Las doce uvas de la suerte

It's New Year's eve and tonight there is an extra second which I plan to enjoy in bed fast asleep, whilst others here are doing the Spanish thing of eating 12 grapes las doce uvas de la suerte one a second up to the New Year. Or maybe on this occasion they will need 13 grapes.

This afternoon the intrepid barefoot runner went exploring. Always looking for new routes I figured there were several untried tracks at the top of the pass to Donard so, instead of my usual climb of Church Mountain, I turned left. My track is at the end of the photos below. Stats: 16.96 miles, average speed moving 5.4 mph, max altitude 506m.

The ascent to the pass, looking back north towards Hollywood

Having turned left, looking south towards Donard

Having turned left the track skirted around Corriebracks (an allusive summit I tried to reach before but failed) and down to a saddle where I left the track and struck out downhill cross country - mainly long grass and heather so not so bad under foot - until I reached a forestry track which took me to Corragh (pronounced Crock) where I followed the narrow lane back to the Wicklow Gap road.

In places this track was knee deep in peaty mud

Having just joined the Corragh forestry track

Here (on the right) is where the track meets the single-track road

And this is the single track road in Corragh

Note the grassy bit in the middle of the road especially for barefoot runners. If I had my way all roads would be like this.

Eventually I pass through Valleymount and so over the lake

The whole circuit, just short of 17 miles

Detail showing the new territory hitherto unexplored

Unusually I met several walkers. The first was a die hard hiker who was descending from Donard pass as I ascended. The second was a dog walker from Baltinglass who had, sadly, just lost his golden labrador and asked me to look out for it. Look out I did, but to no avail. The last was a dog walker along the Corragh lane, whose dog was very affectionate.

Peculiar people

Evangelical church, St Annes Rd, Southend

I'm trying to piece the facts together because at the time I was just a boy and church politics was hardly one of my interests. But I do have some memories which may be worth sharing.

The building in the picture used to belong to the Peculiar People, as in you are a chosen generation, a Royal priesthood, an holy nation, a Peculiar People, a denomination that seems to have been restricted to the Essex area and started by one James Banyard. My father's parents and Aunty Mary used to attend another church in Southend but at some point the two churches joined forces. I remember attending meetings when both pastors, one from each church, were in operation. I think they took it in turns to preach. One was Pastor Danes and the other Pastor Peters. I do not know which one was "peculiar". But I do vividly remember Pastor Peters reading the passage from John 20 with such passion that I felt like I was an onlooker...

And she (Mary Magdelene) saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.  They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."  Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned and said to him in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

I remember a man in the congregation, Smee by name. He had a boil or pimple on his face (children remember such things) and sang the hymns lustily but, being tone deaf, totally out of tune. Someone commented on this and he responded that he did not care what he sounded like - nobody was going to stop him praising his Lord. That anyone could have such devotion meant a lot to me at the time.

There was Renee who sang Oh Holy Night with my Aunt. Renee would dig into her handbag and fetch out little bits of paper with maybe a picture and a Bible verse written on them for us children. I don't rightly remember what we did with them: her intentions were no doubt good but I cannot recall the verses changing my life in any way.

The church had a choir, composed mainly of older folk, indeed the whole congregation was mainly older folk. Every Sunday meeting the choir would sing an anthem. I used to enjoy this simply because it was variation, but what relevance the anthem had to the rest of the meeting alluded me. Apart from that it was the usual "hymn sandwich" with a lengthy sermon thrown in towards the end.

My grandfather used to play the pipe organ with me sharing the organ bench, but maybe this was before the merge.

I found this picture on the internet, it being the closest I could find to another memory. My Aunt took me to a meeting in a dusty church hall, I know not where. There were wooden chairs arranged in a circle and a harmonium, and everything was dusty and looked like it was a relic from some bygone era. My grandfather was into mending organs and I have inherited from him a harmonium reed puller which is a very useful though simple tool for getting things out of awkward places. A harmonium is a reed organ (aka pump organ) with bellows operated by the feet and a number of "stops" which all sound much of a muchness because there is not a lot you can do to alter the noise a brass reed makes. They were quite common in small chapels at the time. Anyway, back to the meeting, I think we sang a hymn (possibly Mary played the harmonium) and otherwise it was a prayer meeting which, if you are a child, is hardly the most interesting of activities. It is often not much better when you grow up.

