Marine - a friend in nature

Marine - in french, a name meaning 'from the sea'.

Last Thursday I returned from France, almost three weeks later than planned, thanks to an unscheduled sojourn (two actually) in the french health care system. I left behind one gallbladder, a string of nasty infections and an experience that was both frightening and uplifting in equal parts. While its not something I'd want to repeat, there are memories of my time there that I will carry with me - and I would not want to change...

In saying this, I don't mean the treatment, which was first class and no doubt swifter than our NHS would have provided. The efficiency of the various scans, the transfer to Lyon, the endoscopy and operation were impressive, if somewhat of a blur.  To be alone in a foreign hospital, with limited language and something clearly very wrong, requires putting your trust in others and letting them get on with the job. They were, I'm delighted to say, magnificent.

But post-op recovery requires something different. For when there is action there is concentration and focus;  unlike the long days and nights, alone in a room, where one's mind wanders and spirals, plotting a course through the mental whirlpools of Charybdis and Scylla. It's at times like like these that you need not so much a doctor, as a friend.

Which is where Marine fits into this story. 

There were many nurses in the ward, all of them kind and helpful, but she was the most jolly and the one who asked the most questions — not about my pain, but about me as a person and later about our shared passion for the outdoors. It began, in broken English, with her mention of going for a ski randonee that weekend — or ski mountaineering as I said we would call it in the UK.  She'd been brought up in Bellevaux, she said, an off the tourist track village that she was delighted I knew well, nestling as it does, under the Roc d'Enfer and Pointe de Chalune. 

And from here on, we were off...  every day thereafter, talking of the mountains and what they mean and why they're so special. I mentioned that I'd once snowshoed to the remote refuge de chavanne above her village in the winter. 'So you must know Claudius', she replied' he's a legend!'  Which indeed he is, living there alone, making copious flagons of wine and welcoming walkers and skiers all year round.  

I showed her photos of our trip and she shared more her own: a gallery of peaks and cols and cloud inversions that make this corner of the haute-savoie such a wonderful place. Later she asked about my writing and kayaking and I learned she started skiing and climbing before going to school. I could go on here, but the details don't matter, except between us in authenticating our shared passion and confirming it was something deeper than the ephemeral highs of stereotypical thrill seekers.   

Of course, I'm well aware that it's easy to romanticise a supposed friendship in times of stress. Indeed, what middle aged man would not be delighted with the attention of a young and pretty nurse?  For all I know she may have forgotten our conversations already... But truly, I don't believe that's what was going on here - and even if it were, it's not relevant to my central point .

Which is that in making a mutual connection to place and nature, she intuitively grasped that this was what I most needed to recover.  And if nothing else she understood that nursing is about more than dressings and injections. Two days before I left the ward I had a relapse in confidence and it was Marine who spotted it first — and who spoke to me thereafter that day not of the physical symptoms but of the snowfall in the hills of the Chablais, and of her friend skinning that morning up the Col de Chalune.  

Don't worry, be happy... she sang, every time she came to my room... and whatever you do, don't change Mark! You're the best and most intersting patient on my sector, she said — and true or not, it made me smile again. 

So don't you change either Marine. 

Your concern and love of nature will stay with me long after my body has healed and my time in a french hospital is but a story from the past.  This matters, and so much more than we allow ourselves to think.  

Meanwhile,  I wonder if one day we might meet again?  

If we do, I hope its on the hills, with my family beside me, so they can thank you too...  Perhaps we will cross paths on slopes, or walking on the Nifflon d'en Haut, the ridge which separates your house from mine.... or, even better, at the refuge we talked about in Ubine, that's owned by Les Amis de la Nature..  

How fitting would that be? 

Coming through and counting steps

It’s many years since I last wrote a piece on my phone - certainly more than a decade; back in the very early days of this blog.  But needs must and I have the time to kill … For I’m currently in hospital in France where I was first admitted almost two weeks now…

A short break there to speak to the nurses

…

In mutually broken French and English we make ourselves understood. Not that the medical details are the purpose of the post - suffice to say I have been very unwell but am recovering at pace and am in good hands.  It will be fine - all in good time. 

Meanwhile a friend wrote to say it was an excellent opportunity for people watching… I replied, that there’s nothing so foreign as a frenchman, for the Channel is, in many ways, wider than the Atlantic.  But in truth I have a private room and the best of care, and it is the medical staff that I speak to most. 

I am struck by everyone’s kindness here and its contrast to the ‘system’ which is rigorous and rules everything - though astonishingly good in its way. ( They apologised because my private ambulance to Lyon for treatment was 45 minutes late on its return). One nurse, frustrated by lack of information for me, said there’s no humanity in the hospital - she meant the processes I think. And certainly, I hope so, because she was a living example of how much there is.

