20180831

Walks and Runs during UK trip Two

My first run from Ali's nephew in Finsbury Park was I think worthy of recording...

My track: 7.14 miles

I ran around the perimeter of Finsbury Park and was not impressed - too much litter - so took no photos. Next I crossed the railway at Harringay Station...


Harringay

...and then meandered somewhat aimlessly in a northerly direction until I observed Alexandra Palace on the horizon. It seems the obvious place to go next so...

Ally Pally on the sky line

Alexandra Palace - Palm Court

...so I did. It sits on high ground and on the ascent I passed a woman, maybe Filipino, and wished her the time of day. Some stunning views from the balustrade....


stunning view

by act of parliament

Ally Pally

The radio mast

Alexandra Palace holds some significance in my life because I once went to a concert there, because Ally Pally is Ali's nickname, because the BBC do things there it being the birthplace of television. On my descent I passed my Filipino walker again and remarked so to her. She advised me to take care running barefoot in London, which advice I took seriously. Actually I always take care having enough times dinged my toes, suffered from thorns and stinging nettles, thankfully nothing worse.

Hornsey rail depot

There are two footpaths crossing the railway complex here so I obviously had to take the second one as well, and then sought out the New River Way....


New River

New River Way

 ...which as you can read is neither new nor a river nor a way. Which explains why it flows on the side of and halfway up, rather than the bottom of, a hill close to our host's house.

Then back to base for an excellent spaghetti carbonara scratch built by T.




The next morning I ran again, this time to and across the River Lee: mostly on somewhat boring London roads so I will include here only one photo of vague interest, in proof that I actually went there, all 7.5 miles...

Tottenham Lock on River Lee

20180829

Walks and Runs during UK trip One


Running through my beloved Uffculme water meadows

We went by ferry and car, the main purpose to visit Ali's mum and other friends and relations, especially my sisters who I have not seen for ages. But interspersed were the usual walks and barefoot runs for which this blog is famed. My first run was a mere 6.7 miles around Uffculme.

Next was a walk with Ali's sister starting in the Rickmansworth Aquadrome.

Grand Union Canal

Coal tax post

Julia contemplating Japanese Knotweed

Inscribed on a canal barge

One of the several lakes



English Conveniences

My title is perhaps a euphemism. I suppose I was amused, nay surprised, that more often than not the loos encountered on our UK trip were somewhat lacking.

The light in the passage outside Ali's mum's bathroom turns on automatically and turns off a few seconds after you leave. When I woke in the night needing the loo, the passageway light did its job and lit the bathroom adequately. I didn't want to turn the bathroom light on because the extractor fan might wake Ali. But the timing was such that the passageway light extinguished just as my business started to flow - every time. I learnt to take a flashlight with me.

Ali's sister's loo seat is one of these gradual descent types. But it is also gradual ascent and takes some force to raise it. If pressed against its upper home position for long enough it will stay there, but for any shorter time, after a few more seconds, just when one is mid-flow, it decides to descend with devastating consequences.

Ali's nephew's loo seat was so loose that it floated to left or right when sat upon. I tightened the fixings as best as I could without tools. One doesn't want to make a fuss.

My sister's loo seat was reminiscent of Ali's sister's, though possibly not quite so forthright.

Ali's cousins loo was strangely at the end of an unnecessarily long narrow passage leading off the bathroom proper. Once again the loo seat, when opened, would only just stay put and would close of its own accord at the slightest provocation.

Is it really that hard to design a loo seat that does what it is told?

20180823

Utterly running late



Willand to almost Bickleigh and back


Bickleigh on Google Maps

My goal was to reach the river Exe at Bickleigh Mill and explore the famous bridge, mill with its weir, and railway centre. I am an advocate of the Oxford comma without which that list would have meant something different. I got within a quarter mile (see aerial photo above) but then, sadly, had to turn back, like...

This time, we were just about to land, maybe three feet... when, what do you think, we run out of gasoline again. Back we go and get more gas.