When I read, in my link to the Peculiar people, mention of a Mr William Perry of Southend my memory was once again tickled.  My grandmother, who owned and drove their Ford motor (Ginty never learnt to drive), often spoke of Mr Perry who ran a car sales and repair business and I wonder if it he was the one healed?  Which reminds me of another instance when she was driving us back from church and did something silly like running a red light and explained afterwards that she had panicked so closed her eyes and prayed and hoped for the best. The best apparently happened for here I am to tell the tale.

In 1956 the Peculiar people were renamed the 'Union of Evangelical Churches" and, like so many other movements started by a particular individual, waned in popularity and extremism. This site says only 15 churches remain open within the UEC.

The Cave

Reginald Cave

When my daughter and son-in-law return from Africa they intend to remodel their kitchen. This will involve demolishing an inside wall and a chimney breast, and moving a few doors before the new cabinets can be installed. Of course there has been much discussion about what and where and it made me think of The Cave.

Reginald W. Cave, DIP.ARCH, FRIBA, former head of the Oxford School of Architecture at what was then the Oxford Poly, now the Oxford Brookes University, who was then living at 208 Banbury Road where I took my lodgings in my final year at Oriel, was a legend apparently at work as well as at home where, widowed, he opened his house to numerous students at knock-down rates (breakfast included) in exchange for a bit of banter mostly architectural flavoured. You can see him here giving his famous teapot lecture; so typical of him to attach importance to such a common-or-garden article.

The Reginald Cave Teapot lecture 1990

Most weeks Reginald put on a Sunday Luncheon extravaganza par excellence for a mere 30p a head which would, if you had the longevity, coalesce into afternoon tea thrown in for the price. I remember a fruit cake he produced at one such latter occasion, a little dry but "robust" was his description. The lunch would typically start with a dry Amontillado sherry and finger food, then we would sit for the aperitif, main course and desert, followed more leisurely with coffee and liqueurs. Here it must have been that I sampled Benedictine that would later feature in my engagement, for it certainly was none of my parents' doing.

He had planned his kitchen (and who more qualified than an architect?) so that, standing centrally he could reach all cooking utensils and ingredients with minimal movement. Thus it was very compact yet wholly sufficient. A principle that I have not seen followed in modern kitchens.

It was the Cave who taught me to admire good (and by 'good' I do not mean fancy or nouvelle cuisine) cooking, to enjoy leisurely a feast of several and varied courses each with its own wine (included in the price). Although, come to think of it, Oriel was another teacher for I cannot remember ever having enjoyed a meal more than the graduation feast put on by the college, gratis. After which I might have been seen cycling a rather crooked path back to Summertown. Which brings to memory the desert which was Baked Alaska cooked and served perfectly. Whereas at our recent three day mini-holiday Wexford hotel I tried their "Deconstructed Baked Alaska" and regretted it. Deconstructed indeed!  The term implies a former construction but, no, it was a splodge of under-cooked meringue, a minuscule scoop of ice cream supposedly cherry flavour already half melted, both hardly sprinkled with almond flakes. No other touted ingredients (pistachio powder comes to mind) were detectable. The two main ingredients at opposite ends of the over-sized plate were joined by the usual swirls of 'jus' which both look ridiculous and serve only to hinder the washing up. I was not impressed.

I have yet to find a restaurant to come up to the standard of cooking, the wines, the ambience and above all the service that I experienced at the Cave-ary or at college special meals.  But then the quality of our cooking at home exceeds that of most restaurants - I wonder why it is so hard to get satisfaction especially when the price is so high? Doubtless it is because I do not frequent the right establishments because, exceptionally, one business lunch I remember took me to Simpsons in the Strand and I have to say their roast beef and service wholly met with my approval. But then I wasn't paying.

