's fest of sheer love, delight and frankly ecstasy.  Somehow in my head as I ride it Nights in White Satin races through my head and leads to a crescendo of "oh how I love you" which in my mind is being sung by a chorus of increasing size because the song has to encompass a love of being, of the bike, and of the whole damn world of semi cobbled trails.  Which  is why I leave you with:

"Gazing at people, some hand in hand,
Just what I'm going through they can't understand.
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,
Just what you want to be, you will be in the end.

And I love you, yes I love you,
Oh how I love you, oh how I love you."

And because I am an old burd, and this may not be familiar to many:

Wanna ZigZag

Trying to somehow express what motivates me.  What it is I'm doing with my life here and now, in the absolute and concrete present, and how that transitions through into the beautiful and enormous future.  You have to remember that life does not start on 7th September (the day I leave this prestigious establishment).  Life started some years ago, but in my reality, it starts each and every day.  Life starts today, but it also started yesterday and will surely start again tomorrow.  So, the burning aching drive is not something which is on hold, waiting, building and only coming into being on the 7th September.  It is here now.  The yearning is now, the feeling is now, the buzzing in my feet, the tickling on their soles, the pulse running down my neck, the molten lava in my belly and the lung stretched feeling in my chest is all now.  It's not something I'm waiting for or building towards. It's now, and I'm not accepting compromise.

If I stop and say what is it I yearn for, what do I want, we're not talking the biggest chasm in the world between where I am and where I want to be (we're talking some kind of head stuff now not physical, OK?). I can see the place I'd like to be in and it's not an almighty step to get there, and progress begins now, not tomorrow.  This, after all, is not a diet.

And if none of this makes any sense, perhaps this will:

The Invitation- Oriah Mountain Dreamer


Last night I did the red run at Llandegla after work.  One of the coaches at work suggested I came along and indeed drove me there, and we met up with a friend of mine (by arrangement), and did the run.  The coach is young, fit, slim, skilled and has those calf muscles which should have immediately set off the alarm bells in my head over just how fast he was going to be.  And riding with someone fast is good because I push myself harder.  Which meant by this morning I was tired and faced the prospect of cycling to work as the logistics of travel yesterday had required my car to remain in the work car park.

Cycling tired, both mentally and in the legs is an act of meditation. I didn't notice the journey, not really one bit of the 50 minute pedal.  But what I did do was draft a poem, and that somehow regained a piece of me who has been missing for a few weeks.  Tapped into true strong feelings which is the only way I can write with fire and passion.

And today's song in my head features mostly the Spice Girls (I hold my head up high as I say this, and look you directly in the eye).

"Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ha.

If you want my future forget my past,
If you wanna get with me better make it fast,
Now don't go wasting my precious time,
Get your act together we could be just fine"

Little space

Windgather in the evening sun.  Something almost meditational about being there.  Climbing is a curious pastime.  In my eyes, the purpose of climbing is to form part of a journey, to chose a route not everyone would take, in a whole metaphor for life and how we live.  Somehow though, despite the convention for climbing requiring two people, one to climb and one to safely belay them, it is still an activity you do alone, with that feeling of isolated silence despite the presence of other people.  To climb at a crag like Windgather isn't really to climb, not to me, it's something else again, it's more a rehearsal, something not real, a trial run of something hopefully bigger, and as you climb you dream of larger spaces, somehow within yourself yet outside.  Absorbed in the moment and yet somehow part of the warm air over the hills which stretch to the horizon. 

There's a curious feeling about spending time on something which has no tangible purpose, has no meaning, isn't somehow a step on a journey. It's just doing something to be there. To be real.  To simply exist.

So many decisions I've made haven't felt deliberate, have had no true design behind or in front of them, yet have been made without hesitation.  I've always kind of known my direction, my mind, never paused in a dilemma between two roads, and yet like Robert Frost, when

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,"

that's what my instinct seems to have done, to take me by the less traveled route.  It's a quiet passion which warmly resides in me.  No less a passion for life for being self contained.  A rounded dark grey stone, it'll never be eroded and in its centre is a blaze of light and fire which is mine, white hot and cherished and it'll not go out, it can't be touched from the outside.  But it's there, and it's mine.

And today I have a sense of doors slamming, which brings me to this by Jimmy Nail.

