Category: walking

Twelfth day (note to self: things get better)

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
A car parked on a snowy street. Someone has written "MERRY XMAS" in the snow on the rear windscreen.

It snowed overnight! We don’t get much of it round here; in fact, it’s been almost exactly a year. So either the perpetrator of this mild act of vandalism is keeping the full twelve days of Christmas, or else someone’s driven in quite a long way without clearing their back windscreen.

Anyway, this time last year we had a pathetic little dusting of snow, and I was in bed, in a good deal of pain and unable to keep any food down, as the leftover gas from my gallbladder removal surgery fought its way around my abdomen. (What sorted it out, for anyone in similar straits, was a little pill called Wind-eze. The packet wasn’t very clear on how it works, but it does.) Today, by contrast, I was able to walk across town in my Wellington boots, stopping at the cathedral to walk the labyrinth (still in wellies – that’s a first!) and eat the last cherry cream choux bun in Caffè Nero. So, contrary to my gloomy posts of the last month, I can and do get better.

And it really was ridiculously beautiful. See:

Snowy scene with people walking past a Gothic doorway
Cathedral and bare trees on a snowy day with one stretch of roofs illuminated by pinkish sunlight
Bare trees surround a snowy green. One man stands at the near edge. A just past full moon hangs just over thd top of the trees
Bare branches and the octagon of Ely cathedral are dusted with snow

Saint Vincent of Saragossa

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
Extremely poor photo of an eight-panel series of tiles depecting the life of San Vicente de Zaragoza, in blue and white, with captions in rhyming couplets in Spanish
Extremely poor photo of an eight-panel series of tiles depecting the life of San Vicente de Zaragoza, in blue and white, with captions in rhyming couplets in Spanish

It seems to be a day for deacons. I’m listening to Choral Evensong from St Lawrence, York, and this morning the Daily Prayer app told me that today is Vincent of Saragossa, Deacon, first Martyr of Spain, 304 [Commemoration]. Wikipedia tells me that this martyrdom took place under Diocletian, and notes that according to tradition it involved roasting on a gridiron, a detail which may have been carried over from the hagiography of St Lawrence. As if it were contagious, at least among deacons.

Up until I looked at Wikipedia an hour ago, everything I knew about St Vincent came from this series of tiles – which, since my Spanish is not great and apparently in 2007 my photography skills were worse, wasn’t much. They were displayed – probably still are – in the parish rooms of the church of Santiago in Logroño, to which I and my friend Anne, and another pilgrim, Ursula, were invited by the priest after mass on Palm Sunday. He gave us the run of the place, encouraging us to help ourselves to pizzas and packet soup from the kitchen. It was a kindness that we appreciated very much on a trying day.

And so, eighteen years on (good grief), the name of St Vincent, San Vicente, carries for me an association of hot, salty soup, and olive branches, and warming up on a grey, chilly day, and hospitality gratefully received. It’s been pleasant to think of it today – a day that’s been distinctly cold, and actively misty, a day on which I’ve been glad to be at home, cooking omelettes with potato and red pepper and smelly cheese.

It’s good to walk

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
A row of bare trees in front of a house, some with silver bark and some with yellow

Another cold day, but clear and sunlit, and all the trunks and branches of the trees glowing – the silver on the birches, the golden lichen on the hazels and oaks, and the moon between them. I walked – not as far as yesterday, but further than I’ve managed on other days – and kept going further than I strictly needed to because it was too beautiful to stop so soon. It’s so good to be able to do that again.

Thinking of big skies

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
Grey road, grey sky, bare trees, green field, band of pale pink at the horizon

I took a slightly longer walk today, long enough for my legs to stop feeling wobbly and then start feeling wobbly again. I came out from the corridor of trees and stopped at the road for longer than I usually would, noticing the pull of the flat land beyond the A10. It was cold, and there was no sun so it felt colder, and I would have liked to cross the main road and walk out under the grey sky towards the band of pale pink. Instead, I carried on, noticing how very cold it was, how very bare the trees, how very spiky their twigs. I reminded myself that I wasn’t going to feel this weak forever, that this wasn’t COVID or pregnancy, that it was going to be a matter of days rather than months. Thought that I ought to pump up the tyres of my road bike for when I should be ready to cross the road, but not yet. Then, in the trees, birdsong: I guessed it was a robin, and then looked up, and up, and saw it at the very top.

