The Shingle Bank Lives: Daf’s Island

Steve and I managed to squeeze a bike ride in yesterday afternoon after all the things on the ‘To Do’ list were ticked of. It had been a race against time when on a nice day, we watched as the day became less nice, less sunny, more cloudy and more windy. In the end we got out for a nice ride and at our turn point took bets between us as to whether or not we could get home before those dark clouds gathered up and headed for our back garden, where I had two lines of washing out. The wash would be dry by then, flapping away and me on my bike, trying to hold the handle bars, crossing my fingers at the same time that the rain would hold off until we got home. I felt the first splatter as I wheeled my bike through the garden and managed just the pull everything off the lines and throw them indoors before it started to get really wet.

 

My swim went well this morning and afterwards I quickly dried my hair off which I don’t always do. I had warned Steve that I wanted to make an inspection of the shingle bank opposite to swimming pool prior to any idea of getting in the sea.

Since the shingle bank first appeared after a series of winter storms a few years ago it has been a source magnetic fascination to me and I find it hard to believe that most people have not even noticed it and look at me with a totally blank expression when I talk about it.

My deep love of nature causes me to notice every bird, every tree in every field, every cloud and certainly the appearance of a mile of shingle, that in the fifty seven years that I have lived right here in Littlehampton, was never there before. If I am out for a run or a walk and a Buzzard or a Crow or a Magpie is anywhere in the surrounding area and in the range of what I can see, I will see it. So when a great dump of shingle starting about fifty yards off the bottom of the beach line where the sand starts suddenly appears, it is going to make me jump out of my skin, wide eyed and slack jawed.

I fell instantly in love with that new gift from nature. During the first summer that it was established, we started to do sea swim practices involving the strange lump and would swim diagonally from the waters edge at high tide to the furthest point of the bank which had been marked with buoy, and then swim back again it made a nice practice swim and we did it time and time again. The swim was often included when in 2014 I had undertaken to do a mini Triathlon every day from June first until my 75^th birthday on August 14^th making seventy five mini tri’s in all.

Every winter since the bank appeared it has changed shape a little with each winter storm. My fascination has not faded in the slightest. It is like an enormous sleeping giant in a sci-fi movie. Somebody asked me recently why I am so interested in such an inanimate object. Well. I took a hike over this inanimate object this morning, with Steve struggling to keep up with me as I tramped forward. He has a tweeky knee and the rough surface of large rocks and pebbles was most uncomfortable for him and he was being careful not to cause further damage to himself.

This area that was at first just a small eyot or ait (meaning a small island in a lake or river) of stones and rocks, has now joined itself to the beach and then stretches out to the southeast for a good diagonal half mile. So it has ceased to be a little island, it has thrown out and anchor to the beach. 

When you make it out to the furthest point, as I did this morning, having checked for the last ten days when would be a convenient low tide for my little adventure, you see that the shape is similar to a giant Manta Ray and that on the south end where it meets the sea at low tide there is a sort of inlet like a paddling beach of its own, right on the far side that is the first part to disappear as the tide starts to come in again. Then it hides under the surface.

To me it is not an inanimate object. I checked that too and most definitions of inanimate say things to the effect of; Not endowed with life of spirit, lacking consciousness, lacking the power of mobility or motion, a thing that is not alive such as a chair, a book, a rock like sofa cushions or a football.

To my way of thinking, this is a not just a thing and not inanimate. It is in motion; albeit slow motion. I think I will claim it as my own, since I feel that I deserve to be allowed to adopt this living mass for myself; my own massive Frankenstein eyot. I feel a mothers love for it and I thank Nature or God if you like for presenting it to me for my own personal quiet joy.

It is alive with winkles and all sorts of growing organisms. Watch this space and I might be marching down there with my huge flag and rename it ‘Dafs Island’. You will need a passport to visit.