"and then she kisses me
and somewhere I hear a door slam
so I say 'fine'
and just hope that I'm a better liar
than she is"

Feeling Groovy

It's truly been all about the bike for the last few days.  Like buses they come in threes.  It all started with a Saturday plan to hit the trail centre with the mountain bike.  Then there was a promising weather forecast and a leaning towards the idea of getting out on the Friday night and camping.  Which was a blinding plan.  Somehow I decided to tack onto the front end of the weekend a Thursday night ride too, feeling kind of somehow unexercised and lethargic. 

Thursday night though I took out the hybrid on the uncomplicated muddy off road trails near to home, and after a bit of planning found a loop which was so much fun I did it twice.  The hybrid tackled it all with a curiously elegant ease, having larger wheels and somehow a far more reliable gear set up than the MTB.  Covered in mud, the hybrid looked oddly ungainly, being more a sedate road beast of burden with generally no more than the splashes of oil, grease and grime from the tarmac road.  Somehow the ride was right though, and the hybrid stamped its stamp of rightness on the activity, and we fell in love all over again.

The third of the buses related to shopping.  Every girl's favorite activity for sure.  Marshalling the troops in the form of one old boyfriend and one random encounter cyclist, as a group of three we made our way here:

http://www.alfjonescycles.co.uk/

And this pretty much is what I ended up buying:

http://www.dotbike.com/p/2626

It'll be coming home within a week.  I am excited. It is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Sunday was the final day of pedalling, out around Hayfield way.  And I confess I was tired, so tired, the last half hour of the ride I knew my shoulders had dropped, and things which had worked before, such as legs for example were no longer operational.  And by the evening walking uphill was hurting.  I'm not used to consecutive days on the bike, but it has to happen as I have plans, peeps, big plans. As ever.

And here, gratuitously after the best day for British riders in the Tour de France is a photo which brings a smile to my face as Bradley Wiggins feels the joy of the National Anthem ... consider it my celebration.

And today is brought to you by Simon and Garfunkel:

"Slow down, you move too fast, you've got to make the morning last
Just kickin' down the cobble-stones, lookin' for fun and feelin' groovy"

Voulez Vous

There's a lot of book learning going on.  The library is seeing some trade from me in terms of European guide books, the internet is seeing some action, it's all about the research.

But then there's the language skills.  My recent trip to France to watch the end of a stage of the Tour de France cemented for me the need to brush up.  In French I am on transmit only mode.  I can kind of get by in making myself understood, I can ask for coffee and wine.  Life's essentials you understand.  In fact, I can ask for all kinds of things; food, directions, reservations.  Trouble is, the answers leave me standing gaping with fish like mouth movements and a puzzled frown.  So I decided to attempt to do something about it.  Only my French mind you, the whole idea of trying whilst struggling with one language to attempt to gain even rudimentary Spanish or Italian right now makes me want to whimper and suck my thumb in a corner.

So I ordered a tentative toe in the water type French CD of the learn in the car variety.  No need for books, paper, pens, just simple straight forward listen and repeat, and occasionally pause or go back to previous track.  The first CD was anticipated to take 12 hours with all the repeats, but fortuitously it turns out it was pretty much a refresher, none of the words were new to me, and although I did a lot of repeats of tracks for good practice, mostly what I learned was some improved pronunciations.  My memory of learning at school was that it wasn't considered hip or cool to try to pronounce things properly with Franglais being the more socially acceptable thing to do.  And I always said I wasn't susceptible to peer pressure.  Funny how those memories return.

The intro CD is now finished with.  I can competently ask random French people if they'd like to have dinner with me in a number of ways.  I can also ask what their impression is of the political and economic situation in France.  What on the earth I do with the answers I have no idea.  And just how many folk am I likely to ask to dinner when the conversation thereafter will consist of me asking for their political views then nodding politely I just can't comprehend.  So I ordered the full box set, and have started on CD one this morning on the way to work.  And once again I seem to be learning how to organise dinner dates.  I suspect what I'll really need is to explain to mechanics in which way the van isn't working or ask for a gas cannister.  Maybe that'll be on CD 9 ...

Voulez vous diner avec moi, ce soir?

At least it's not coucher.