...because I had an appointment to keep. Even so it felt (on the way back) as if this was going to be at least an 18 mile round trip and I was a bit miffed to find my GPS trip statistics claimed a mere:

- total distance 15.83 miles
- average speed moving 5.53 mph (11:37 min per mile)
- elevation gain 832m
- maximum elevation 213m
- minimum elevation 44m


Butterleigh Meadow

My route took me through the beautiful Devon village of Butterleigh, which boasts a nice meadow for running barefoot in, and then past James' farm, the significance of which will be apparent to only a Few who will also know the significance of the eggs for sale there. 


James' farm

Eggs for sale

And back via Brithem Bottom, which is to this area as Crewe is to British Rail, where I was obliged to phone Ali to warn her that I was running late...

20180805

On the fringe - or - never able to arrive at the truth

It is a universal truth - though largely ignored by some die-hard archaeologists - that there is no known culture in the world without religious beliefs (Terence Meaden, Archaeologist, Oxon). An interesting observation - some would say it is because there is a "God shaped hole" in everyone.

I have a rich Christian heritage but more to the point where am I now? Like in "But whom do you say that I am?".

I remember cringing when someone we used to visit would ask me "and what has God being doing in your life?" - because I could never think that there was anything in particular.

My earliest church memories were of Alresford Congregational church. Later we went by train to Winchester Baptist Church where I, tacet, would sometimes sit beside my father on the polished organ bench. His own folk were at various times nonconformist evangelical, Baptist and Peculiar and his father was at one time a reverend.

Winchester Baptist Church
Speaking of which, the ‘The Peculiar People’ were initially quite a fiery bunch but, doubtless after a generation, their zeal diminished. They later changed their name to the ‘Union of Evangelical Churches’ and their web site now says "divine healing does not now have such prominence..." If folk really were healed once, this seems a strange statement to make. Like, we don't want any of this getting better stuff.

My parents then joined NFC from whence stem most of my childhood church memories. Here I went to Sunday School and later the Adventurer's Club, was baptised, and first spoke (briefly and timidly) in public. Open Brethren based, I am thankful for the good knowledge of the Bible that NFC instilled in me, but I must have been suitably indoctrinated because, when I left home for college, I naively considered all other churches inferior and probably heretical and was surprised when I discovered committed Christians from other persuasions. In my final year I agreed to become the OICCU "Rep" for my college and, under considerable duress, was obliged to sign a statement of doctrine. It wasn't that I had a problem with anything there but I disagreed strongly (and still do) with the need to sign.

Whilst in Oxford I tried various church flavours including the James Street brethren assembly (now re-branded "evangelical") - the folk there were very friendly but I didn't fit in. Plain contrary to my upbringing I ended up most at home in the reasonably high Anglican college chapel - because the chaplain cared about my well being, because it was local and because I found I could worship God there. Despite the occasional smells and bells.

On finding my feet in my first job I started to attend CBC where I met and married Ali, and when we both wanted to be involved in young people's work we first had to become church members which implied signing up to their doctrine, which I once again did under much duress.

Both Ali and I wanted more than CBC appeared to offer and thus we met together with like-minded folk of similar age. One year the group had a holiday-cum-conference hosted by a Christian community in Eastleigh and this was our first introduction to communal living and The Move.

You can Google The Move and its founding leader Sam Fife and you'll find a lot of nonsense as well as some truth. And sure there was some nonsense, doubtless because of People. We had our share of this nonsense but thankfully nothing serious - because we were on the fringe.  The Wikipedia link is rather dated and things have changed, mellowed - a bit like the Peculiar People I wonder?

That Sam Fife (who I never met) was a "one man ministry", or at least the dominant leader, did raise warning bells in me but, hang it all, wasn't Jesus also a "one man ministry"? The thing is, some of what Fife preached his followers now don't go along with - at least they no longer emphasise - like "people of God we are not going to die" and the "wilderness message". If those radical areas that so intrigued his followers are now mellowed, do we revert to being plain evangelicals?

Probably not - Ali's parents were, for a time, Exclusive Brethren. When they left, not being able to stomach some of the more radical and intrusive teachings, her father could never feel at home in any other church flavour, none of which had the same sense of family and depth of conservative doctrine, so ended up without christian fellowship for the rest of his life.  I think I might have done similarly.

