Hitting the age barrier

IF YOU'RE ONLY AS OLD AS YOU FEEL....

Cliche time.  You don't fully appreciate what your body means to you when you're young.  Most of us simply take it for granted, that we can run, eat and drink what we like, and stay up all night if we want to.  Then your view starts to change.  Something turns up, some time, to tell you that your physical attributes aren't quite what they once were.  You ache more, you miss a bus you'd once have caught, you can't face that all night party.  Whatever it is you'll know when it happens.  That reminder of mortality.

Those little reminders have been coming at me with increasing velocity over the past two or three decades.  I try to stay reasonably healthy, I try to exercise.  But the chances are I'll miss that bus now.  And if I don't get a night's sleep.....

So when I decided to join a group entering this year's Kiltwalk charity event (on 16 September, and yes, since you're asking, I will be pestering you in future to pledge a donation) maybe I didn't give it the thought it deserved.  Thirteen miles didn't sound all that far.  Did it?  Then the route was published.  Fifteen and half miles.  Mostly flat terrain along the coast, with all the hills saved for the final two miles.  Hang on....  When was the last time I walked fifteen miles?  Have I ever walked fifteen miles?  This was starting to fall into the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" category.  Then add in the fact that the four people I'm walking with are younger.  Not just 'younger', but 'YOUNGER'.  As in decades rather than years.  Was I going to be the one to let the side down?  An exploration of what my body was still capable of seemed called for.  If there was a lot of work to be done on it then now might be a good time to find out, when there remained a good few weeks to do the necessary.

So I thought I'd challenge myself with about half the distance to start with.  Three weeks ago I set off for Musselburgh.  About seven miles.  The last half mile or so seemed to leave me with somebody else's legs to walk on, but other than that it went fine.  I'd actually enjoyed it.  Even the next day, once the initial stiffness wore off, I was back to normal.  This was encouraging.

Another walk last week, this time from the edge of Prestonpans to Newhaven, thence home.  Eleven miles, only a couple of proper rest stops.  On one of the hottest days.  Sore feet.  Aching legs.  Aching everywhere.  But again I enjoyed it, again I recovered fairly well next day.  Age?  Pah, just a number....?

Yesterday.  The Water of Leith Walkway. Twelve and a half miles.  Leith to Balerno.  Another hot day, but at least this route provides plenty shade.  Just follow the signs I thought, no problem.  The naivety of age.  All was well for the first seven or eight miles.  But in Colinton I managed to take a wrong turn, walked a long way before I admitted defeat and resorted to Google Maps.  This probably added a mile and a half to my trek.  Did I give up?  Almost.  A 10 bus went past.  A 10 bus would take me home....  But I got back on track and slogged on.  Bloodymindedness has it's benefits sometimes.  But every bit of me spoke it's pleasure at seeing the end of the track and a nearby bus stop.  The worst bit proved to be getting off the bus to find my legs had developed their own independent ideas about support and direction.

But here I am, twenty hours later, and not dead yet.  Everything works roughly as it should.  So maybe fifteen and half isn't such a bad prospect after all, as long as I keep doing a decent walk each week until the day itself.  Then the thing to adapt to will be walking with others as part of a group.  Walking at the group's pace, not mine.  And now I'm wondering....yes, they're so much younger, but they're also short-arses.  Will they be able to keep up with me?

Will I be doing the Walkway again?  Too right I will.  Only this time I'll do it in the sensible people's direction, from the hills down to the coast.  I'm more than old enough to learn from my stupid mistakes.

Football vs.... a proper sport

RESPECT

Feeling a bit weary when I came home, I did something I rarely do.  Sat on the sofa and turned on the telly in the hope of finding something interesting.  There might be a decent tennis match on. 

Instead I found myself watching a bit of that world cup thingy that's on for the next few months - sorry, weeks.  On.  And on.  And on.....

It must be several decades since I consciously sat down to watch a football game.  (Was there a world cup in '94, I seem to remember doing the ironing while something was on?).  But this only had about 15 minutes to go, so I thought I'd try to figure out what all the fuss was about.  And came away with new found admiration for those hardy souls who will be sitting watching this stuff for days on end.  How have they mastered the art of coping with that much tedium?