Guitar humming

I want to be outside.  In my mind I think I'm elsewhere, possibly already in the Pyrenees.  I want to live, and am having a very quiet and restrained feeling of impatience.  I want to be out there.  And it's not just my mind, it's my body; I'm craving activity and feeling a little stodgy, despite having gone out for a run last night, sometimes it just doesn't feel enough.  The radio this morning was talking about how lack of exercise was as big a health risk as smoking and how the UK is kind of "leading" in this area.  The guidelines were two and a half hours of *moderate* exercise a week.  Maybe I'm having one of the weeks when I've not quite made that level.  Except if I come to think about it, then perhaps I will come close.  After all, Sunday included a 3 - 4 hour walk, yesterday a 30 minute run, tonight will be two to three hours climbing, and tomorrow will include a bike ride, as might Friday, oh, and Saturday, hmm and Sunday.  It's OK, I know. I am completely insane, and yet this is weird because  I thought I was having one of my better balanced days!

I kind of adore the idea of a year out and the scope for just physically being. I haven't really thought what it might do to my headspace, just a general feeling of contented anticipation at the thought of being outside in the hills days on end.  There will be evenings in the van, and in towns / villages, there will be time with people and time without people, and either is fine.  I will have work to do, on Open Uni (who knows how this will work out while I'm away but I'm going to suck it and see), and there are some unfinished poems which need to be tackled, shaken, wrestled with and formed into something complete.

It's a funny in between kind of a time, and I'm trying to live in the present and enjoy the now for what it is. 

And somehow I'm reminded of Neil Diamond's Cracklin' Rosie:

"Play it now, Play it now, Play it now my baby"

Because I need to be reminded sometimes, it's all about now.  And I'm playing it now.

Velvet Sky

It's been an admin fest with me trying to pull together loose ends for my travels.  I'm getting impatient at myself and a certain amount of sluggishness.  Which is OK, it's just a gentle push to get myself moving again.  I've now paid for 80% of the van, just a small sum to go which is due on delivery.  Work has now officially started on the conversion, and yes it's exciting but also scary.

Guinea pig re-homing is now thankfully less of a albatross around my neck, thanks to the fortune of kind friends, or indeed people I see as an adopted family are prepared to go beyond the call of duty.  To say I'm grateful is an under statement.  I feel loved.

I come and go between being relaxed about finances and having a slight wibble.  The lovely climbing Carl gave me advice on this. He said to decide on a sum below which you didn't want to drop, and when you get near it to turn your mind back to work.  Which makes sense, and I think I know the number.  It's just a freakish amount trickles between my fingers now.  Van.  Van insurance. New Zealand flights.  And really it's all fine, it's fine, I shouldn't be letting the slightest bit of agitation affect me.  It's a no brainer in that I know, absolutely, without doubt, and with total confidence that this is right for me, it's what I want to do.  But the voices inside my head are those of my parents, the long departed dad and my very much with us mum.  Because all their lives they had to be careful with money.  There were no luxuries, nothing that wasn't carefully thought out, it was a make do and mend, a scrimp and save lifestyle and they brought us up to be the same.  And I remember being on free school meals, dressed in pass me down clothes, and sharing my third hand bike with my brother.  I remember when entertainment was free, and holidays were spent in the back garden at play.  And this is why I wibble, why sometimes there's a little feeling of wrong, despite the over riding sense of right.

And it's due to be sunny on Sunday, and we all know what that means ...

And today's romantic ballard is one of my all time favourites from Savage Garden.  Many years of dreams and joy here, and it needs to travel with me as I embark on this journey.  A song which makes me want to climb mountains, and to frolic in the waves.  If that isn't too entirely fey.

"And when the stars are shining brightly in the velvet sky,
I'll make a wish send it to heaven then make you want to cry"

20% Skill

After one of those days which at first seemed inexplicably restless and slightly annoyed, the options were clear - either do some exercise, get some sleep or wash it all away with a glass of wine.  I took option A.