I once attended The Dorchester hotel for dinner and was not impressed for two reasons. Firstly the waiters were plain rude. Secondly, after leaving, I felt like indulging in a decent fish-and-chip supper.  It is rare to find a waiter or waitress who delights in serving the patron. It should be possible to order anything within reason and not feel one is being laughed at. I heard a story, allegedly true, of a chef who, when a "well done" steak was ordered, in disgust actually urinated on it before cooking it to a cinder and serving it. Why should one man stipulate another's preferences?

Unlike The Dorchester the Cave expected his luncheon guests to help with the cooking and with clearing up afterwards and thus I learned a few skills like making pastry or how to store cheese which, he explained, must never be refrigerated. He had a special marble slab on the cool floor of his larder where cheese was kept and allowed to breath under some sort of cover.  His home made bread was legendary especially for breakfast, toasted, spread with butter and his home marmalade.

I hardly need to add that greatly enjoyed my year's sojourn at 208 Banbury Road and I hold this post in memorial of a unique gentleman who helped to form my life.

Christmas day barefoot

Christmas day on a Sunday begs whether or not to 'do' church. We didn't. We had our big meal at 1700 leaving plenty of time for extra-curriculum activities before this. The weather was balmy (for winter - around 12 degC) so I decided to go to church after all - my favourite haunt the mountain by that name. The camera app on my newly acquired S5 smart (as opposed to a smart phone which it is not) decided to cease up so I have no photos, in any case the top was in cloud cover so not much visibility but my track proves I went there. My direction was clockwise.

And, no, it is not the same track as I made last time - it differs in my descent where I veered off the track to the right down a straight cut through the trees (marked in blue), beautifully steep, muddy and easy under barefoot.

Stats: 15.21 miles, average speed moving 5.15 mph, maximum altitude 542m, total time just over 3 hours, drizzle most of the way then a downpour within the last quarter hour. Not many hikers out but I did meet one couple on the descent.  They probably thought I was mad!  Perhaps I am.

The raven

Whilst Ali was doing the rounds of Wexford sewing shops I explored The Raven which is the sand spit at the south end of Curracloe beach made famous in 1977 by Steven Spielberg'a The saving of private Ryan. This link has an interesting video about the filming.

My first attempt at access, in a bid to save fuel, was to park at the North Slob nature reserve and run along the sea wall to The Raven. "Slob" is a degeneration of "slab" thus mud flat - the land was reclaimed in the 1840's as a famine relief project, by building a sea wall and installing a pumping station. It is now the lowest land in Ireland. My plan was thwarted by many and strong notices forbidding my entrance, and there were PEOPLE around so I figured I had better play good. Geese (of a particular flavour) were allowed along there, but not humans (of any flavour). So I removed myself from these darling geese, disgusted enough not to even take a photo of the pumping station which I normally would have done. As if I would harm a goose...

That meant retracing my wheels and driving to Curracloe and running along the beach from there. It is a beautiful beach but time and weather was against properly enjoying it. Although I did swim a very short distance in a sort of lagoon (it was cold).

From where I started, looking south towards The Raven

Across the Slaney estuary from the point

Looking northwards from the point

Zooming in

The lagoon where I swam for 30 seconds - it was quite deep

Half way back to the car

I wondered if these were left over from Private Ryan

Which would be a good book to read

I have just finished reading Witch Wood, Buchan's favourite of his novels, and allegedly chosen one of 100 Best Supernatural novels ever written.

The novel is perhaps OTT in exposing the weakness of the Calvinist doctrine "once saved always saved" but exaggeration is, after all, a well worn literary tool. It is about those three realms: the devil, religious hypocrisy, and the Truth which is often a whole lot more practical than we expect. Above anything I found it such a very sad story, but I suppose no sadder than he was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief in that greatest story ever told and thus I found it to be true to life. I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants to loose bands of wickedness, undo heavy burdens, free the oppressed, and break every yoke.