Winchester Cathedral

We probably all know somebody who has never left their home county in their entire lives. We on the other hand have traveled the UK a great deal and quite extensively through much of Europe during our lives together working in the family antiques business which includes imports an exports. For much of the time though, there are pressures of work that involved in the carriage of goods that requires us to work quickly and efficiently as possible and consequently many of the places our work has taken us to has only been skimmed rather than thoroughly explored on the journeys. Thankfully there are some places that we have been to time and time again and we have because of that seen as many of the local gems as a bus load of tourists with a guide. 

Yesterday we went to Winchester that is less than sixty miles away and took us about an hour and forty five minutes in both direction. We have driven by many times and passed through parts of the city in the course of our work but unlike places like Bath, Bournemouth, Manchester, Liverpool, Chester and London that we have stayed in and taken a good look at, we had never taken time to take a good look around the centre of Winchester even though we have been there before in one or other of our vehicles.

Since we were doing a favour really for a good client that I mentioned yesterday, who had accidentally bought an antique table from the wrong branch of an auction house he buys from a number for times per year. We left mid morning and arrived at the auction house just before lunch time. The table was in three parts and was not heavy so it was loaded before you could say sixpence.

We then drove right into the centre, basically on the look out for a coffee stop and found a parking spot bang in the centre that allowed us the take a look at the massive exterior of the Cathedral. Compared to the vast space the Cathedral spreads over the surrounding streets are ancient, narrow and quite twee. We enjoyed the two hours we spent wandering around.

 

There was an interesting market in the nearest important road close by, where we were also impressed with the Guildhall and the Statue of  King Alfred the Great glowering over the old town. King Alf’s round table also being in the area. There was a lot we did not have time to see but we did pass the impressive St. Swithins School on our way home again. St Swithins day is I think July 15^th and in Winchester you cannot miss seeing this rhyme in tourist stores;

St Swithins day if thou dost rain

For forty days I will remain

Ste Swithins day if thou be fair

For forty days ‘twill rain nae mair.

 

Winchester is a city in the county of Hampshire, on the edge of England's South Downs National Park. It’s known for medieval Winchester Cathedral, with its 17th-century Morley Library, the Winchester Bible and a Norman crypt. Nearby are the ruins of Wolvesey Castle and the Winchester City Mill, a working 18th-century corn mill. The Great Hall of Winchester Castle houses the medieval round table linked to King Arthur.

We took two completely different scenic routes for the drive there and back again that was sheer joy to drive through and the crop that is know colloquially as The Yellow Peril because it is not a native plant and was not welcomed by all, was just bursting into its unbelievable knock out yellow.

We stopped for a bite to eat in Côte Brasserie just down to the south a few steps from the Cross in Chichester. Côte is a favourite chain of our since they serve their menu all day which suits a contrary pair like us who do not like to eat late and prefer when possible to eat late afternoon.

A Day Out but Sort of Working

Waking ten minutes before the alarm went off this morning, I took a solo executive decision to put the light on, at which Steve pulled the duvet up past his eyes to secure the last few moments of sleep.

A few days ago before he left the house he stood and turned to face me before a, ‘Don’t forget to do this and don’t forget to do that and don’t forget to call Bellmans’ onslaught delivered with all seriousness, as if he were Henry V shouting “Once more unto the breach, dear friends once more, or close this wall up with our English dead” Then he stopped and smiled sweetly saying “Its like having a permanent nag here isn’t it?” I told him that it was not’ LIKE’ having a permanent nag here, it ‘WAS’ having a permanent nag in the house. But then my return volley of “Cry God for England Harry and St Geoooooooooorge”, was like having somebody who permanently quotes Shakespeare in the house, or famous lines from movies. ‘Go on punk…. Make my day……. Heathcliffe….. Of all the gin joints in all the world….Rosebud’. So what’s good for the goose if passable for the gander she maybe has it coming.

My swim this morning was strange. It was like an out of body experience. The girl I usually have to work to keep up with glared at me more than once and at the end complained that it was like being chased by a porcupine with my acrylic nails jabbing at her feet. I had no aches or pains and the swim was not an effort it was more dream like. She asked if she was swimming slower today but I pointed out that the swim rests were the same and said I was sorry about the contact but she should do something about the hard skin!