After spending good money on a Thule tow bar mounted bike rack, somehow I have slunk into the lazy girl option of taking the wheels out of the bike and popping it into the mini.  Back seats down.  So that's what I did.  It all seems like a fine way forward when you leave home, but actually when you get to destination there's often a chance that the brake levers will have engaged and pushed the disc pads together.  Also on the way home you're suddenly faced with putting a filthy bike into the car.  But the car's interior is not exactly spotless right now anyway so thoughtlessness rules and the bike goes in.  This of course will all change once the van is in my possession.  That's due end of August.  Which is exciting.  I hope it's finished to schedule, but if not, know I'll just tweak plans and it'll all be fine in a no stress, no detail kind of a way.

So the bike went in the car, and Rivington Old Barn was the destination, and as I drove the sun came out.  It was always going to be a rushed ride because I had opted not to put the lights in the bag and work had been a hellhole of a place so departure was delayed.  Which meant no messing.  Bike out, wheels on, helmet on and we're away.  Big grin on my face.

It's a funny ride for me, the Rivington one, and one which I hold kind of dear.  I guess it was the first ride I ever did which wasn't trail centre.  Traditional mountain bikers would probably hate it.  All the longest, steepest descents are on the road, making me wonder sometimes if it would be best ridden in reverse of the order I take it.  There's quite a bit of road, but there's a goodly amount of technicalish climbing. Well, by my less than 20% skill standards.  The first time I did the ride it took 3 hours. Now apparently it takes one and a half, and there was never any danger of the world turning dark.  There are two climbs I can now do which I couldn't before and one gritty little devil of a thing I can only make up in perfect conditions, both on the ground and in my head. It depends on me getting the line perfect, and it relies on me moving my body weight, getting the fine balance between a lifting front wheel and a skidding back wheel.  And yesterday I failed.  Nearly went back and tried again but it's by my standards so steep I get pretty pooped with just the once.  Maybe if next time I tried out of saddle ...

And the ride was blissful and involved a peacock in the road.  Which responded with a welcoming squawk to the squawk of my disc brakes.  Which was a moment of surreal for me.

And now I'm busy ordering a road bike.  Because I can.

And today's tune and title comes to you from Fort Major:

"This is 10% luck,
20% skill,
15% concentrated power of will,
5% pleasure,
50% pain,
And 100% reason to remember the name!"

Hot sun

A spot of Genesis

"Cause, I can't dance, I can't talk.
Only thing about me is the way I walk"

And it continues to rain.  Which isn't actually news, but it reflects a teeny bit of frustration.  My climbing plans are a little puddle shaped at the moment.  And I'm thinking tonight should be Rivington and it will be wet and muddy and I'm thinking fairly joyous.  Or maybe it'll be Winter Hill.  Lights and snorkel job.  Because the thought of a bike ride is keeping me sane today behind my desk.

It was a whole bunch of weird contemplating the thought that there could be life after London.  Since Beijing was put behind us, the world has been all about the London Olympic Games.  Planners all end in September 2012, there's been an eerie emptiness beyond London.  And indeed, we've veered away from thinking about it because that means something.  It means that one day the Games will be upon us, and that day will be remarkably soon.  Now I personally, me, not work, have post London plans the giddiness comes and goes.  Sometimes it's excitement, sometimes it's a fear of the unknown and sometimes it's a reckless dive.  I'm not good at picturing the future. I actually don't want to. I want to be surprised by it.  Maybe I would be good at it if I wanted to be, but I'm open to surprise.  It needs to be unpredictable.  Unexpected even.

When a visual image of it comes unprompted into my head, it's something along the lines of wild swimming.  To me the future looks like a rocky outcrop, a shady grove.  I'm standing on a grassy bank looking into this vast cold but not threatening pool. It looks deep, it looks still, it's dark but it's really really inviting.  The opposite side is a sheer vertical climb of granite, with ferns protruding from some of the ledges and cracks.  And the rock is dry and could be warm to the touch even though there's dappled shade from above.  There's greenery.  In this picture of how the future looks, I jump into the pool.  Not just a toe tentatively prodding the water, testing it for temperature, but a whole body glorious leap.  I can picture the splash in slow motion, huge shining droplets of water flying into the air in a vast arc.  Short lived, and the feet first plunge of me into the pool is not a belly flop, it's a spear zooming into the pool.  And the water surrounds me, and as my head plummets beneath the water I can see everything in silver in that moment before I naturally surface.  And then I'm there, in the pool, slightly stunned by the cold but in no danger, and I'm alive, I'm really alive.  And completely alone and complete. 