Tomorrow Ali and I are leaving on a jet plane. Actually no, just in a car and only for three days, though seriously I sometimes toy with the idea of escaping. We have booked three nights stay in a hotel close south of here so, maybe, I might post some pictures. The excuse - we never celebrated our 40'th wedding anniversary.

I said - I'm not deaf!

Meg (the dog) is deaf. Actually she's not quite. If she is not looking your way and you walk up to her across the gravel, she will first hear you when you are within about 3 feet and then suddenly jump. So we try not to do that. Most of the time she lives in another world, a world of silence, broken only when someone gets sufficiently near to per her.

Michael (the human) is not deaf. Not quite. My hearing is impaired, not unusual at my age, so that loud sounds become distorted and deciphering conversation in a crowded room is nigh impossible. During church worship I keep as far from the drum set as is feasible. During community meals I live largely in another world, broken only when someone next to me speaks sufficiently clearly for me to engage.  I don't mind this, except that it's a bit antisocial and I sometimes miss what's going on.

In this morning's church we were encouraged to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit and were told that it was not good enough to talk only to the Father or Jesus. I chewed this over. I don't think I consciously differentiate in my prayers between the various parts of the Godhead. Does this mean I am missing something? I reckon I have some understanding of the different functions of each part, but it does seem a bit strange to me to address "the Holy Spirit" and I don't see any Biblical precedent for it and so I left confused.

Last night I went on an amazing run

Last night I went on an amazing run. Barefoot of course. Effortlessly along farm tracks, across fields, always a pleasant surface underfoot, with the scarp face of the Blackdown Hills lightly sprinkled with snow ahead of me on the horizon. Culmstock Beacon there somewhere but too far away to resolve. Blue skies and neither too hot nor too cold - it must have been Spring. I realised I had insufficient time to make it all the way to the hills so, at the next opportunity and in a small village, I turned right and followed a winding path down hill that I part recognised: a steep bank on my right coming up to chest height and overlooking a decorative lily pond with only a narrow path at foot level to run along. After various turns, this brought me out to the coast road where I turned right and ran on, under a railway bridge, and then slightly up hill. The sea, I knew, was still a ways away on my left - perhaps half a mile.  I must have left the road because now I was following and plashing through a cold stream that flowed from the hills overlooking the sea. Suddenly I was brought to a standstill at a precipice with the raging sea hundreds of feet below me. Sandy coves swept away to my left but ahead and to my right were sharp cliffs running down to the sea. I started climbing down with several false starts until at last I was at sea level negotiating rocks and inlets but with fair assurance that the going would get better once I had made it around this headland. For hadn't I been along this route before? But then I woke up.

Sick Heart River

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, GCMG, GCVO, CH, PC

Most people will be familiar with John Buchan's novel The Thirty-Nine Steps. Fewer will know that Buchan wrote some 100 books in addition to graduating from Oxford, being a barrister, publisher, lieutenant colonel in Intelligence reporting to the British prime minister, and for the last 5 years of his life, a much beloved Govenrnor Genera of Canada. Wikipedia gives a list of his many accomplishments and honours. You can even listen to him speaking here.

Nominally Free Church of Scotland, it is hard to pinpoint Buchan's faith but I think that he was a believer tired of orthodoxy.  Nick Baldock discusses the subject well and notes that it is a Catholic priest in The Blanket of the Dark who speaks with Buchan’s voice:

I incline to the belief that in the light of eternity all our truths are shadows, and that the very truth we shall only know hereafter. Yet I think that every truth in its own place is a substance, though it may be a shadow in another place. And I think that all such shadows have value for our souls, for each is a true shadow, as the substance is a true substance.

I am reading Witch Wood at the moment - because it was apparently Buchan’s favourite. If it touches me I'll probably post about it.

I read The Thirty Nine Steps many years back. On a dinner date at my daughter's I picked up a copy of Greenmantle and so started to discover the wealth of Buchan's bibliography.  I particularly enjoyed Mr Standfast (the end made me cry) and have just finished reading Sick Heart River a book full of imagery.  I chose this book following my usual desire, on discovering an artist whose work I enjoy, of checking out their last output. Sick Heart River fits this bill well as it was finished only days before his death and published posthumously.