Seen in Texas 3 days ago

A recent guest on the Ryan Tubridy Show on RTE-radio-1 told how, when he was about six, he saw an angel standing beside his bed.  He hadn't told anyone else for years but much later his younger brother (who had shared the bedroom and would have been less than two at the time) asked him if he remembered the angel. So did that really happen?

I once saw an angel. I was a child sitting up in my bed at home. The angel was standing on top of a chimney stack on a building opposite my bedroom window: much taller than a human, with wings and shining white. Certainly not a cloud formation! But it might have been a dream - I cannot remember clearly: did that really happen?

My Aunt Mary claimed she had seen angels. She claimed all manner of things, mind you, but it would be wrong to discredit her experiences just for that reason.

If we cannot confirm whether recent extraordinary things like these really happened, what chance have we of confirming stories about a man who lived 2,000 years ago?  Most historians concede that the man Jesus existed - but they get woolly about the miracles. Did they really happen?  On the other hand why would anyone writing a Gospel account chose to blatantly lie?

Along with many others, I have a burden for a child with leukaemia and have earnestly prayed for his complete healing. His father is a Methodist minister and he also is praying for total healing: I would interpret this as "faith". But whilst there has been good medical progress, currently there has been a relapse. I am at least encouraged when I read "See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven". It's not the end of the story, of course, but I had hoped... But maybe I am missing something, maybe his being healed now would spoil some vast eternal plan?

We humans are rum creatures. We think we know so much and yet we know so little. Our understanding of science, when descriptive and thus concerning things we can measure now, is all very well. But when it becomes inferential, concerning things long ago or yet to come or far, far away or far too small, who knows whether we have it right? I sometimes wonder whether, if you look hard enough with a preconceived dogma, nature will oblige. Thus the double slit experiment which could be thought to answer to two apparently contradictory theories.

There's people who genuinely think the earth is flat. Or this guy who goes along with the electric sun hypothesis and writes:

Yet, here is an incredible thing. Even though the theories of Newton, Einstein, and Twentieth Century astronomy are blown to pieces on almost a daily basis by what is actually out there, yet modern man has refused absolutely to let go of those dis-proven ideas... And so to explain how "gravity" can do all these wondrous things, the mathematicians have pulled out of their hats such unprovable bits of nonsense as "dark matter," and "black holes," and "string theory," and "nuclear fusion," and so on. None of these fantastical ideas ever find their way into a practical laboratory because all engineers know they are complete fabrications. Governments have spent untold billions of dollars to duplicate "nuclear fusion" on earth to complete and continuing failure. Why? Because there is no such thing. That's why it takes government money to build the huge "super colliders." No private business would waste a penny on such nonsense. So, let's look at astronomy as it really is. The universe is electrical. The sun is a large solid ball of rock that sustains a vast and continual electrical arc lamp discharge above its surface exactly like the electrical arc used by welders. That electrical arc is fed by huge currents of electricity that flow down the arms of the Milky Way to its center.

His position is gently ameliorated here but, honestly, with things we can, at best, hardly detect, who can say whether our theories are correct?

In our early community years we were already convinced about home schooling our kids. We listened to a CLA teaching about legal cases where the US child protection authorities took kids from their parents and, on their advice, we decided to eschew child benefit to cut one possible hold the government might have on our kids. Years later I think of all that cash we didn't get and see all the young parents here taking child benefit without a thought. And yet I read the other day Norway's hidden scandal - so were we so stupid? I certainly have no regrets about home schooling. Our four children have not grown up with carbon copies of their parents strange beliefs as some think home schooled kids will, but each are now making their own choice as to how they should live and what they should belief, as is right and proper. And I am proud of them.

I like to think that I am searching for truth (though probably not nearly hard enough as in strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able).  But I am allergic to religious or hypocritical sort of "truth". Like in the parable of the leaven in all three measures of flour: I suppose the Kingdom of God must attract error.