I watched those 15 minutes (and by "watched" I mean "looked up from my tablet screen whenever the commentators seemed to get a bit shoutier") and was mostly struck by just how slow it all was.  At the end the 'experts' (I think one of them might have been Gary Lineker, but as I didn't see a packet of crisps I couldn't be sure) felt a need to go over it all and reassure us what a great game it had been (really?!).  To me it felt like the only excitement was that the underdog had won, something I'm all too used to identifying with.

What I saw were players walking about, occasionally some will break into a trot, maybe even a bit of actual running when the shoutiness levels were up.  They are kicking around an object pretty much as big as their own heads, trying to hit a target that's about the size of a large barn door laid on it's side.  While walking/running on a nice flat grassy surface.  In shoes specially designed for walking and running on flat grassy surfaces.  And nothing much happens except they kick it to each other for a bit, then the other lot do it, and occasionally, at the shouty bits, it gets a bit nearer one of those barn doors, which they then proceed to miss.  Sometimes, if they are feeling particularly energetic, the ball can be end to end in.... what, about 30 seconds?  And that's the exciting bit.  Have I missed anything out?

Trouble is, after several seasons I'm now too used to watching hockey.  Where the players can be moving up to 25mph, the 3 inch diameter puck gets up to around 100mph, and play is end to end in less than 5 seconds, all the time wielding a big stick like it's a part of themselves.  Where the target is only 6 feet by 4 and there's guy in the way with another big stick and a lot of padding.  Where, if the puck is in play, something is happening and nobody is fannying about hitting it back and forward in the middle.  Where, despite the tiny size of the goal, players find creative ways to get that lump of rubber flying into the net.

Oh, and did I mention they do all this on contact points 1/8 of an inch wide, on a surface most of us would struggle to stand up on?

So well done all you footy fans, feeling content with a second rate alternative to a proper team sport, I don't know how you do it....

From Suffragettes to bullies....

100 YEARS, AND WE AREN'T THERE YET

Today we went up to town to watch thousands of women, and a few men, march past to commemorate, and celebrate, the centenary of women first being given the right to vote in the UK.  Well, some women.  At the time it was only those over thirty, and with some claim to property rights, who were included, and it would be a further ten years before proper equality of voting rights was established.  Even now there remains a part of the UK still holding out against equal rights for women.  Maybe a reunited Ireland can sort that one out....

The march was a joyous affair, noisy, friendly, enthusiastic, with the widest possible range of ages and backgrounds taking part.  And plenty of colour, the organisers having handed out bits of material in the three colours of the suffragette movement, green, white and violet.  There was a lot of imagination being shown in how these might best be worn.  And imagination, and humour, in many of the banners and placards being carried.  Plus a cogent recognition that progress to full equality of rights has yet to be achieved.

The UK certainly wasn't the first state to extend voting rights to all people, regardless of gender, but it was still relatively early in world terms.  Looking through the timeline of when various countries implemented equal voting rights, it's still a shock to remember that, even in progressive Europe, it was a change well within living memory - France in 1944, Switzerland in 1971, and tardy Liechtenstein only in '84.  So there are plenty of women who can still recall when they were officially second class citizens.

Which is what makes the current series of The Handmaid's Tale, and Atwood's original novel, so chilling.  What was so recently gained can always be reversed, and there is nothing about the dystopia portrayed that's hard to imagine happening.  Especially in a world where a petulant orange manchild can become president of the USA.

Still, maybe he has some qualities that could come in useful. I can just about imagine him and Little Rocket Man getting along, because they have so much in common.  Except I'm not sure puerile bullies are ever going to tolerate one another in the end, with such fragile egos involved.

The Good, the Bad and the Holiday

BACK HOME

Back from a short holiday yesterday.  It's strange what memory comes up with from such a short time ago.  I'll miss these views from the balcony of our room in the morning.

But when I push myself to come up with a list of the three best things about the last five days it looks like this :

1. Grilled sea bass

2. Spaghetti with seafood

3. Fig and almond ice cream

Observant readers may notice an underlying pattern.

And the three worst?

1. Going deaf (I hadn't been in a swimming pool for years)

2.  Groin strain (I hadn't been in a swimming pool for years....)

3. A big blister (I hadn't worn those sandals for months)

Observant readers are already ahead of me.

Of course coming home has it's pleasures.  Mostly the welcome from this wee face :

I even had to eat dinner with her on my lap.

