Barefoot running and Rain

At 0530 this morning till a while ago it was raining reasonably hard - probably the wettest run this year.  I did the usual forest route (5 miles).  And yet it was warm - anything above about 15 degrees C registers as "warm" as far as I am concerned (else, in Ireland, it would rarely ever be warm!).  When running barefoot, the wetter the better: the stones feel less sharp and one's feet stay clean despite mud, whereas trainers would collect the mud and be rotting.  When warm one can afford to be scantily clad, whereas wet clothes feel horrible.

Such times remind me of "...and Mowgli, with the rain sluicing over his bare shoulders and arms, leaped back from a wall that was settling like a tired buffalo" (Letting in the Jungle). My parents had the blue, cloth-bound edition "All the Mowgli Stories" illustrated superbly by Stuart Tresilian.  Ever since first reading that line I have sought the experience of a hard, tropical rain storm.  


And of "Kim yearned for the caress of soft mud squishing up between the toes..."

School days - Peter Symonds 3

Be warned - you might find this blog boring! I found some school reports and other memorabilia:

Apparently my first form was 1c and not 1b as I said in an earlier blog. But later on I was transferred to the 'b' stream. The form master and maths teacher "PWG" is Mr Gale, aka Breezy.  Note the lie "good" for history!  So as not to ultimately bore I omit the intermediate reports so here is the last:

I may have mentioned that I grew up in a Christian home.  Naturally I rebelled against this for a part of my teenage years so was apostate in my 5th year when I was approached by an older boy who was apparently the leader of the C.U.  He was about to graduate, and had somehow found out my credentials so informed me that there was no-one else and if I didn't rise to the challenge the C.U. would cease to exist.  My days of apostasy were numbered.  Starting with about 2 people, we learnt the hard way (after half a year of drudgery) about prayer. That is another story - for now let this C.U. report (my typewriter!) suffice:

Of particular interest (well to me) is the entry "Pot or Not" - after meetings with attendance of 2 or 3, this talk attracted perhaps 30 or 40 boys!  I remember making a large psychedelic poster for the occasion.  Also the outing to hear the "Forerunners", a gospel music group who did, amongst other tracks no doubt,  a very passable rendition of "Bridge over troubled water" and thus introduced me to S&G.  I instantly loved this track but until then I had never heard of S&G (my parents did not approve of popular music).  It took a younger boy to identify the original artist after the event.  And note the proud comment that the Head (Ashurst) was "happy".

My last boring picture is of an invention of mine.  I developed my "musical slide-rule" whilst in my 5th year to help me with music theory for O-level.  Readers who are ignorant about the slide-rule check here. The version, for which the image shown is a template, was a revised version which dealt with the C# / Db ambiguity.  In construction the lower image is taped around some plastic tube (waste pipe) and the upper part is photocopied onto clear acetate and wound around the tube and taped so that it can both slide length-ways and be rotated.  The device calculates the correct notes of any major or minor scale, the key signature of same, and calculates the correct name for the interval between two arbitrary notes.  The design is, of course, copyrighted.

What do you see?

What do you see when you look at these pictures?

They are both pictures of traction engines - the location being the village fair at Hollywood, Co. Wicklow.  My eyes are drawn to then centrifugal governor, very obvious in both pictures.

Recently I had reason to describe the principle to a colleague, someone who understands computers so has technical understanding.  So I showed him the two photographs and he was none the wiser.  Apparently he had never come across the device and he did not immediately see how it works. With my Meccano set I learnt about and built such things from an early age - how different people are!

Here is another area where the modern version has been dumbed down.  Compare the modern Meccano site with, for example these instructions or this familiar list-of-parts.  Is it really that folk have less sense now-a-days, or it is just a shift in interest? A reader's letter in E&T July 2012 claims that the word "craft" has now been excluded from the national design and technology curriculum and the school curriculum, to be replaced I suppose by computer expertise. Instead of building complex models people spend their spare time playing computer games. In contrast I remember a book from my father's era that I read as a boy with a title "1001 things for a boy to do".  Included in this number was making a real model steam engine almost from scratch.  For the more demanding parts the child was directed to ask a favour from the nearest machine shop.  Even then times had changed and I could not imagine going to this length.  But now-a-days I cannot believe that the average boy would even thinks about such things.

Enchanted

Have you ever experienced a feeling that a particular location is special in some way - enchanted, if you will?  In this blog I hope to present some of my own evidence and you skeptics can judge for yourself.