Step Outside

It's July, and it's already rained all June, and is set to carry on, so it would seem for all July.  And I can't wait for the autumn, and for next year when I can put a key in the ignition and simply drive away or indeed to the weather I want.  Or at least try to.  And this gives me blind optimism, and the ability to cruise through the current wet spell, safe in the knowledge that soon I'll be out of here.  Two months now and counting down until I have the time and the means to just go out there and be me.  And I'm happily planning.  Well, with a spot of apprehension.  Going through the thought process of "have I done enough?" when I think about consecutive days of walking involving Bothies or tents.  Have I given my walking legs enough attention.  And I still want to get out on my bike and I want to get out and climb, and I know that all this is because I have had four days without much movement.  Suddenly a sense of urgency is hitting me.  I have to get out.  It's an irrational response but it feels with no warning as though all the exercise I've done in previous weeks is worthless, has gone, vanished, imploded leaving a widening middle aged spread and a strange sense of lethargy and stillness.  And I know deep down it'll all be fine, because I'm me, and I'm planning.  Planning my way out of things as ever.  So Wednesday will see me doing <something> which might be climbing (indoors, seriously, have you seen the weather?) or bike riding.

Anyway, the reason for doing the nothing thing over the weekend was a glorious weekend of mud,  mud, glorious mud (bother, I am going to be singing in my  head songs involving a bold hippopotamus now).  Which was a rather lovely experience, a little mellow and a little land of the strange but all in all, pretty damn satisfying.

In my normal embracing the random style, I went to Plymouth to the twentyfour12 event.  It's an enduro mountain bike event.  Riders race in pairs or teams or solo units for 12 or 24 hour period doing repeated laps of the Newnham circuit.  Bottles was my job.  As opposed to the bike (thankfully).  And Friday night in the campsite we welcomed the joy of the weather which the media was touting as "one month's rainfall in a day" and "heaviest deluge in 100 years" in the Plymouth area.  And our experience of this would confirm a gut feeling of correctness in the media for once.  3am and the flood waters were in the tent.  Paddling in rolled up PJs, moving already sodden clothing helplessly into a place of safety (that would be on top of the cool box then).  And going back to bed.  Because there was nothing else to be done.

This in fact, probably sums it up best:

TwentyFour12 from the pits.

And the tune inside my head courtesy of the four non blondes:

"And so I wake in the morning and I step outside
And I take deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs,
WHAT'S GOIN' ON!!"

The Edge

It's been a two bike rides sort of a weekend.  Both really different and both bloody marvellous.  And I think I only fell off once.  Well, only once that anybody saw so that's the only time that counts.  And that was pure stupidity.  I hesitate to describe the incident in which I don't feel I come out at all competent or in control.  What in fact happened, and I think I only whispered gently the truth to one of the other women on the ride, is that I was going down steps.  Happily indeed.  Quite early in the ride.  When a little voice inside my head said hey, Al, what are you doing riding down this with your forks locked.  And in the words of the ugly duckling, I looked, and I saw, and I said oh crap that's me off.  And body followed thoughts and there I was ... in a holly bush.  Prickly goodness.  But mostly it looks like I've attempted to shave my legs with a really really bad razor.  Which is OK.  And in an objective factual fashion, I have to say the holly bush was worse to land in then the gorse bushes of yester month.

And the bike ride was with a nice bunch of people and the pace was delicious and the route was kind and friendly, and the weather only bucketed down on us a little bit out there in the Peak District.  And there were moments of bonding where I attempted to rename a Martin - Tarquin (which I felt he initially embraced) and a high five between the husband of the cheesecake maker and I in our mutual distaste for said substance.  And there was tea & cheesecake at someone's unexpected home.  And don't you wish your garden looked like this.  Unusual blooms indeed.

And because today's ride was with my friend Viv and her Dad and therefore deliciously sedate in the flatlands of Delamere where we found many an interesting bit of unofficial singletrack, all of which seemed to bring us to the edge of the forest, today's tune in my kind of mellowed by tiredness head is brought to you courtesy of Lady Gaga:

"I'm on the edge, the edge, the edge, the edge, the edge, the edge, the edge,
I'm on the edge of glory, and I'm hanging on a moment with you
I'm on the edge with you"