But she seems a bit more relaxed about our being back today.....

When reality's better than fiction

NOTHING DATES LIKE THE FUTURE

The curse of science fiction writers is their lack of a functioning crystal ball, and the knowledge that predictions for the technology of the future will sound totally out of touch in the decades that follow.  As a child growing up in the sixties I was led to believe we'd all have our own jetpacks by now....

I recently reread Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy, widely regarded as a seminal sci-fi work.  Set several millennia into the future, when human beings have colonised the galaxy, and written in the early fifties, I first read it about twenty years after publication.  I don't recall at the time thinking that any of the tech used in the stories was highly improbable.  But this was well before the internet had achieved the ubiquity it has now, indeed most people had no contact with computers in their daily lives.  Asimov's imagination still felt futuristic.

More than forty years later that view has changed dramatically.  Data stored on tape?  Nuclear power used for almost everything, even kitchen gadgets?  Paper still a key means of disseminating information?  The notion of 'the cloud' doesn't really appear.  There are no touchscreens, and voice activation, now one of the fastest expanding technologies, plays only a minor role.  Sixty five years on that future is already very, very dated.

But even more jarring than the scientific faux pas was the number of social attitudes that were stuck in their 1950s origins.  Most characters smoked (but hey, they had atomic ashtrays....).  Societies were ruled by hereditary monarchies, complete with the whole aristocracy thing - and democracy hardly gets a look in.  Mind you, with some of the things going on in the world at the moment maybe that one isn't so far fetched.

But the most striking anomaly, that jumped off the pages time after time, was the position of women in this 'advanced' society.  They cook.  They do housework.  They don't fight.  They are 1950s homemaker woman spread across the galaxy.  There are only two female protagonists of any significance.  One is a fourteen year old schoolgirl, whose importance to events is in part accidental.  And the nearest thing there is to a powerful female character is first introduced to the reader as "a young bride".  Which says it all.

Oh, and not a single reference to anyone in the three books being from the LGBT community.  It's a very straight galaxy.

We might not have those jetpacks, but at least our progress in social attitudes makes these predictions of the future look backward.

A Hitch Hiker's Guide to Miss Brodie

COINCIDENCES

Many decades ago, when I was but a slender yoof, I read a short article in a magazine that has  remained at the back of my mind ever since.  Atop the piece was a small circle, the size of a button badge, with a single 5 letter word - 2 't's, 2'o's and an i.  The text promised that, if you cut out the circle, added a spot of glue, stuck it to an appropriately sized badge, and wore it constantly, your levels of productivity and success would soar.  Because, as everyone knows, to achieve anything in life you really need to get a round tooit.

I never did cut that badge out, so, forty years or so later, I remain encumbered with a long, long list of "one day I must get around to" items.  This includes several books lurking on my shelves, mocking me, teasing me to pick them up and have a go.  In most cases they sit there, unread, not because they are particularly challenging reads, but on grounds of physical size.

Reading has always been a passion, and I rarely venture out without a book of some sort about my person.  There's always chances to read just a wee bit more, on a bus, train or tram, waiting for someone, in a cafe or pub, taking the sun on a park bench, anywhere I have five minutes to spare.  I've read books on my phone before now, but find the small screen a bit hard going on the old eyes nowadays, so that means either my ebook reader, or a good old fashioned bit of tree pulp.  But 700 plus page volumes don't fit readily in the pocket, weigh down a bag.

New tactics are called for, new year resolution made.  I will get into some of those bigger books by keeping them at home, where I do most of my reading, but also starting a series of smaller books for taking about with me, ideally something I'm already familiar with and will be easy to pick up in small doses and irregular intervals.

My 1st January starting point for the home-based volumes were the Muriel Spark omnibuses I bought back in the eighties.  There were two of them, each containing five novels, each close to 700 pages, and they provided the bulk of my reading through January and into mid February.  And very enjoyable they were.  I'd only read a couple of Sparks before - Jean Brodie, of course, and The Mandelbaum Gate - but confess my main memory of the author was through watching Maggie Smith in her Prime.  The sparse, direct prose, the memorable characters, innovative plots and the occasional nod towards the surreal all drew me in.