The set was:

1 x 300 mtrs

1 x 150

Rolling.

From the pool we drove the couple of miles to Arundel and parked right outside the coffee shop, Osteria in readiness for later. We ran one lap of the two lap Arundel triathlon run along Mill Road, through the gates at Swanbourne Lake, up the long steep climb to the Hiorne Tower, down the road passing the infant school, the St Mary’s Gate Hotel and ran between the Great Cathedral and the delightful Oberon’s Palace behind the castle wall, and down the High Street to the Post Office where I thought we had finished. But, Steve turned back and we walked right up to the top of the High Street again and then ran one loop of lap run we do in the dark during winter. THEN came back for the coffee and the sweet almond biscuit they serve with it.

Because I am still in some sort of ‘don’t know what to do with myself’ state I have volunteered to go with Steve on a job this morning. A regular client of ours sent an email asking us to collect a table he had bought online from Bellman’s Auction. We sent a van to pick it up and they told the driver it was at their new premises in Winchester! One table. That he only paid £50 for.

When I told him what he had done he was apologetic and said he would leave the table if that was easier. He is a nice man and always a fair man and so we decided to do the trip ourselves as a day out together where we could finish the quite long book we are listening to on the journey. We normally have a story on the go that we listen to in the tub and through dinner and with no long trips of late we would be happy to get on with the story. It is, The Muse, by Jessie Burton and read brilliantly by Cathy Tyson who has a delightful Jamaican accent as well as a super posh English voice for the character Quick. It gets the different vote and we are enjoying listening to it together.

The Last Funeral

The Last Funeral 

My vizi-pink and my day-glo orange

Will stay in their sports clothes place

My choice will be something more formal

With respect to the day that I face

I will meet cousins from years ago

Not seen since we were quite small

Gathered for a these few hours

Will they my face even recall

The last of five sisters to leave us

Yet our normal lives carry on

Today Betty Pansy joins her sisters

To the resting place they have all gone

Lily, Winifred Rose, Violet,

Nellie May, Gladys Ivy, Betty Pansy

I Am What I Am

.... I don't want praise, I don't want pity.

Every Monday starts the same in this phase of the training programme. 6.30am we all turn up at the pool and wait to be let in, all raring to get in the water and thrash out a head banger set of one hundreds. Lane 1, got to do a warm up and then 20 x times 100 meters on much tighter times than was expected of me.

This morning I was lane 2 all on my own, Billy No Mates. Steve still slapped a schedule on a kick board at the end of the pool for me and walked away. I may have lost count, OK I did lose count but there you go, there was nobody swimming in front of me, no feet in my face to hang on to either. My schedule said 15 x 100 but I thought when I stopped that I had done 16 but the time did not look right,  so who knows and between you me and the gate post, (but not tellin’ Steve)…. Who cares! Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn.

What is important is that I knuckled down and did what I thought would be a good sound work out and I added 200 back stroke on the end, then I was surprised to see that everybody else apart from Nicole in lane 1, had finished and left the pool.

I had a good swim this morning which on top of a good bike on Saturday plus club swim that evening and a good hard run on Sunday. This was spoilt by that fact that I had a lousy night sleep. I was thinking about things that I must do today.

I have a letter to write to a friend whose husband died recently and I should have, if I was any sort of decent friend, written to her a couple of weeks ago. Shameful! I will do that later but I have been putting it off because I knew it would be upsetting. I also have a family funeral Tuesday that I have been dreading. These two worries were what kept me awake.

I tried several times to go to sleep again having dropped off easily enough when we first turned in, then the faces appeared and although I generally consider myself gifted, in that I can drum up faces, voices and music in my head almost at will, and very clearly, I had needed a restful sleep last night. In the end I got up made myself half a cup of hot chocolate and read my book for a while until something in the book reminded of one of my favourite musical shows. 

It was then that the music started to take over from the worries and I fell asleep listening to George Hearne singing I am what I am from ‘La Cage Aux Folles’. Steve and I first saw this most entertaining story when it was presented as a play and we had found it by accident on French TV during a work trip donkeys years ago. It was a hilarious farce, that was also very sad and when the musical version opened in London we rushed out and bought tickets to see it. It is a gem.