First walk of the new year

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
Silver birch trees seen across an expanse of grass, lit up with sunlight against a cloudless blue sky

By way of contrast with yesterday, today’s weather was everything that early January ought to be: cold, clear, and lit with gentle gold sunlight. I always struggle, when in recovery, with finding the balance between “keeping active” and “overdoing it”: today’s walk was probably about a kilometre, which was about right. More to the point, it put me in the company of the sun, and the bluetits, and the wagtails, and these trees.

Regaining range

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
Tarmac path with hedges on both sides and a tree with yellow leaves rising from the left

It’s been a while since I walked my usual walk. Last month I slipped getting out of the shower and bashed my knee: I couldn’t get downstairs for three days, it took me seven to get out of the house, and for several weeks more it was painful if I moved it the wrong way. You can imagine how frustrating this was. Even now I can’t straighten my leg fully. Then I’ve had various things to buy and places to be, so I’ve been using my walking energy getting into town. But today I went out and I walked for fifty minutes, just for the pleasure of going for a walk. It was great.

Week-end: alarums and excursions

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
Four houses, all with many small birds perched along the ridges of the roofs

The good

My friend Maggie was ordained priest yesterday. I’d said a while ago not to bother saving me a ticket, because I might well be otherwise engaged, but in the event I wasn’t, so I watched the service on Youtube and then walked up to the cathedral to give her a hug afterwards. (I timed it pretty much perfectly: left the house during the distribution of communion; got there just as the bishop and new priests were coming out to have their photos taken.)

It was really lovely to get out and see people (there were others I knew milling around, because the Church of England is a very small world). It was lovely to get out at all, really.

The mixed

Slow progress is still progress. Midnight alarums and excursions (don’t worry, everything’s fine).

The difficult and perplexing

Really, aside from a mild case of cabin fever, I have nothing to worry about. I’m not dealing terribly well with waiting, but then I never do.

What’s working

Picking one thing to do, doing that, and then having a lie-down.

Reading

I finished the main run of The Comfortable Courtesan stories, got a bit weepy at the end, and decided that I wasn’t quite feeling up to tackling the extended universe.

I also read Along the Way: the journey of a father and son (Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, and Hope Edelman). My favourable impression of this began with the fact that the ghostwriter is credited in large letters on the cover, and continued more or less all the way through. It’s mostly a memoir of family life, but it goes into a lot of detail on the making of The Way. (Which is what drew me to pick it up in the library discard sale.) I was very surprised to discover that they were shooting The Way in September 2009, which was only a couple of years after I walked the Camino Frances. But then it takes a long time for a film to happen, and I didn’t see it on its first release.

I’ve written before, briefly, about where The Way fails to convey the sheer grinding physicality of the Camino. And it is the physicality that sticks with me: the texture of boots that have been left too close to the fire overnight; walking through period pain so intense that I was sick (never before or since…) I think it’s basically impossible to get across such a three-dimensional (four-dimensional, maybe: time is an important component) experience in a two-dimensional medium. What the film does capture is the power of encounter and relationship; what it skips over is the fleeting nature of most of those encounters.

But Along the Way wasn’t just a book about the film; it was about parenthood, and masculinity (toxic and otherwise), and acting, and the film industry, and faith, and what all of that looks like in practice. And it seemed honest, and it was a very engaging read.

I am not sure that I would walk the Camino again – certainly not in summer, probably not the Camino Frances – and a lot of that is feeling that I’ve had my turn and I need to make space for other people. And, of course, the less generous flipside, which is that there are now too many people on the Camino, and it would no longer be what it was. (Of course it wouldn’t: I’m not twenty-one any more. Or thirty-one. And I seem to do it at major transitions in my life, and the current major transition is one that makes long-distance walking a lot less practical than it was. And the pilgrimage-shaped hole in my life is currently filled with Cursillo. Although I shouldn’t be entirely surprised if I end up doing it again at forty-one, never mind everything that I’ve just said.) And I’m sure The Way had something, though not everything, to do with the increase in traffic. Even so, I came away from this book feeling in greater charity towards the film and towards the Sheen/Estevez clan in general. They seem like a good bunch.