The pace of the book is slow and, unlike its predecessors, it is not a thriller. The protoganist Sir Edward Leithen, who crops up in other Buchan novels, is diagnosed with TB and given less than a year to live - indeed he dies towards the end of the novel. He travels north in Canada on a quest to find the missing businessman Galliard. After rescuing him and his guide Lew he returns to give his life in rescuing a starving and disillusioned native tribe . The book describes Leithen as not being a "church man" and deals with his deep inward struggles knowing that his days are numbered.

It is about two rivers. One he had often thought about, often determined to go back and look for it. Now, as he pictured it in its green security, it seemed the kind of sanctuary in which to die. He remembered its name. The spring was called Clairefontaine, and it gave its name both to the south-flowing stream and to a little farm below in the valley.

Clairefontaine? A pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb?

Early in the book Leithen gets to visit this place that he had remembered from his past. It was a cup in the hills, floored not with wild hay, but with short, crisp pasture like an English down. From its sides descended the rivulets which made the Clairefontaine, and in the heart of it was a pool fringed with flags, so clear that through its six-foot depth the little stir in the sand could be seen where the water bubbled up from below. The place was so green and gracious that all sense of the wilds was lost, and it seemed like a garden in a long-settled land, a garden made centuries ago by the very good and the very wise.

The other is the Sick Heart, a fictional river in North West Territories emptying into Hudson Bay, an imagined sort of El Dorado or Eden or paradise sought by four characters in the book and for various reasons. But it turns out to be the very opposite of paradise, it is a place that you cannot easily escape from, a place to die.

The green sanctuary is in fact a water shed - the Clairefontaine flows south but another source flows north and the reader is left wondering whether the northerly stream is in fact the head of the Sick Heart. Thus the sanctuary is a place of choice.

Whilst tending the native tribe Galliard was staring at him with bright comprehending eyes.

(Leithen relies) "In this fight we have each got his special job. I'm in command, and I hand them out. I've taken the one for myself that I believe I can do best. We're going to win, remember. What does my death matter if we defeat Death?"

Lew sat down again with his head in his hands. He raised it like a frightened animal at Leithen's next words.

"This is my Sick Heart River. Galliard's too, I think. Maybe yours, Lew. Each of us has got to find his river for himself, and it may flow where he least expects it."

Father Duplessis, back in the deep shadows, quoted from the Vulgate psalm (Ps 46), "Fluminis impetus laetificat civitatem Dei."

Leithen smiled. "Do you know the English of that, Lew? There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God. That's what you've always been looking for."

After Leithen's death, the book closes with Galliard and his wife reunited:

For a little the two did not speak. Their eyes followed the slender north-flowing stream. It dropped almost at once into a narrow ravine, but it was possible to mark where that ravine joined a wider valley, and where that valley clove its way into the dark tangle of forested mountains.

"What happens away up there?" the woman asked. "I should like to follow the water."

"It becomes a river which breaks into the lowlands and wanders through muskegs and bush until it reaches the salt. Hudson's Bay, you know. Dull, shallow tides at first, and then the true Arctic, ice-bound for most of the year. Away beyond are the barrens, and rivers of no name, and then the Polar Sea, and the country where only the white bear and the musk ox live. And at the end a great solitude. Some day we will go there together."

"You don't fear it any more?"

"No. It has become part of me, as close to me as my skin. I love it. It is myself. You see, I have made my peace with the North, faced up to it, defied it, and so won its blessing. Consider, my dear. The most vital forces of the world are in the North, in the men of the North, but only when they have annexed it. It kills those who run away from it."

"I see," she said after a long pause. "I know what you mean. I think I feel it... But the Sick Heart River! Wasn't that a queer fancy?"

Galliard laughed.

