Lake drive

The circuit around the Blessington lake via Ballyknockan and Lacken is known as the "lake drive" and was this afternoon's short bike trip: 17.6 miles, maximum 32.9 mph, average 13.2 mph. Meg was looking peeved when I got back so I ran with her the 3.5 mile Tulfarris loop. Then a large dinner to offset all the good done.

Two runs barefoot

Almost 11 miles

About 8 miles

Last weekend I was a bit more adventurous. The forestry tracks which, I mentioned recently, were churned up by machinery have thankfully become a bit more manageable barefoot. The lake is still very high though.

Prince Rupert Drops

I have been reading the novel Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey - and discovered Prince Rupert Drops for the first time in my life. How could I have missed such a bizarre phenomenon?  None of my friends here had heard of them either. Check it out for yourself with this video clip.

Meteor

The green meteor I sighted last night could have been the same as or associated with that seen in the UK see here.  Another source puts the time at 2150 which was about right.  Nothing in the Irish news though.

Iron man

Went to see Iron Man 3 this evening. Predictable amounts of action and nonsense. Entertaining I suppose but not really my sort of movie.  I preferred Avatar - why? - not for the plot, but because it had that wonder element, because I could imagine myself there, because it could have happened, because it was extremely beautiful, because it was a worthy benchmark in 3D technology.

On the way back I caught a glimpse of what might have been a meteor - it was green and larger that any I have seen before.

Five miles

Tuesday morning I woke with the sun so, being that time of the year, I increased my normal first-thing-in-the-morning-3.5-mile-run to the boat-house-lake-shore route which is exactly 5 miles.  The lake is high-ish which means wading in places, but is doable. I passed a couple fishing that early - they think me mad to be running with no shirt and I similarly cannot understand what would possess a man to sit shivering by the lake shore holding a line in the water.

What with the high lake level which makes my full lake route not feasible, the council's work on the local roads which has left them strewn with sharp stones, and forestry work which has churched up the tracks and made them most uncomfortable under barefoot, I feel like my habit is being compromised!

That time of the year

At last it is beginning to get warmer. Which means less excuse for short runs. Today, after planting out tomatoes in the morning, I did the Kings River loop plus a bit, so about 10 miles. Gasp!  So good to come back to a hot shower and a mug of tea.

Repetition

C S Lewis, story teller par excellence

No I am not doing a pep talk on C S Lewis. There are too many others out there doing that, and doubtless better than ever I could.  Suffice it to say that his fiction had a significant part in moulding my upbringing.  In this post I am merely using his insight.

Although repetition can be used to good effect, for example in education or to convey a superlative in poetry, some things are too good to be repeated in too small a timeframe.

"Now he had come to a part of the wood where great globes of yellow fruit hung from the trees... He picked one of them... Then by accident one of his fingers punctured it and went through into coldness. After a moment's hesitation he put the ' little aperture to his lips. He had meant to extract the smallest, experimental sip, but the first taste put his caution all to flight... It was like the discovery of a totally new genus of pleasures, something unheard of among men, out of all reckoning, beyond all covenant. For one draught of this on Earth wars would be fought and nations betrayed. It could not be classified. He could never tell us, when he came back to the world of men, whether it was sharp or sweet, savoury or voluptuous, creamy or piercing. 'Not like that' was all he could ever say to such inquiries. As he let the empty gourd fall from his hand and was about to pluck a second one, it came into his head that he was now neither hungry nor thirsty. And yet to repeat a pleasure so intense and almost so spiritual seemed an obvious thing to do. His reason, or what we commonly take to be reason in our own world, was all in favour of tasting this miracle again; the child-like innocence of fruit, the labours he had undergone, the uncertainty of the future, all seemed to commend the action. Yet something seemed opposed to this 'reason'. It is difficult to suppose that this opposition came from desire, for what desire would turn from so much deliciousness? But for whatever cause, it appeared to him better not to taste again. Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity - like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day."  Lewis, Perelandra.

I concur wholly with this principle.  Sometimes even a long interval may not validate a repetition - I would love to repeat the walk I described in Euphoria but I doubt if the magic would work again even after so many years. Somehow forced repetition does not satisfy. The thrill in listening to Rachmaninov's second piano concerto wears thin if repeated too soon. The ecstatic first few bites into a crisp rhubarb crumble served with clotted cream dull in that unnecessary second portion (memories of last Sunday).

Without doubt we were created to enjoy delight to the full. But perhaps forced repetition is the divide between delight and lust.