If you drive from our place through Ballymore towards Naas, turn left at the Punchestown cross roads and continue through Two Mile House and Corbally (an interesting place in its own right) you pass through the townland of Rosetown and come to the river Liffey at Athgarvan.  The first time I drove this way I experienced the feeling of interest, magic, call it what you like, as the road descends to cross the river.  The road here has high banks and trees either side, a bit like a tunnel.  As you emerge from this tunnel there is the added interest of the bridge, the weir and the old mill on the left.

Further research reveals that the high bank on the left is Rosetown Rath, a prehistoric mound, and just across the river a grave-yard and the site of an ancient church.  The picture below is all you can see of Rosetown Rath from the road (looking back towards Corbally).

The Ordnance Survey Ireland web site has a free map viewer with current topical, aerial and historic map sources.  The site is shown below in both the 25" to the mile greyscale version (dated 1888-1913) and the 6" to the mile greyscale version (dated 1837-1842).

Rosetown Rath and the grave yard are clearly indicated on both.  Note the river crossing is a ford in the older map, but everything else is much the same.

This link tells more: "One of the great routeways of early Ireland, the Slíge Dála, traversed this territory and probably crossed the Liffey at the ford of Athgarvan within Connul. Though definitive evidence is lacking, it is likely that the prependal parish church of Athgarvan, which overlooks the ford at the west, is early in origin. It is the only church site now evident within the Kildare portion of Connul. Directly across the river is  Rosetown Rath, the only impressive secular settlement in Connul. Now much overgrown, the surviving remains and early records indicate that it was bivallate and 110m across. It is possible that there was a similar juxtaposition at Old Connell, where the nearby Anglo-Norman motte may supersede the royal residence mentioned in a tenth-century saga (ibid. 350). This twinning of sites expresses the symbiotic relationship between ecclesiastical and secular powers within Connul."

++++

My second case is the parish church at Manor Kilbride.  Except that the church is in fact nowhere near the settlement of Manor Kilbride, indeed it does not appear to be near anywhere in particular.  You pass this church on the Sally Gap road - it is marked with a cross in the map below.

The magic of this place is the Shankill stream descending over rocky pools down to join the river Liffey, and the road bridge over this stream.  The picture below (not my own) is almost surrealistic.

But the church - why build a church here of all places?  And what a strange, almost "toy-town" building (I hope this judgement offends no-one!).  

Further research reveals that there is a mound - doubtless a burial mound - just behind the church.  It seems to now be part of someone's front garden.  The map is the 25" to the mile version.

++++

My third case is on the way from Hollywood cross roads towards Dunlavin.  After the crossing at Lemonstown the road climbs up over what I suppose is a terminal moraine with a wonderful view as you come over the top.

The road bends to the left and, after passing a (doubtless sand and gravel) quarry on the left, you come to the magic place, marked with a cross in the map above.  I have passed this place numerous times on my way to pick up materials from the builder's suppliers Liam Kennedy, and the magic intrigues me every time. The picture below is from Street View and does not, I regret, do justice to the place.

There is a mound densely covered with trees, a tiny stream between this and the road, and a grassy hill going up to a ruin (just visible in my picture).  The whole site appears to be on private land, and there is no place to park, so not much chance for exploring.

The historic 25" map shows the mound, a fish-pond and reveals that the ruin is a church.

++++

My fourth case is Old Kilcullen church.  From our place you head for Brannockstown, past the quaint Baptist Church there, and go straight across the dangerous cross roads where you might turn right for (new) Kilcullen.  The magic location is a church on a hill, marked with a cross in the map below.  This time there are no trees and no water.

It is an odd place to find a church.  One would have thought a church should be near where people live and not perched upon a hill.  When I first came across this place I parked the car, of course, and wandered up to the path shown to check it out.  Nothing of much consequence, a church is a church, and I cannot say that this location ranks very high on my magic rating - but it is still strange.

The 25" map (above) doesn't help much, except to indicate that the site is ancient.  Zooming out a bit using the older 6" map reveals another hill not too far away, the very important prehistoric site Dún Áilinne.

There is something very odd going on here!  This link suggests that "...the hills Old Kilcullen and Dún Áilinne... how the symbiotic relationship between ecclesiastical and royal authority within this estate is expressed in the unusual shapes of the townlands (red borders) which ensures  that the church of Kilcullen has a tenurial and symbolic stake in both of these sacred hills."