So that turned my sleep into sweet dreams and this morning I could not wait to talk to our friend Anthony Towers to ask if his Am/Dram Group, Worthing Musical Theatre Company, had ever put on that show. My second question was why in heavens name not since it would be so popular in Worthing? Then I did my swim set to the same song that was still ringing in my weird little head.

The song is about somebody who becomes aware that even people that he thinks he is completely sure of and who he loves unconditionally, find that they cannot fully accept who exactly he is and expect him to behave as they would prefer so that there own smooth sailing boat is not rocked. I think there are times in many peoples lives when they would like to sing this sing at the top of their voices I know I would.

Judge the words for yourself it is not necessarily a gay song; though the line ‘time to open up the closet’ hints at that, unless, like me, your big brother turned the key on the wardrobe during a game of hide and seek when you were kids and you were left there all day and then, I  got told off and sent to bed without any tea for fooling around, when our parents got home.

I am what I am, I am my own special creation

So come take a look, give me the hook or the ovation

It's my world that I want to have a little pride in

My world and it's not a place I have to hide in

Life's not worth a damn 'til you can say, hey world

I am what I am

I am what I am, I don't want praise I don't want pity

I bang my own drum, some think its noise I think it's pretty

And so what if I love each feather and each spangle

Why not try to see things from a different angle

Your life is a sham 'til you can shout out loud

I am what I am

I am what I am and what I am needs no excuses

I deal my own deck sometimes the ace, sometimes the deuces

There's one life and there's no return and no deposit

One life so it's time to open up your closet

Life's not worth a damn 'til you can say, hey world

I am what I am

Mothering Sunday Run

Just after 8am this morning there was a spiteful north east wind blowing when we started our run, but we had dressed to allow for that taking comfort from the fact that the sun was shining and the sky was as blue as could be. Spring has sprung.

 

Steve and I had worked hard on our bike ride yesterday and so neither of us was surprised that we found our usual Sunday morning run so much harder than of late. We have been trying to get some good sessions in ready for the season ahead of us that holds five triathlons over three distances by mid July and hopefully if all goes well in qualifying events there will be that very important one in Rotterdam in mid September.

The run today, after totally ignoring how hard it was for us, was spectacularly beautiful and to distract us from the discomfort, we reminded each other every half mile, how very lucky we believe we are to live so close to such wonderful scenery. The views from the highest point that passes over the crown of one hill and everywhere you cast your eyes is another one of our stunning South Downs, were breathtaking in every direction, and all of it looking more lush with every week that passes. Below a photo of me when I was a young mother with my darling daughter Jacqueline at her Christening.

 

The Big Birds as we call them, Red Kites and Buzzards were soaring overhead seeming to share our joy for this marvellous day. Sheep were not safely grazing (Nothing meant by this but a musical comment; J.S.Bach’s Sheep may safely graze), as they normally are but were huddled low to the ground in large groups looking for all the world like a mass display of fluffy stools. The only ones that moved as we passed by were the few sitting right on the path, who scuttled out of our way. Below is my mother, Winifred Rose Peace, I think of her every single day.

We were not the only ones taking advantage of the fine weather, since there were mountain bikers, a few dog walkers including two women who were walking for the dog, a cheeky looking Frenchie who stayed snuggled inside one of the ladies coats. There fewer still people on horses but one lady appeared to be doing the same loop as us but the other way around since we passed her twice in totally different places on our loop. here below is my mother when she was young with me and my brother Peter Antony Peace. What a great name eh? If only there were some more of it in the world.

The horrendous mud from the winter had dried up considerably and the ground was at the perfect level of just having a bit of give in the top layer. I so prefer to run off road though, of course you do have to watch your footing. With wild spring flowers were everywhere and the trees and bushes breaking to greet the start of better weather, we felt truly blessed. The added delight was that when we got to the end the route, our time was second fastest this year so pushing on was worth while after all. This photo below is of Steve's Mother, Caroline Mary Belt or Peggy as she was known to many.