"It was the old habit of human nature to turn to magic. Lew Frizel wanted a short cut out of his perplexities. So did I, and I came under the spell of his madness. First I came here. Then I went to the Ghost River. Then I heard Lew's story. I was looking for magic, you see. We both had sick hearts. But it was no good. The North will always call your bluff."

"And Leithen? He went there, didn't he?"

"Yes, and brought Lew away. Leithen didn't have a sick heart. He was facing the North with clear eyes. He would always have won out."

"But he died!"

"That was victory—absolute victory... But Leithen had a fleuve de rêve (dream river) also. I suppose we all have. It was this little stream. That's why we brought his body here. It is mine, too—and yours—the place we'll always come back to when we want comforting."

"Which stream?" she asked. "There are two."

"Both. One is the gate of the North and the other's the gate of the world."


One cannot help but think that Leithen is Buchan. He was a man with many facets - friend of Cecil Rhodes with all the implied intrige, Pilgrims Progress as his favourite book after the Bible, involved in government, inventor of the modern thriller. Without doubt a remarkable man. I identify at least in in part with some of his characters and I figure that he was a good man. The lesson? Perhaps "shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works."

He died on February 11th 1940 from an accident whilst taking a bath, aged 64.  My age.

There is a river that flows

from God above;

there is a fountain

that’s filled with his great love.

Come to the waters;

there is a vast supply;

there is a river 

that never shall run dry.

What's in a name?

I hated the way my mother would take her handkerchief, wet it with her saliva, and wipe my mouth pressing quite hard. I can almost remember the feint smell. And this would sometimes, oh the humiliation!, be in public. Don't tell me that very young children don't remember stuff!

Back then they used to call me Micky Dodo or Micky Doo. My dad called me Boyka.

In adult life I have been variously referred to as Mike, Mick, Micky, but my given name is Michael and I like it unadulterated. And besides, names, particularly in the Bible, have meanings and perhaps the meaning of my name is not insignificant.

This site seems to be an authority and claims "The name Michael is commonly translated with Who Is Like God?, but, more accurately, the name denotes an inquiry after the identity of God: Who's God? or What's God Like? ".  He then quotes Ex 15:11 and Ps 35:10.

If at the end of my life it could be said that in any way I helped anyone to understand better what God is really like - not the religious images that prevail but the real truth - then I would be satisfied.

And if I am to do that, I guess I had better first find out myself. And that may be less comfortable than many make it out to be.

Septic Tank

So it was on a Sunday morning... I had, of course, rehearsed the possible outcomes during the wee hours. It was either the pump failure or the float switches. It turned out to be the latter and it was possible to fix without spending much apart from hours of my time.

The septic tank has two main chambers and a third, pump-sump chamber. The effluent has to be pumped about 350m along and perhaps 5m uphill to the reed bed. For a domestic septic system to rely on a pump is undesirable but the lie of the land gave us no choice.

Oh, and the invert level (that's the normal level of the sewage) is perhaps 1.5m below ground level again determined by the lie of the land.

I removed the cover to the sump chamber - you have to climb down a ladder maybe 2m to get to the top of this chamber - and quickly found the problem - the cable clips that hold the amber warning light float switch cable and thus determine its height had corroded right through, so the amber light was 'on' even though the pump was still operating. But the pump's float switch was also malfunctioning - being permanently on, and the junction box lid had fallen off again because the four screws had corroded away. So I fixed the warning float switch with stainless steel screw and copper tie wire, replaced the pump float switch, and replaced the junction box. It is far from ideal having even a sealed junction box in this chamber as the humidity is 100% by definition but it would take a lot of work to relocate it.

"Church" came somewhat annoyingly halfway through, which meant an interim shower and change of clothes. Eventually I got done and cleared up and then went for a constitutional barefoot run (I did not do the septic tank barefoot!). My reward - a deep, hot bath, only possible because the septic tank is working again!