In many ways I feel blessed to have fallen ill here in France, despite some bewilderment at times. A funny word to use that - blessed - for it intimates at a type of faith with which I struggle.  And yet I have often used words like prayer and even Godspeed when speaking to others recently. Perhaps there is something in that … and perhaps, even in our secular world, they have meaning that is more than mere analogy or cultural carry over.  I sense they do in fact.

Meanwhile the photo above is of a village near my house here. Needless to say it elicits many mirthful quips - and yet, it is a beautiful place.  Indeed, I am counting the days - and the steps - till I can return. 

Very soon I hope.

Autumn musings

Oscar winding up ...

At the back of my cottage is a field. It’s one of those nondescript patches of our landscape that sees little traffic other than the cutting of silage and an occasional foray from Oscar, my ever-attentive whippet. If there wasn’t a public right of way, I doubt there’d be a gate to the road.

And yet for all its isolation — or perhaps because of it — it’s not a silent or deserted place at all. If you were to walk there in twilight, you’d likely see badgers by the northern hedge, or perhaps the family of foxes that live nearby. There are rabbits too and an occasional polecat; there’s even, somewhere in the scrub, the remains of our tortoise, which escaped, never to be found again.

Often, as I write in my garden office, there are buzzards looking for a meal; kestrels too when the grass is fresh cut. Over the years I’ve seen dragonflies, woodpeckers, almost twenty different butterflies, an adder, many weasels and a stoat… The night brings owls and moths and who knows what…

I sometimes wonder if I should submit my sightings to a wildlife survey. But they are so fleeting and incomplete that instead I write blogs and essays, which I guess is a record of sorts. What’s interesting, is that there’s often as much to see from my window as there is when I go travelling.

If Oscar could talk, he’d say it’s all about paying attention – and no doubt waiting patiently too. Yesterday, as he sniffed the morning air, I glimpsed the unmistakable tail of a red kite hovering above us. When I first came here, the nests of these magnificent raptors were protected by the army; today, there are over 300 breeding pairs in Wales.

That progress should give us hope — and prompts me to muse, that perhaps my little tramped field is not so nondescript after all.

A version of this post was first published in the AAC(UK) monthly newsletter

A Morecambe and Wise Summer

Dark clouds gathering...

As some of you know, I edit a monthly online alpine newsletter.  Here is my latest introduction, that I thought might raise a smile.  Ironically, the sun has since come out in Pembrokeshire.

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According to the Met Office this apparently miserable summer is not so bad after all. It would seem our lack of sunshine is merely on the drearier side of dull and well within the statistical norms for an Atlantic archipelago that sits astride the jet stream. The problem, they say, is not so much the indigo skies as our rose-tinted memories of years gone by.

If that analysis seems awry, you’ll not be alone in your thinking. For it seems we’ve evolved to recall most keenly those events that are ‘exceptional or good’. In the case of the weather, we tend to evoke – and romanticise —the heatwave summers of our youth more than we do those holidays on a windy beach. Reality, the Met Office claims, is more prosaic than our fallible memories would lead us to believe.

I was pondering this after Jane and I spent a week in the Lake District earlier this month. Most days were grizzly at best, and yet we togged up and walked round Derwentwater and through Langdale and sat in the caff with dripping cagoules and a soggy map… actually, it was a waterlogged phone, but you get the picture. 

And you know what: we had a lovely time!

So much so, that it made me wonder, if us mountain lovers have developed some sort of evolutionary advantage? We might most vividly recall our sunniest summits or perfect paths – but it isn’t going to stop us making the most of the more mundane. Indeed, here in the UK, we’d have pretty paltry tick lists if we only ventured out in the best of conditions.

None of which is to suggest we should dismiss the meteorologists. Rather, that in summers like these, we do well to remember the wisdom of perhaps our two greatest forecasters…

What was it they used to sing?

Bring me sunshine
In your smile…

Now, that really does bring back memories.

Joyful journeys

Ullapool,  North West Scotland

I've been away from my desk these last few weeks and I should confess it’s because I’ve been on a journey. Specifically, I’ve been motorcycling from Land’s End to John o’ Groats, following a slow and winding route that saw us pass through ten of the UK’s national parks. I went with my teenage son, making the trip extra special as we settled into a daily rhythm of a ‘dad and lad’ riding and resting together.