++++

My last case is also weaker than my first three.  I pass the location on my way to visit an aged neighbour. Head towards Kilcullen from Ballymore: the magic place is marked with a cross. The cottage pictured below  was my first focal point.  There is something about this cottage that I like - it is something to do with the white painted iron fence, possibly resonating with some childhood memory.

After passing this cottage you see the church ruins on your left, several hundred yards from the road.

The 25" map doesn't show any evidence of prehistoric earthworks but does indicate several ancient monuments near the church, and interestingly a "hydralic ram" (that's a ram pump, see my previous post).

The older 6" map shows more detail (and a large "H"...) - perhaps those embankments are prehistoric, or are they simply dykes?  Interesting my cottage is still there and is identified as "Stonebrook cottage".

++++

One more case could be added, but it belongs more to my son - it is the five-ways junction marked "Carnalway" in the general map above.  I will leave Jonathan to supply his own emotions should he ever read this post and want to comment, but I can at least testify that there are lots of trees here and a church, again in an odd position but this time possibly because it belongs to a large estate surrounded by an stone wall.

++++

Conclusions?  Is it just that I like locations where there is visual interest, especially trees, water and hills?  This is certainly true.  But I cannot help thinking that there is something more.  And are the various churches (some in ruins so very ancient) and prehistoric earthworks just co-incidence?

Long ago in college days I stumbled across some fellow students poring over maps.  I have always loved maps so stopped to talk: there were investigating the phenomenon of ley-lines.  This site gives a fairly factual summary of the apparently well known St Michael ley line.  You will see a number of very oddly placed churches in the pictures, one being on Glastonbury Tor.  Why build churches in such odd places?  So much work lugging the stones up there!  We have a "church mountain" a few miles from our home: on top there is now just a pile of stones, but once it was a church and they still say mass up there every so often.

See here for a Christian perspective on ley-lines and the like.  The suggestion here is that the paranormal aspects are the work of demons.  I do not know what this does for my "enchanted" places - I cannot help the feeling I had when I first passed near these locations, and I am not aware of anything sinister about it?

As for those churches - maybe the building of churches was more political than anything to do with Christ?  Or maybe they built the churches in these places intentionally to break the forces of evil?  Or maybe it is just co-incidence that they lugged all those heavy stones up to the top of an otherwise deserted hill?

Mowing the lawn

Yesterday I mowed the lawn for the first time in my life.  In case this conjures in my readers' minds a picture of a hitherto unkempt garden I would remind you that I live together with several other families.  Possibly it is because we have a sit-on mower which is considered fun to drive by those who, up till now, have done the job.

The lawn is bestrewn with raised edges - to a gravelled drive and to numerous flower and vegetable beds - and the need to cut right up to the edge adds to the excitement.  On reporting back to the person who usually does the job we shared our common experiences - most of the things that can befall an errant mower had befallen me:

I went a rock he meant to tell me about and the blades made a horrible noise glancing off of it;

One wheel fell off the lawn into a bed whilst circumnavigating a sharp corner;

I got tangled up with a fence whilst negotiating a tight end-of-row turn;

I ripped the new strawberry netting (fear not, I have confessed and pleaded indulgence);

For a whole row I inadvertently had the height set too close so "burnt" the grass;

I did not think to check, so ran out of petrol at the furthest point so had to walk back for more fuel;

I mowed a bedding plant or two that was overflowing onto the grass.

Perhaps I will never be asked again.   

In a Far Country

It is father's day and I got a surprise phone call from my younger daughter who has just moved to Australia. Two of my own sons and the son of a close friend now live in Alaska.  My other daughter is en route to Switzerland but thankfully only for a week.  Fifty years ago emmigration might have been goodbye for good - at least we have the internet now - but, even so, I reckon that either Alaska or Australia qualify as "a far country".

I have a much cherished book entitled "Forty Tales" by Stephen Southwold.  It was my mother's and she has written her name very formally, as if she was young at the time, inside the front cover.  This book is one of the few links I now have with her and with my childhood.  One of my favourite tales from this book starts:

The water colouring is my older sister's work.  To this day I am haunted by any grassy hill that disappears into the horizon.  What is special about these tales is the element of "wonder".  I may write at more length about this in a later blog.  For now the title "Along the path and far away" is sufficient: it evokes in me a great longing for I do not know what.

A similar sentiment is found in Lewis's "The horse and his boy" -

"But he was very interested in everything that lay to the North because no one ever went that way and he was never allowed to go there himself. When he was sitting out of doors mending the nets, and all alone, he would often look eagerly to the North. One could see nothing but a grassy slope running up to a level ridge and beyond that the sky with perhaps a few birds in it."