More lake photographs

Today was Saturday. Yesterday I noticed that the grease trap outside the kitchen was overflowing so, the first thing this morning was to dig a grave. At 0900 I joined the outside crew picking up leaves and then moving laurel branches that J had been chain sawing. After drinks at 1030 I lifted the three manhole covers comprising the grease trap and removed four wheelbarrow fulls of yuk to my grave, then cleared up and was a bit late for lunch. Which meant I skipped dishes. It was a beautifully still, crisp and sunny day with not a cloud in the sky (despite the weather forecast that informed me it was cloudy) so, this afternoon, I did a medium serious run, along "goat man's lane" to the bridge over Kings river and back along the river-side and lake. In places where the sun had not reached the ground was still frosty which was a tad cold and crispy on the feet, but I manfully survived.

After a hot bath, Ali and I enjoyed dinner together until I was informed that the dreaded amber light was 'on' - this means that our septic tank pump has gone wrong and this basically means that all bodily functions will have to stop within a matter of a few hours. Hard to do anything in the dark so it will have to wait till tomorrow morning which, fortunately, is not the Sabbath.  Did it have to go belly up just after getting cleaned up from doing the grease trap?

Lone pylon on its way to Turlough Hill

River Liffey

Where the Liffey joins the lake - the water is very low

Flotsam

See the boat?

Nice squelchy mud!

The boat stopped at this island - what is the man doing?

His boat at the other end of the island

This island, by the way, only appears when the lake is very low as it is at the moment. Moreover this boat, recognisable because, as the man sits at the back to operate the outboard, its bow is always high, is often seen on the lake.

The surface (moss?) in the foreground was bright orange

Evening shadows

Light effects

A cold Sunday afternoon run - hovering around freezing point. Strangely I find my hands feel the coldest: bare feet cope reasonably well.

Cold and frosty

Sunday 0700

T'was a cold and frosty morning... And Google tells me it also happens also to be International Children's Day. Which led me to this site "Never before have parents taken their role as parents so seriously" a sentiment I like. If anyone doubts the riches in a child's life take a look here or here! Provided new parenthood doesn't smoother the child per my last post.

Mollycoddle or rust?

I may have remarked before how now-a-days parents seem almost over-protective of their children as if there is pervert around every corner or as if, when climbing a tree, they will fall and break their neck, or would never trust their child with a sharp knife. In my experience children are generally very sensible and robust and quite capable of looking after themselves.

Among the several buildings comprising my parent's business Smith & Crockford was an ancient shed in some disrepair which was used to store disused building materials and ladders. It was a wooden structure with earth floor and part corrugated-sheet-iron roof. The other part was where sheets were missing, and many of the existing sheets were paper thin for rust. It had a sort of upper floor by reason of the lumber stored there. In all it was a wonderful playground. Of course, strictly, we were not allowed to climb on the roof because it was considered so dangerous. But we did. We being my older sister (until she grew out of such things) and Ian, the boy from next door.  My sister is three years and Ian was a year older than me. We knew how to navigate that roof. We did not chance the rustiest sheets. We gambled on those that were mediocre. And we disdained the few shiny new sheets.  We crawled through tunnels formed from stacked lumber. We ground glass bottles to dust in an old plumber's vice.  We made milk by mixing crushed chalk with water, and added it to tea made from builder's sand mixed with water. We made an obstacle course around the "top" garden which was adjacent to this shed: the course involved various dare devil feats and you were chicken if you could not complete it or touched the ground.  I remember edging my way along the top rail of a tall fence surmounted with metal spikes which would have impaled me had I fallen. And then walk unwavering along the rounded top of a 6ft masonry wall.

Next door was Ian's parents' grocery store which had a separate bakery at the end of the yard behind the shop. Ian and I would pester the baker for cakes and occasionally won, more often got shouted away. Or we would filch eggs and watch them explode when thrown against the brick wall we traversed to get from my to Ian's property. We only took eggs with no shells, thinking these were unsaleable. Or, if the store room was unlocked, Ian would take bottles of fizzy drinks one by one and drink the top half inch or so on the basis that nobody would ever notice. As far as I know nobody ever did. In those days bottles were not sealed like they are now.

