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!

Mountain memories

Lake District 2020 -more than fifty years after my first visit 

Earlier this year my mum took the difficult decision to move to a care home. She’s increasingly frail and immobile, but still takes joy from simple pleasures such as sunshine through her window and the accompanying dawn chorus.

Like many very elderly people her memory isn’t great and large parts of her past are now at best a blur. Sometimes when I visit, we sing together, for it’s well known that music, and particularly the association of lyrics with melody can help. But last week it was a conversation about mountains that triggered a surprising recollection.

We were talking about a childhood holiday to the Lakes and I mentioned how we’d climbed Latrigg Fell on the edge of Keswick; it was my first mountain walk, I said. ‘But oh, you did more than that’ she interjected, ‘we went up Cat Bells and Skiddaw and Haystacks too.’ And she went on to mention Blencathra and Red Pike and the Old Man of Coniston, describing the routes we’d taken and even the weather.

How strange – and yet how wonderful – that when so much of her past is lost in mist, she could remember these hills and wild places with such clarity. It made me wonder if, through the effort of climbing, our footsteps embed themselves more deeply in the pathways of our minds. As if they somehow create a sort of memory map that’s as hard wired to our brains as the circuit board is to the computer I’m typing this piece on.

That’s probably cod psychology but I’m not sure it really matters – what’s important is that it feels that way. If I’m lucky enough to last as long as my mum, I pray my own mountain memories remain as clear as hers. For in truth, they are high among the most precious moments of my life.

Here's to making memories that last.

(This post was first published in the AAC UK monthly e-newsletter)

Awe and understanding.

Me and my dog in the centre; my friend to the right - forty years ago now...

This afternoon as I wandered from my lounge to the kitchen, I considered for a moment all the technology that’s become ubiquitous to our daily lives: the laptop by my chair, the TV and its remote, the microwave I popped a cup of coffee in to reheat…   And it occurred to me, as the phone vibrated in my pocket, that I haven’t a clue how any of it works. 

Like most of us, I can operate the gadgets we take for granted, and indeed, consider myself pretty nifty on the PC or scrolling through supposedly intuitive menus. But if you asked me how the contraptions actually function, at best I’d give a vaguely plausible narrative about digital signals or electrical circuits, before quickly drying up. 

Which is why, as the microwave pinged and I read the message that had come through seconds earlier, I'd no real understanding of the science that underpinned what it said. 

My lifelong best friend; my best man (twice) and me his (once), is going through a stem cell transplant. The process is brutal and the odds not great, but the alternative even worse. He’s the same age as me, has two boys like mine, and today is his thirtieth wedding anniversary. I spent this morning walking on the beach; the air, sea and hills lifting my spirits.  He was wired to a bed, drugs being pumped through his veins… 

Such is the lottery of life.

But thankfully, his medical treatment doesn’t work like that. I may not understand the process, and even less the deep workings of oncology, but I know it favours the fit and the courageous, and today, the deserving too.

For the message from his wife read:

Unexpected good news and the best 30th Wedding Anniversary present…. K ‘may’ be coming home on Friday. Much earlier than what constitutes normal but his bloods are definitely starting to show new cells. Whoop.

Reading her words from afar, none of my ignorance mattered a jot. Rather, as I took in the news, I felt a profound sense of awe… and a heartfelt gratitude, that we live in the time and places that we do.

Hold tight my friend and get well soon.