What I hadn't realised is that this is a Spark year.  The centenary of her birth has been marked in various ways, including a BBC documentary fronted by Kirsty Wark, and an exhibition of her letters, notebooks and other artifacts in the National Library, only a mile or so from where I sit typing. So my timing was fortuitous, and entirely coincidental, giving added value to my reading, something I'd have missed out on if I'd actually got around to it years ago.

My choice of carry-around-with-me books was an easy one.  It was a long time since I'd read all five volumes of Douglas Adams' Hitch Hiker's Guide trilogy, while the sixth episode, not by Adams, sat calling me to add it to my knowledge of the Universe.  Six books as slender as the teenage me, and perfect for pockets.  Characters I already knew and loved, daftness, philosophy, improbability and so many memories.

What I hadn't realised is that this is Hitch Hiker's year.  Forty years since the original incarnations of Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin exploded on to Radio 4.  And to mark the occasion a new radio series, featuring many of the original actors, started last week, this time based on the non-Douglas book, And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer.  Very promising it seems too, based on listening to the first episode, full of very stupid throwaway lines, and the voice of Stephen Hawking.

That I should start two series of books, both of which were to be marked by significant anniversaries, does seem a bit too coincidental.  Or maybe just highly improbable - which, if you know your Hitch Hiker's Guide, could not be more highly appropriate.

"All mystical experience is coincidence; and vice versa, of course."  - Tom Stoppard

Think I'll forget about the tooit and stick with serendipity.

PS  The above is 100% true.  If you notice any factual inaccuracies that's entirely the fault of reality.

Snow right, is it?

BUT LONDON WILL HAVE IT MUCH WORSE OF COURSE....

Not exactly Scandanavia, are we?  And Canada would laugh it off.  Meanwhile a bit of snow and Scotland grinds to a halt.  OK, a bit more snow than we've seen for a while, but, although we laugh at the overreaction, and media hysteria, coming from the overbearing self importance of south east England, we don't seem to having all that much success here in keeping things going.  And this is the capital city....

Buses no longer running, people sent home from work early, schools shut down.  And this was Waverley Station shortly after 5 on a weekday. 

Normally I'd barely be even to stand still without being jostled by knackered commuters, and this board would be full up with trains leaving in the next 15 minutes.  Instead there are just 6, 1 of them cancelled, and 2 that should have already left.  There's only 1 arrival looking to be in on time, and there's a London train more than and hour and a half late.  And one rather pissed off looking rail employee.  Shouldn't we be doing better than this?

On the plus side, lots of workers can get a hint of the joys of being retired....

An end to procrastination

THE THIEF OF TIME

Hi.  My name is Blyth, and I am a chronic procrastinator.

'Never do today what you can put off til tomorrow' could legitimately serve as my epitaph.  I was like that at school.  As a uni student, and throughout my working life.  Pulling late nighters to finish off an essay or a spreadsheet or a plan or a document that was essential the next day has always been a part of my 'method', followed by that vacant, rumpled, sleepless look the day after.  And don't talk to me about deadlines....

(As a fan of the late, great Douglas Adams I was always in karmic sympathy with one of his best known quotes : "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.")

Quite how I was ever a (not wholly unsuccessful) project manager will remain one the universe's great mysteries (or just shows what talented people I worked with, who always managed to achieve stuff in spite of me).

Now I'm retired you'd think none of this mattered any more.  But there always some elements of life that need to be addressed in a timely manner, decisions to be made.  I'm on a committee, I do a bit of voluntary work, neither of them very time consuming but sometimes requiring me to do things and needing then done soon.  Domestically there are always little maintenance jobs, or plans to draw up for the year ahead so we can fit in a holiday among the required festival-going.

So it might have taken me sixty one years, but I have finally cracked it, finally discovering what works for me in tackling the tasks that need to be done, and doing so well ahead of the time when they start to become critical (or at least when I'm likely to start becoming the subject of criticism.... they're the same thing, aren't they?).  Of course it won't work for everyone, but if my approach can be of any help to just one other person then I'm happy to have shared it.

All will be explained tomorrow.

Green

A WALK IN THE PARK

If you're the kind of person who likes making lists (I am) and you've ever been on the lookout for a new home, the chances are that you've sat down and drawn up a list of criteria to try and narrow down the choices.  Must haves, nice to haves, maybe even a few things to be avoided, will be fed into the equation along with price and location.