The bakery had a slate roof which was definitely out of bounds. Slates break very easily and are difficult to repair, as I repeatedly tell people here. But we clambered over the roof none-the-less, with great care I should add - it was never our intention to damage property.

In my parent's "top garden", which was about 50 yards along the builder's yard behind our house, was a raised rain-water tank that communicated via a valve and underground pipe to a second, underground tank which had an overflow onto the vegetable garden. On opening the valve water would thus come out of this overflow and water and soil make mud and mud is great to play in. Here it was that I made dams and reservoirs and invented the venturi pump.  How could I have known it had already been invented?

His Master's Voice

My workshop was in the top garden. My father had plenty of other work areas associated with the business so was happy for me to take over part of this shed. Here I collected resistors and suchlike from old radio sets and, when I got a bit older, actually made things that worked like an oscilloscope, a servo-controlled XY pen-plotter, an audio signal generator. Here I first savoured Rossini's overture to Guillaume Tell on a '78 using a phonograph with a steel needle, through my beloved balanced pentode audio amplifier, the beginning of hi-fi.

We now live together with several other families and I am so thankful that we have about 15 acres of land, not all cultivated, thus providing plenty of opportunities for children here (that includes my three granddaughters) to explore, whilst still being in the relative safety of our property.

Convention is over

Some left yesterday, others left early this morning after having been dosed with multiple mugs of coffee, some will remain a couple more days. So it is more or less over. Things will gradually slip back into routine. Am I pleased? I think I may have already intimated that conventions and other such large-scale gatherings are not at all my scene. I tend to crawl into my shell. The noise deafens me so that I cannot even hear the person the other side of the dinner table. I am embarrassed because I cannot remember some of the names, or cannot tell people apart. Gatherings between the meetings are about socialising, about small talk, and I don't do small talk - I long for proper relationship and not just a meaningless, yearly brushing of shoulders. Thankfully there is always plenty of clearing up that has to be done, to occupy my time and energies.  And so, once again, convention has come to pass.

Convention run

Mullaghcleevaun hidden in the clouds

Every year we host a convention. Convention means lots of people, lots of long meetings, lots of food and lots of extra preparation and clearing up. Some like the buzz. I'm glad when bedtime comes.

And so many comments like - aren't your feet cold? I ask them if their hands and head are cold. Or just pointing at my feet. It sure is hard to go against the shoe convention.

Taking time to run every day helps blow away the cobwebs. Today I visited my lake which is very low at the moment.

My lake

Evening shadows

Flanges

Temple Mills Eurostar Depot

Several years back I was working for a company that supplied catering equipment for the Eurostar trains, and my work involved a visit to the Eurostar Temple Mills depot.

Making conversation with my host I mentioned how strange I found it that the flanges on real rolling stock seemed so small compared with what I was used to in the OO-gauge models my father excelled in. He explained that, of course, the flange is not normally what keeps the trains on the track anyway. Strange that, until then, this wisdom had not penetrated my thick skull.

The principle is explained on many web sites: The picture below is from one of the easier to follow. Of here for a video. A consequence is that, unlike road vehicles, train wheelsets do not need, indeed must not have differentials.

I find it hard to comprehend how hundreds of tons of rolling stock travelling at around 100 mph can stay on two narrow steel rails, bends and all, just because of the wheel profile. But they do. And here's how scale fails us - with OO-gauge models I have no doubt that it is the flange primarily, and not the profile, that keeps the trains on the track. Although die hards model to P4 standard which is true to scale which makes we wonder whether they suffer frequent derailments.

I miss my father's model railway. Living in a community as I do sort of precludes building one myself - there is nowhere to put it and would be little time to enjoy it. And how would I pay for it? I still have some remnants of my father's rolling stock gathering dust in the attic, kept in case any child developed a taste, but so far that hasn't happened. How could they?

Does this bother me? Frankly not all that much. But I still love railways in any form, shape or size and am looking forward to that grand age when the Irish government will allow me to travel anywhere in Ireland for free!

More Autumn

A few more Autumn shots taken whilst running today...