I Remove A Thorn

On Monday, I climbed up a cliff.  Or rather, a very steep bank rising up from Newgale Sands in Pembrokeshire.  My longest-serving friend and I had just started what has become our annual Camping-in-Wales holiday, and having caught an early bus from St David's, and ambled along the beach under cloud, we were taking a short cut back to the Coast Path and our walk back to Caerfai campsite.

As it turned out, it wasn't really a short cut: just a more direct - as the crow flies - route.

Sticking to the path is often a good idea, but sometimes it's great to go off-piste.  On this occasion, it involved scrambling at times over loose shale, at times amongst pads of gorse and bracken.  In order to maintain balance, I often had to grab onto the gorse and bracken. There was a moment when  I didn't think I could go safely either down or up, and that was when Helen offered me her hand, and helped me further up. We made it to the top, and I came away with a thorn in the middle finger of my right hand.

In the New Testament, St Paul refers to a mysterious affliction as his 'thorn in the flesh'.  When I was growing up, my parents used to speculate about what this metaphor represented.  My mother claimed it was Paul's mother-in-law.  My father, some sort of unspeakable recurring temptation.

I've been conscious of this splinter at various moments all week when my finger has been under some sort of pressure.  On Tuesday, I put on my reading glasses and tried to get it out using tweezers, but my skin had already started to heal, and I couldn't reach it.  This evening I had more success using a sterilised sewing needle.

The walk from Newgale was glorious.  At midday, the sun came out and it didn't go away - just moved across our shoulders, leaving its mark in interesting tan lines.

There's nothing like being on holiday on a Monday. There's nothing like unexpected sunshine in Wales. The occasional discomfort I felt from the thorn for the rest of the week was a reminder of adventure; of fresh air, freedom, trust and good fortune.

I Accept A Compliment

Walking out of the sports centre after badminton club yesterday evening, my younger son and I were chatting about our games.  Normally, we play a few games as a doubles partnership, but last night we only had one game together.  In the first game of the evening we had trounced the opposition in a few minutes, so we had the rest of the hour to discuss.


"I played pretty well today," I said.


"You're the best woman player," he said, "no question."


"Well ... I dunno."  I felt self-conscious about his compliment - hoped none of the other players had overheard.  I'm not sure he's right, and I'm nothing if not pedantic.


"There's no doubt," he went on.  "In fact, you're an honorary man."


I felt myself suddenly in deep water.  We have a history of banter about gender politics, and I knew he knew that he had, as it were, pushed me off the edge of the pool and was standing smiling looking at me as I came up for air. 


There is only one sensible choice to make on finding oneself in deep water. 


"Thank you," I said, and relaxed, enjoying the feeling of floating on his admiration.

I Stroke A Hedge

I trailed my fingers through a beech hedge as I walked home earlier, then retraced my steps to run my hand though it again.  The leaves were still (just) young, tender: at the bright stage.  They felt soft, feathery, light.   I particularly like this moment in the hedge's year.  Soon, the leaves will have stiffened and darkened: assumed a tougher and more mature posture.

The clever thing about a beech hedge is that, even after the autumn frosts, it retains its brown leaves. Through the winter, many of the leaves cling on, so, though deciduous, it provides all-year-round cover.  

The clever thing about a beech hedge is that the old leaves only drop off as the new ones push their ways through.

I Indulge In A Paradox

It's a month till my annual camping trip with my longest-serving friend, Helen.  The trip marks the anniversary of the start of our 50th year celebrations and therefore their end, allegedly.

Some of the pleasures of camping are unavoidable, and are largely to do with shedding - shedding walls, ceilings, fridges, the internet: baring body, mind and soul to the considerable elemental forces of a field in Wales.  Some of those pleasures are, however, to do with acquisition - particularly, the acquisition of new equipment which allows campers to camp-lite.

It's a paradox, but camping shops are full of sleeping bags, tents, roll mats and cooking equipment all lighter, more compact and streamlined than the ones you already have.  You need to buy more to have, to carry, less.  The technology is alluring, and helps to leaven memories of soggy, heavy, camping without integral groundsheets, under canvas, on camp beds.  My worst ones concern being a camp leader in a wet August in Cornwall.  With slugs.

So yesterday, I popped into Millets for the third time in three weeks.  Inbetween my visits, I've been thinking about what I can justify spending on new cooking equipment.  Trangia, the Swedish ultralight camping stove specialists, have been seducing me with their impeccably designed stoves,  mini-stoves, non-stick pans, kettles and mess tins.  I have been imagining extending my camping recipe repertoire beyond various forms of risotto into scrambled eggs, friend eggs, poached eggs, coffee.

Millets clarified the situation for me yesterday by having most of these items in their sale.  And by offering me an extra 15% off if I buy them in May.  There's nothing like saving money to induce a flurry of spending.

I Plant A Plant

I was planting some cowslips that my longest serving friend's mother gave me from her garden when it struck me that I was planting a plant.  I started thinking about this satisfying state of affairs.

I have subsequently become a little obsessed with words that exist both as nouns and verbs, and which can be used in the same simple sentence.  There are quite a few of these, but top of the list so far for me is 'pod' which - in addition to leading me to think about bending to pick peas in a summer garden, then podding them, eating them raw - can also be spun through 180 degrees and remain itself.

So far, my thoughts have led me in this circle:

I drink a drink

I request a request

I dance a dance

I risk a risk

I touch a touch

I kiss a kiss

I whisper a whisper

I promise a promise

I wave a wave

I text a text

I drink a drink

I realise all this has very little to do with cowslips.

I Kill A Bird

On my way home today, I was driving into town - no more than 20 mph - when I noticed a bird flying in on the extreme right of my peripheral vision.  Its arc was wide and in a moment it had flown down and in towards the underside of my car.

Everything about this death seemed soft: my foot on the brake; the bird's low flight; the quiet thud of its body - bone and feather - against the wheel arch; the flurry I saw in my left wing mirror.  Even the scale of this loss -  perhaps a thrush? - seems soft, against all the other losses.

All evening, I've felt a blur of regret, a sense of what Gerard Manley Hopkins calls "cloy" in his devastatingly beautiful poem, Spring.  I've felt the ache of gratitude for all the life of this blustery Mayday - for "all this juice and all this joy", for the "rinse and ring" of it.

I Solve Most Of My Problems

I was chatting on the phone to a friend (one of my best) this weekend, and she was telling me how she'd failed in a situation she was describing involving the unexpected arrival of a More-Than-Annoying-Person.

"Did you lose it?" I asked.  "Did you run around screaming?  No?  Under the circumstances, you did well not to break the law."

The problem is, we concluded at the end of laughing, that we both routinely set ourselves standards which are not only unattainable, but also unnecessary.

According to Wikipedia, a source I can now (having resolved to lower my standards) consult without shame, perfectionism is a personality trait characterised by a person's striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and .... [yawn].  The next sentence says something about unattainable ideals.  Well stuff that.

"So," I said to my friend, with the conviction unique to hypocrisy, "your standards are far too high.  Lower them.  If, say, your benchmark was in this instance, 'Deal With Annoying Person Whilst Avoiding Criminal Activity', you'd have reached it with, dare I say it, room to spare.  Instead of feeling like a failure, you should be proud of yourself."  She had to agree.  

Taking my own advice, I am spending this evening with a glass of wine, busily lowering my standards all round.