In searching for truth I find myself coming back, again and again, to the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. I try to read them without the preconceptions I grew up with, and I find a very human man with emotions and a sense of humour, who enjoys a good meal, who gets tired and thirsty after a long journey. Here I might add (though the accounts leave it out) that doubtless his body sweated and needed washing, that he had to go to the loo, cut his finger nails, and all the basic stuff we experience but don't generally advertise. But in this human frame he did only what he understood his Heavenly Father wanted, and thus he wrought amazing miracles, and he was crucified and died "to make us good".  And I get goose-bumps when I sing:

...Risen with healing in his wings 
Mild he lays his glory by, 
Born that man no more may die: 
Born to raise the son of earth, 
Born to give them second birth...
[Charles Wesley]

and

There is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all

We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains He had to bear;
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heaven,
Saved by His precious blood.

There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.

O dearly, dearly has He loved,
And we must love Him, too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His works to do.
[Cecil Frances Alexander]

Interestingly Cecil Frances Alexander, née Humphreys, second daughter of the late Major John Humphreys, Miltown House, co. Tyrone, Ireland, b. 1823, also author of All things bright and beautiful... The purple-headed mountain, the river running by might well have lived at or at least been associated with Humpreystown House, in which case those purple headed mountains are the ones we see across the lake at this time of the year, and the river might be the Liffey or Kings River.

20180804

When I am laid in earth




When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;

Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.
Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.


The occasion: Dame Janet Baker performing, in 1966, the role of Dido from Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas. Apparently it is widely considered to be one of the greatest expositions of tragedy in modern operatic history.

The reason? One of the zillion or so O-levels I did at PSS was music. Our teacher was Harold Perkins. I excelled in music theory but my lack of understanding of the plot cost me dearly - I passed but did not have a good grade. I remember two set works, one was Dido and Aeneas and the other Brahms Saint Anthony Variations. I had not a clue as to what was expected of me as far as understanding these works, but I enjoyed the music and this many years later still do. So, if I am at all musical, it is only a very simple sort of musical. But as long as I don't try to be something I am not, I think that is OK.

What this post is meant to be drawing attention to is the beauty, the poignancy, the emotion in Dido's lament, which has haunted me ever since. Well not exactly haunted, but stayed with me at least. Which is all the more remarkable because as a rule I dislike opera - I do not like the highly trained voices, as a result the lyrics are hard to make out and if you do the plots are often imbecile - in short it is music at its worst, rather like putting raisins in rice pudding. This of course is IMHO and if you happen to like opera I salute you for your endurance.

Here is a more recent performance which includes some sheet music and words.



Whilst writing, here's what I did this afternoon. I attacked Silsean from its backside as an alternative access - so I cycled up the road behind Knockalt and parked the cycle in the forestry area. That oblique line on the map represents a fence. The fence posts are there (concrete too!) but no wire. One wonders what the purpose is or was!

Silsean from Garryknock forestry
Me atop the cairn

The cairn atop the mountain

20180803

Am I Hugo?

I may have said before that Hugo must rank as one of my most enjoyed films. There are so many aspects to the film that are executed so superbly. And yet, and here I quote Wikipedia: Hugo was also nominated for eight BAFTAs, winning two of the eight, and was nominated for three Golden Globe awards, earning Scorsese his third Golden Globe Award for Best Director. Despite this, the film was a commercial failure, grossing $185 million against its $150–$170 million budget. I remain sad that I never saw it on the big screen and in 3D.

Anyway, back to subject... When the uncle Claude died (actually in my case he became too involved with his business) I tacitly assumed full responsibility for our wood-burning boiler. At this time of the year we don't need central heating but it supplies all our hot water. Who here thinks, when they turn the hot tap on, that the water didn't just get hot all by itself? And what Gare Montparnasse passers by considered that the station clocks didn't just wind themselves up?

There are so many aspects of community life that one tends to take for granted. Someone has to wash those dishes you leave on the draining board late at night. Someone is keeping the front lawn mowed, and weeding the flower beds, cooking the dinner, etc... the list goes on!  And, no, I do not do all those things!