There is also the traditional song Over the hills and far away which leaves one wondering what exactly is over the hills and far away.

I get a similar feeling seeing or reading about water meeting grass as in an overflowing stream or a flash flood.

Phantastes, George Macdonald: "And, stranger still, where this carpet, which I had myself designed to imitate a field of grass and daisies, bordered the course of the little stream, the grass-blades and daisies seemed to wave in a tiny breeze that followed the water's flow; while under the rivulet they bent and swayed with every motion of the changeful current, as if they were about to dissolve with it, and, forsaking their fixedform, become fluent as the waters."

A far country implies a new paradigm that touches the depth of our soul: In a Far Country, Jack London "When a man journeys into a far country, he must be prepared to forget many of the things he has learned, and to acquire such customs as are inherent with existence in the new land; he must abandon the old ideals and the old gods, and oftentimes he must reverse the very codes by which his conduct has hitherto been shaped. To those who have the protean faculty of adaptability, the novelty of such change may even be a source of pleasure; but to those who happen to be hardened to the ruts in which they were created, the pressure of the altered environment is unbearable, and they chafe in body and in spirit under the new restrictions which they do not understand. This chafing is bound to act and react, producing divers evils and leading to various misfortunes. It were better for the man who cannot fit himself to the new groove to return to his own country; if he delay too long, he will surely die."  

Somewhere it says "A certain man planted a vineyard... and went into a far country for a long time."  The so called "Christian" belief system has of late been rather dumbed down, I suppose, to make it more palatable for the masses - rather like A-levels.  But in the original version there was a whole lot of "digging deep" and "far country" and "long time".  These hard-to-come-to-terms-with's are more in accord with my own experience than platitudes, sickly smiles and miracles that don't stand scrutiny.

Broad Street and Morris dancing

I have already told about the vantage point of my parents' house during Alresford Fair.  Broad Street was also the focal point of other events.

From time to time Morris dancers performed outside our house.  The first picture is my own taken from a bedroom window.  The next two are from the internet and I think both are in Broad Street.

There is something odd about Morris dancing.  OK, now-a-days performers do it for fun then enjoy a pint of beer afterwards so possibly it is harmless.  But why?  Not shown in the pictures (I could not find any that resemble what I remember) is the hobby horse which is an outfit worn by a dancer that hardly resembles a real horse - the hobby horse kind of gets in the way of the other dancers and does strange things to passers by.  It is distinctly odd and perhaps hails from Old England, the Dark Ages, when druids and witches held sway over men and women.

On one occasion the Welsh Guards (I think) turned up and did their bit.  I have no idea what the occasion was but I suppose there must have been one.  It was at least fun watching them.

And then the climax of the year, the Christmas tree erected every year.  The picture is not my own, but must have been taken from just outside our house.

Father Christmas would (and still does) arrive by a different means every year at the carol singing evening, and would give gifts to all the children.  Regrettably I have no pictures of this, but I have memories of a town notary singing "Silent Night" in a deep voice, accompanied by my father on the piano.

So Broad Street was a cool place to grow up, and so far I have only described what went on at the front of the house!  This picture is a recent one of my own.  My parents' house is behind the tree on the left, and the entrance to The George Yard at the left.  More about this in a later blog maybe.

Digging deep

An innocent enough sounding and every-so-well-known parable "he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built." ...  but the digging deep bit - for me this is digging deep inside myself - and I am not at all sure about what I find there; what I am built on.

How much simpler things seemed when I was young.  How young would I have been in this photograph?  And yet I can distinctly remember my father telling me to pose and the pricking of the dune grass on my bare skin.  In some ways I don't feel any different, in other ways I bear the cares and trials of all those years in between.

Car boot sale

Whilst the other half was doing a car boot sale in Blessington I took off on my bicycle over the Sally Gap to Rathnew.  Clicking on this link should open Google Earth (if you have it installed) to show the route.  You can right click on the route to show the statistics.  I would normally have done onto Wicklow for a quick dip, but I was already cold and had to get back to help dismantle the car boot sale.

Stats (inc 6 miles from Blessington to home now shown in above link):
67 miles
41 mph maximum
11.5 mph average
1591m elevation gain
554m maximum altitude (Sally Gap)
diet - chocolate (forgot to pack the sandwiches)

I met literally hundreds of bicycles coming the other way - Wicklow 200 which route resembles an earlier ride I did this year though much longer (200km).  But then these guys (and some girls) have swish bikes and youth on their side, possibly some training too!