Back home now in Pembrokeshire I’ve been reflecting on the richness of the landscapes we passed through. From the foxgloved lanes of Cornwall to the vast and complex sea lochs of North West Scotland; the purpled moors of the Pennines to the Grey Corries of the Cairngorms… I’m reminded of how much beauty there is to find in our own small isle — and of how much I’ve missed by perhaps overly focusing on objectives abroad.

But most of all I’ve been thinking on the journey itself — not so much the miles travelled or even the vistas they revealed. Rather, of all that went before it: of how travelling so happily and easily with my son was the culmination of decades of effort and experience —not only in planning and following a route, but in navigating love and all the twist and turns that involves.

Spending these last few weeks so close together was a privilege I shall treasure. To have done so across the length and breadth of our country was but a metaphor for the variety and splendour of all that we hold most dear. And I’m more than ever aware, that despite a lifetime of travelling far and wide, the greatest joys are those closest to home.

I hope your journeys bring just as much delight.

Journey's end at  John o' Groats - save for the 750 miles to home!

A love letter to (mountain) bikes

Mountain biking in the French Alps 

I have always loved bikes. From my first junior step through to my latest electrically charged steed, they’ve given me more joy than any other mechanical invention I can think of. In almost sixty years of pedalling, I’ve ridden (literally) the length and breadth of Britain, climbed countless passes in the Alps and once traversed the Pyrenees on a tandem. Together with the friends they’ve brought me, bikes are one of the greatest joys of my life.

So it was perhaps inevitable that I’d be an early adopter of the trend to 'all terrain' cycles.

In the mid-eighties, before many folk had 'proper' mountain bikes, I co-organised an ‘off road’ weekend in the Lake District. We had no idea how many riders would come or even what contraptions they’d bring. In the event, two dozen of us ground our way up High Street on a motley collection of bone-shakers, descending with squealing brakes, several blow outs and one broken collar bone. By the next morning I’d say about half were converts; the remainder saying it would never catch on!

I wonder what those doubters would think of popularity of mountain biking today? In the Alps, it’s become the summer equivalent of skiing, attracting hundreds of thousands to the mountains every year. A vital part of the tourism economy, resorts compete to host events, promote their trails and provide a network of lifts that mean some riders don’t even pedal uphill!

The alpine club, for which I edit a monthly newsletter, embraced mountain biking as late as 2017. I suspect that’s a reflection of the age and interest profile of members; but I wonder if there was also a certain reluctance to see fat tyred bikes as quite the right thing in the hills? I can understand if that was the case, for despite my love of cycling, I too am often frustrated by an irresponsible minority of riders.

But then I like to remind myself that all the mountain activities I love are relative newcomers to the landscape. My house in France was built long before the Matterhorn was climbed, before downhill skiing was invented or anyone thought of descending rapids in a kayak! It seems to me that adapting to change is as much a part of the outdoor experience as the putative permanence of the views.

And as for electric assistance – well that’s just brilliant!

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This post is a very lightly ammended version of my editorial, published by AAC (UK) e-newsletter in June 20024

Digital dilemmas

On the Tour des Fiz last summer —
I didn't once look at a map; all navigation by phone.

James, from the Apple Store, was young, personable, and clearly capable in what he was doing… and yet his breezy confidence was equally terrifying. ‘Just leave it with me,’ he said, ‘if you come back in forty minutes, it’ll all done.’ I wanted to ask, but what about…, and can you explain…. and how does … but I didn’t have the courage.

Instead, I wandered around the shop-cum-gallery, trying to ease the pit in my stomach. What would happen if he lost my data? Would my banking apps still work… and do they back up my photos first…? Honestly, I reckon buying a new phone must rank with house buying and divorce as one of life’s most stressful experiences.

Okay, I exaggerate a little. But it’s significant how much of our life we now hold, literally, in the palm of our hands. In my case, my phone is my letterbox, my bank, my photo album, my document store, my daily newspaper… it’s become an essential connection to the everyday world, as much as to my family and friends.

And yet as I pondered the walls of screens in the store, I noticed how many of them depicted mountains and wilderness. From the Alps to the Arctic, they promised an aspirational paradise of travel and adventure - the very places we visit to escape the trappings of daily life. I doubt if any of the idealised landscapes on those screensavers have a mobile signal or a charging point nearby.

Sometimes, I wonder if I ought to take off with no more than a map and compass – just as I did for decades before succumbing to the digital dark side. For the truth is, the things we truly treasure are not held on a microchip or lodged in the cloud – they are the result of our physical efforts, our successes and failures our love and our laughter…

Or as James from the Apple Store might put it, 'our analogue experience!’

Meanwhile, if you're wondering about my new iPhone 15 Pro Max - everything transferred without a hitch.  

Amen to that!