I have been enjoying Mothering Sunday and having had a visit from my lovely daughter Jacqueline on Friday before she and her husband Martin and the little black dog with endless energy, drove off for a short holiday continuing their exploration of the UK’s many delightful regions.  The photo at the top is one of her amazing shots. Then having got home, had a nice bath and had set about making a big jug of iced tea for us to have with our first lunch in the garden, my phone rang and it was another nice surprise, a call from Jakki to wish me happy Mothers Day, so I was able to thank her for the pretty card and the most acceptable voucher for a treatment in local salon.   

Midnight Sun

We quite often go out on Friday afternoon when the business closes and bomb off to Chichester either for a late lunch or a bit of weekend food shopping in M & S or simply stop off at Prezzo in Arundel for pizza on our way home from work. For several reasons we came straight home yesterday, firstly because Prezzo had a one day only, two for one on mains, last Wednesday, and we had our weekly pizza then instead of Friday and anyway we had food in fridge for dinner. There was a third reason which was that Steve had had a hard week with pressure to get jobs that had been brought forward, done when the client had a change of schedule. Steve wanted an easy evening and he cooked us delicious salmon fillets with which we ate lambs leaf salad. 

After dinner, when I had dealt with the washing up and tidying away, Steve announced that he had found a new series on Sky Boxed Sets to start watching as our pre bedtime TV. The new series was Midnight Sun, and is set in a fantastically beautiful part of Sweden, North of the Kiruna mountains.  The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the summer in places north of the arctic circle. Kiruna, Sweden is well northeast of Iceland. The programme certainly wins the ‘Quirky’ vote for the year so far and is high up on the blood and guts chart too. It is well in the noir range that started as a drip feed into our TV entertainment and has now reached full flood.

Steve will try to tell you how good it was…. but I can tell you that he had his eyes covered for a considerable amount on time. It was very different in a lot of ways and some interesting choices of actors. It is nice to get a little local atmosphere and colour intertwined with an original story and that was interesting into the bargain. We got stuck into it immediately and went straight on to episode two without even a glance sideways at each other for agreement. Gustaf Hammarsten, who we have seen in Nordic TV films before, including Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and as the French police officer sent to investigate is Leila Bekhti, who is a lovely contrast to all the pastie faces of the rest of the cast. I know it is silly, but I did enjoy that the Sami people take cheese in their coffee; well I suppose it is just another dairy product is it not.

It also reminded me of the 1999 Long Distance World Championship that were held 1100 kilometers south of the Midnight Sun location, in Säter, Sweden. It was a memorable trip in many ways including that the Triathlon Village that had been promised to the athletes in the travel information turned out to be several blocks of a local mental institution where many of the inmates had been sent home during our stay. Apart that is from the violent or more disturbed ones who remained in another area. The accommodation was primitive with depressing ancient marble floors,  and echoing corridors, with iron barred gates to pass through. The rooms had simple cot beds, no hot water, no plugs in the sink and no covering what so ever at the windows so it was sunny all night. That is where the reminder comes in. It was mid summer and it did not get fully dark at all; there was a slight dusk for an hour and then it got fully light again.

Having said all that, to the detriment of the venue, the surrounding area was mainly endless tranquil woods and glass still lakes and a pretty town centre.  My best memory of the trip is the gold medal in the 55-59 age group. The American age group manager pulled the most impressive flanker when two women from the USA team who had not made the cut off at the end of the first lap of the run and were retired from the course, were at his strong complaint, quoting rules of other sports like motor racing (!) given the silver and the bronze medals when I was placed first, having completed the whole of the run course inside the cut off time.

Today has been sunny and the sky turned a pretty blue colour that we have not seen in a while. It was very windy though so Steve and I grabbed the moment and got out on our bikes for a very good work out indeed. We did enjoy our time out in the sunshine today and chose a course that took lots of turns so that we were not ever too long in the head on wind. It was hard enough cycling east along the sea front but harder still going north. We also found a few hills to climb and so were satisfied with our training for the morning.