Making

I’ve been sewing two flannels together (very slowly) and will shortly add a popper as a fastening, so that I end up with a pouch that I can fill with ends of soap that have got too small and annoying to be in the soap dish.

Watching

Still almost entirely sports. Eastbourne, last week, and now the Tour and the Giro Donne. (A friend has suggested that we name the impending sprog after whoever wins the day’s stage. I am not sure that we will go with this.)

Looking at

Pictures of London Pride on Instagram. I’m wryly amused that I ignored or turned down four separate offers of wristbands (the bisexuals, the Bond fans, the Christians, and work – not sure this really counts as intersectionality) on the grounds that I might be busy, and then was only very slightly busy. But actually I’ve never particularly wanted to go to London Pride, and the idea of going to London at all is mightily unappealing at present.

Cooking

Roast carrots and parsnips with quinoa, from the Roasting Pan Cookbook. Either the timings in the book are off, or the fan function of our oven is not trustworthy, but an extra ten minutes on the standard oven function and with the foil removed did the trick, and the result was very nice.

Also a new potato, broad bean and feta salad. (Mint, thyme and bayleaves in the cooking water; chopped chervil, parsley and capers in the dressing. Really very good.)

And I think I’ve finally got the knack of yoghurt in the Instant Pot (use full fat milk, boil for an extra five minutes beyond what the pot thinks, incubate for five hours).

The peach shrub is done in theory but in practice needs to mellow more. Still, it has got me to learn how to use the Soda Stream at long last (it’s not at all difficult; I am just not that interested in fizz).

Eating

As above.

Noticing

Hollyhocks! They seem to be a thing around here; they grow very tall and they are bright and cheerful. Maybe I should grow some.

And, as per picture at the top of this post, rooftops and rooftops of starlings. They are usually around, but not usually in such numbers. We’d had eight or so demolishing a suet cake on the bird feeder earlier in the day, but I wasn’t expecting to see this. This isn’t even all the relevant roofs. I don’t know if you can call it a murmuration if it’s mostly static, but either way, it was quite a sight.

In the garden

Fruit is swelling. (I’m going to have to pull up some of the jungle under the plum trees in order to be able to harvest without being scratched or stung.) Lots of things could do with a trim. There are just a couple of love-in-a-mist flowers that have self-seeded from plants I grew… maybe our first year here?

I have drawn up a plan for the front but am not going to act on it until bending over becomes more comfortable.

Appreciating

People! (Particularly Tony.)

Hankering

I’m missing the old days of LiveJournal, the way it used to be in 2006 or so. Most of the social media sites seem to be becoming unusable in one way or another. I just want to see what the people I like are up to! In such a way that I can find the posts again if I want to look back at them! And without having to look at the same one over and over and over again!

The cat’s current preferred location

On top of the paper trimmer in the conservatory. I am glad she has moved on from the fridge; I can’t feel that having little clumps of black fluff float down into the kitchen was entirely sanitary.

Line of the week

Havi on screens and screening:

Nature abhors a vacuum, and goes wild for a door.

This coming week

Your guess is as good as mine, honestly.

Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Share them here!

Hyperlocal travel writing: West Fen Road

kathleenjowitt2 Comments
A very flat green field dotted with large white birds under a pearly grey sky

The name is a little misleading. Oh, it’s the road that takes you into the West Fen, but there’s as much north as there is west in the direction.

I take my life in my hands and cross the A10, and immediately drop down below sea level. This is a low, flat land. At this time of year it’s deep brown or bright green: vast breadths of ploughed soil, and young shoots. The sky above is an inverted bowl of cloud, pearly grey, dull.

It was a Dutchman who drained the marshes. Cornelius Vermuyden. The last time I walked down to the quay there was a paper picture of him in the window of the art gallery, armed with shovel and plans, and staring down Hereward the Wake across a broad drain. Hereward wouldn’t recognise the place. Vermuyden wins. For the moment. The Netherlands aren’t that far away, across the North Sea, but everything’s that far away, these days. In my head, Jacques Brel sings about the towers of Bruges and Ghent, mijn platte land, mijn Vlaanderland. Ahead of me, there’s Coveney church; behind me, the cathedral and St Mary’s.

The road surface is broken again and again by grooves in the tarmac. If I were on a bike, they’d be murder on the wrists; in a car, they’d induce motion sickness; on foot, I only notice them by eye. To my right is a ditch deeper than I am tall. Every now and again I have to hop up onto the verge to show willing when the cars pass. I don’t entirely trust it. On the other side of the road, an intermittent hedge provides some shelter from the wind. It’s hard to judge distance. Those white blobs: swans or sheep?

The tractors are big here. I remarked to a friend who grew up in Devon how big tractors have become; she thinks they were always big here. There’s room for them to be. The fields and roads of my childhood (the Marches, and then the Isle of Wight) wouldn’t fit these monsters.

I get a little closer to the white blobs. Swans. They’re too clean, their edges too well-defined, to be sheep. Big, though. Are the swans bigger here, too?

The road progresses in a series of right angles. Every now and again there’s a farm. Ebenezer (O, the deep, deep love of Jesus – but I can’t remember any more of the words than that, and wander off into Here is love vast as the ocean), Hale Fen Farm, the one that’s marked on the map as Frogs Abbey but which doesn’t have a name board. Tall willow trees, mud-spattered, and a mud-sodden teddy bear abandoned underneath them. I really cannot go rescuing muddy teddy bears from the side of the road, but I’m only just sufficiently hard-hearted to leave it.

It’s only a few days into Lent. I think about the wilderness. No barren land, this; its featurelessness is what makes it such hospitable farmland. Forty days and forty nights. My mind still switches from the harsh fifths of Aus der Tiefe to the gentle thirds and tones of Buckland at verse four, and it’s six years since I’ve been in a choir that had that trick. So shall we have peace divine…

There’s plenty of warning of the sharp steep hill into Coveney: you can see it from miles away, but it calls for some adjustment in pace, effort. Because I’m not on a bike today, I can saunter along the pavement and stop to read the information board. Coveney: Old English: village in the bay. Before all this was fields, the higher ground that Little Downham and Ely and Sutton sit on a ridge in the marsh, a horseshoe-shaped cove, with Coveney an island in the middle of it.

If I were on a bike, I’d go on, follow my nose, follow a drove until it petered out into a sharp-stoned path and I gave up for fear of a puncture, or until it met a main road. As it is, I sit on a bench to eat a couple of ginger biscuits and drink some water before turning back towards home. The daffodils are coming out. Down the hill again, and south-east, or, at least, what averages out to south-east, between all this right-angled corners. From this dead straight road through dead flat fields I suddenly see what the Old English meant. Ely crowns the ridge ahead of me, and there I am in the bay, down on the seabed. Little by little, walk by walk, I’m beginning to get my head around it, this platte land.

Deep grass-edged ditch alongside a single-track road running along flat arable farmland. Cathedral tower on the horizon.

Wings Over The Plain: new story at Enchanted Conversations

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
Storks on the bell tower at Belorado
Storks on the bell tower at Belorado

I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve had a story published today over at Enchanted Conversations. If you haven’t come across it before, the site is an utter delight – a treasure trove of stories new and old, essays, poems, and other material related to fairy tales.

Wings Over The Plain is a story that was inspired by the Camino de Santiago – specifically, the long drag of the Camino Frances across the meseta, the plain that forms much of the province of Castilla y Leon. It’s inspired by the landscape, and the skyscape, the longstanding association of the Camino with the Milky Way. But most of all it’s inspired by the storks who build their nests on any elevated corner they can find and who, for me at least, were one of the loveliest sights of a lovely journey.

Winter is harsh out on the high, broad, plain of Castile. There’s nothing to stop the wind: it blows in cold from the sea, and becomes colder still as it crosses the mountains. Sometimes it brings snow; sometimes it just sweeps bitingly around every hunched tree and huddled building, and the people get through the winter as best they can. And on those long, cold, nights, the sky breaks into stars, more of them than you could count, brighter than you can imagine, showing a westward path that only the very devout or the very foolish follow at this time of year…

Read Wings Over The Plain here