When we were engaged on that search three years ago, one of the nice to haves, but an important one, was an interesting view, ideally with some trees and a bit of green.  Given that one of our other lines on the list specified being fairly near to the city centre, the options were greatly reduced.

So I still can't believe our luck in ending up with a place that's less than a half hour walk from Princes Street, and looks out, from every window, on to trees and grass and the odd bit of wildlife (I counted 15 magpies sitting in the nearest tree the other day) - even if that comes in the form of one of the cities larger cemeteries.  The place I documented in my "A Year in the Life.... of Death" photoblog. 

But there's a lot more green space nearby.  The nearest bus route runs along the northern side of the graveyard, and on the other side of that is Pilrig Park, home to a large children's play area, space for a football pitch, myriad dog walkers, and the 17th century Pilrig House.  And a pleasant route to take down to Leith, which is what I did a couple of days ago.  The trees might be bare, but the bright sunlight, blue sky and stark shadows gave the place a bit of visual drama, and I felt compelled to stop and take a few photos along the way. 

That clear sky and strong low sun stretched out the objects, and people, in the park.

With unexpected bonus of a shining river of....

mud.

From our balcony the park is only this far away - you can see the path from the above photos running up from the centre of the image.

I am a city person.  The idea of living in 'the country' no longer has the slightest superficial appeal to me, and the very thought runs waves of boredom through my brain.  But there remains something, perhaps even some primeval urge, to be said for having a tenuous link back to nature, and the green spaces in our cities are important in providing the sense of peace and connection that provides an antidote to all that urban busyness.  Edinburgh is well enough provided with tree lined places to walk, and even it's own pseudo wilderness right in the centre, with an extinct volcano to climb.  We were lucky to find ourselves so close to one part of that network, and the reminder it provides of just how essential they are to civilised living.

As if I'd stereotype Weegies....

Regular readers (who??) may be aware that we're big fans of the 'A Play, a Pie and a Pint' series that runs every Spring and Autumn.  Despite price increases it's still an amazing bargain, doing just what it says on the tin, and including some great new short plays.  Each one runs from Tuesday to Saturday, usually after a similar run the week before at Oran Mor in Glasgow.

But here was one, The Weir Sisters (review here), which wasn't making the trip along the M8.  And as it featured a friend of ours in one of the roles it seemed like a good excuse to return to Weegieland after several months absence.  I'd heard nothing but good things about Oran Mor as a venue, so I wondered if it would live up to expectations.  And how it might compare with our more  familiar haunt on Cambridge Street.

That comparison certainly started well, the Glasgow venue being in an old church, a fairly impressive building on a busy crossroads, and a big improvement on the Traverse's bland exterior.  So too the entrance lobby, a characterful space with cartoonish artwork on the walls, and the bar, a proper island bar in cosy wood clad surroundings.  But then....

Following the queue that snakes across the bar we go down into the performance area, and look to figure out the routine.  Sure enough the line takes us past a bar where we can choose from the list of drinks on offer, and round the corner to the pie section.  Then take the 'meal' and find a seat.  The seats are free standing, and you eat off your lap.  After a while the play begins.  And very enjoyable it was too.  But it's a rather different experience to the familiar Traverse one.

There's the choice of pies for a start.  Or rather the extreme lack of choice.  What we're used to is a list of, say, Scotch, haggis, veggie haggis, chicken and leek or macaroni pies, plus a veg tartlet.  while in OM there appears to be a choice of Scotch pie or..,. Scotch pie.  There's something unappetising looking that might be veggie, but that's it.  What we're used to is taking our comestibles to a table, and consuming them in civilised fashion, what we get is the juggling of items between hand, lap and floor, trying to keep pie from ending up underfoot.  No surprise when the sound of smashed glass rang out.  And what we're used to when we descend into the depths is tiered seating with good views from all angles, close to the action.  What we get is a distant view of the actors across a silver-grey lake of heads.

But this is Glasgow, and there is one area in which they are bound to outshine their smaller counterpart.  Here the drinks list gives a choice of a pint of ale, lager or cider, red or white wine (125ml measures if memory serves correct), soft drinks, tea or coffee.  There it looks subtly different.  To the pints list you can add Guiness, plus the choice of a couple of bottled beers, the wines include rose and come as 175s and.... erm, where were the soft drink options?  Weegieland, you do not disappoint....

But sorry Glasgow, your bus service is a bit crap....