Euphoria

In those days Keith deBerry was Rector of St Aldates, Oxford.  Every year he organised an working holiday at Lee Abbey for students who attended his church.  Although I was not one of his "sheep" I managed to cadge a place somehow.  The deal was that you helped in the grounds each morning in exchange for a reduced rate.  Perhaps this was my first taste of "living in community".

One afternoon I took off on my own heading West along what is now called the North Devon Coastal Path.  The weather was idyllic: blue sky, a haze over the sea, warm.  The memory of that walk still ranks among my most euphoric experiences.  For ever I have been happy in my own company and with nature.  I ran down into bays, waded through surf, climbed rocks, walked along headlands.  Perhaps it runner's high I was experiencing.  One day I hope to retrace my steps to repeat the experience but I doubt if it will be the same.

The first photograph is my own - you can see Lee Abbey in the distance.  I hope it conveys some sense of the magic of that particular afternoon.

I have copied the next photographs from the internet.  They give some idea of the terrain.  The first is taken from the Valley of the Rocks which is just east of Lee Abbey.

The next two further along the coastal path.

From Oxford you travel first to Lynton and Lynmouth and thence to Lee Abbey.  There is a funicular railway that joins high-up Lynton with Lynmouth.  The railway consists of two cars each on its own track, connected via a steel rope that passes over a pulley at the top.  A natural water-course has been diverted so that it fills a tank in the car at the top.  When sufficient water has entered the car descends by gravity pulling the other one up.  As a child (and still am) I was of course fascinated by the apt use of free energy.  The picture of Lymouth is m own, but that of the railway was copied from the internet.

Waterworks and Jusoda

My father always kept a bottle or two of "mineral" - i.e. fizzy soda - in the top cupboard.  It was permissible for me to help myself within reason, but NOT to finish off the last drop.  So I always made sure I left about half an inch...

My father's favourite was Tizer as in "Tizer the Apertizer".  I am not sure what Tizer was supposed to taste of: it was orange in colour only and sweet.  My favourite was an orange flavoured drink Jusoda.  Now I live in Ireland I enjoy Club Orange which is the nearest modern day equivalent to Jusoda and Oh-so-much-superior to Fanta Orange.

To quote... "Barr began adding to its brand portfolio in the 1970s, including launching a short-lived fruit juice soda, Jusoda. A more lasting addition to the company came with its acquisition of another long-lived British soft drink brand, Tizer, acquired with the £2.5 million purchase of Tizer Limited, based in Manchester, in 1972."  Oh, and Barr are the people who make that evil concoction Irn-Bru.

Anyways - the point of this post is the following picture which shows me at an early age demonstrating the no effort method of drinking Jusoda using the siphon principle:

The car - a grey Vauxhall Cresta with steering column gear change.  The location - Broad St, Alresford.  Wow, that stuff tasted good...

Alresford Mill

I'm talking about the flour mill, not the present-day-tourist-attraction-fulling-mill.

I have memories of my dad taking me to the flour mill in Mill Hill when it was still operational - or was it a mill somewhere else?  Was that building by the station also a mill?

Anyways - I remember it being a scary place for small child, but with a wonderful smell - on many different levels with polished metal chutes down which sacks of flour were tossed, wooden ladders between the wooden floors, chains hauling bags of flour up through a vertical hole in all the flours, constant noise of machinery, and flour everywhere.  Here is the best picture I could find on the web that sums up my memories, although this is of the recently restored mill in Winchester:

My friend

It started two years ago.  I was weeding the garden one Saturday and found (amongst the weeds) what I thought was a shamrock.  It was so pretty.  I am not usually this way with plants - one look at me and they fade or dry up and die. So I found a little pot and kept it watered all summer.  It lived on the window cill outside my office.  And then, towards the end of the summer, it fell off and that was the end, or so I thought.

The next year I found the plant growing in the gravel below the window.  I managed to keep persons and dogs from mutilating it (to others it was only a weed).  I took as many photos of it as of any of my friends, maybe more.  Here is a selection:

I have since found that the plant is actually "Oxalis corniculata", a type of wood sorrel and is indeed considered by most a weed.  It does not appear to be clear what "real" Irish Shamrock is, but most sites give it a white flower.

So I was duly touched when I saw my friend (or perhaps a descendant) starting to grow in the same spot again this year: