Scooby Doo?

23rd October 2011
The other night whilst out walking I decided to explore the dark, wind swept end of Brighton Pier.

During the summer months I have no doubt it has a life of its own as families pay their money and indulge in the roller coasters. Keeping their candy floss from flying into their hair on the log flume and trying vainly to prevent whip lash on the dodgem cars.

On an early winters night it was so different, the rides locked and covered for the season. Familiar shapes becoming eery in the gloom. The wind adding the required atmospheric to the imagination as I felt I had walked onto the set of a " Scooby Doo" cartoon mystery.

Walking around I felt that the ghost from the horror house would appear and scare me off the site. This of course would be no ghost but Mr Smith the wicked developer. Who by scaring the fayre ground visitors away would then offer the beleaguered fayre owners a paltry sum, before using the land in some shady property / natural resource type scandalous deal.

Have taken the required photo's and spent longer walking around than I had intended, my stomach advised me that Scooby Snacks were required so off I went to find dinner. Of course constantly keeping a watch over my shoulder for Mr Smith dressed as a ghost!

I'm out and about

Autumnal Calm

16th October 2011
Hello,

Great walk today, sunny, quiet, the occasional breeze undressing the leaves from the trees. The branches swaying gently.

So if you can excuse the shoogly camera, the back ground snuffles of a dog rooting around the autumnal carpet.

Lose yourself in the Autumnal calm it's 30 seconds well spent.

I'm out and about

Fly tipping

10th October 2011
Out with the wolves this evening and at the start of the path into the woods, This!

Smashed and broken bathroom porcelain dumped by some selfish ? (complete with the descriptor of your choice).

Just to save whoever, a bit extra effort or the fee to properly dispose of the building waste, they dump their rubbish.

Not in some waste centre but in the countryside to cause a non biodegradable eye sore. Not wishing to sound like some fervent right winger, it is a disgrace and makes me angry and sad that people care so little for our green space.

Speech over :(

Pass the paracetamol

9th October 2011
A mental challenge, an assault on ones psychological equilibrium. That's the sort of afternoon and evening it's been.
Home and now fed, the headache being treated with paracetamol and bed.
Unbowed and already possible solutions are coming to mind on the best way forward for when we do it all over again in four weeks time.
Activism here we come!

I'm out and about

Run, Fegrig Run

8th October 2011

One constant all these years has been my ability to run.

Running in some playground game, or with a ball in hand, sometimes over obstacles and my favourite, running as fast as my wee legs will carry me in a straight line. I can remember occasions when I've put my running shoes on as if they were only yesterday. The joy at achieving the goal, of facing the challenge. Perhaps never the fastest but it's all relative.

My running shoes have travelled far and wide, sometimes packed for a specific event but mostly to trundle somewhere new.

In thunderstorms, in snow, in searing heat, city and country, night and day I've chugged along.

Injuries have been experienced, strains, sprains, tears. Some leaving scars, others healing with the assistance of people in white coats. My attitude is sanguine, all of these injuries being an experiences, each one a story, an adventure. There are many with much worse to tell and endure.

So that's my shoes the latest pair to help me

run Fegrig run.

I'm out and about

Grey

5th October 2011
I was driving past a primary school today. The time was pick up time. Even without looking at the clock in the middle of the dash board, one could tell it was that time.

The give away, the chronological prompt? It was the line of cars on both sides of the street, some occupied, some empty as the driver waited on the pavement.
It was school "collect child" time.

The weather was mild, windy and soon to be rainy. Not an unusual meteorological set of conditions for this neck of the woods.

The lines of cars though would suggest that many of the children would be transported in their own mini climate back to their home and another mini climate. Exposure to the elements not allowed, it seems.

Now there will have been some of these cars whose owners had a legitimate reason for driving to the school but the majority. C'mon?

I remember having a good 30 minute walk from primary school to home with not a car in sight. They had been invented but we didn't have one.

Regardless of the weather up and down to school I trudged in my little pair (I was little) of grey shorts, grey jumper with black collar, grey below knee socks with again the black ribbed top - school colours, school shirt probably grey again, and my black and white striped tie. On a day like today the school wool blazer would have kept me warm. If the weather was particularly cold however the duffle coat was brought into service.

It did me no harm. Even though the roads were probably more dangerous and before global warming gave us wet and mild rather than proper winters.

So have today's youth got soft because their parents don't want them to walk/get run over/become the victim of some unknown thing?

Is it just too easy to jump in the car rather than walking themselves and picking junior up from school?

Should there be an exclusion zone for cars thereby encouraging walking for all and all the social and psychological benefits it provides.

The strange thing is that the school has a flag to say it's a green school. Conveniently the car parking lot must not be included or that may make the green school application very grey indeed.

A bit like my school uniform?

I'm out and about

Primal fear?

4th October 2011

In the northern hemisphere each day brings added gravitas to the Scottish saying of

"the nights are fair drawing in"

As in the nights are getting longer. Each day twilight comes a bit earlier and the evening walk that just a few weeks ago started in bright light is now shrouded in gloom.

I usually take a torch with me not to see so much but more in case I had to see more than my eyes could manage in the dim light. My eyes accommodate for the fading light fairly well and can make the best of whatever wattage the heavenly light bulb has provided that evening.

However the light gradually ebbing away gives strength to the unseen "thing" that created "that" noise, the far of bovine bawling ends up being some night beast in ones imagination ready to lick you to death with it's sand paper like tongue. If the e-coli doesn't get you first!

If it conjures up such images and thoughts in my mind what does it do to my canine companions?

During the daylight they are seldom near my heel. They are either lagging behind due to that irresistible scent or far in front like some over zealous path finder, blazing the trail.

When night falls however the scent is never quite so enticing, the trail not so much blazed as embered. My heel seems to take on the canine equivalent of a safe haven in a storm.

Do the dogs get scared or at least less confident in the dark? Do they sense that I am less confident in the dark and they move from broad and general support to close protection mode?

Perhaps they are worried in case that primal fear envelopes them and they have nightmares of the beast?

I'm out and about

How many feet?

2nd October 2011

I took this picture a few days ago whilst on a business trip to Dublin. I had a few hours spare before my flight home and paid a visit to the national museum of Ireland, that was just along the street from my hotel.

The photograph made me think of that old adage,

"if only they could talk".

How many pairs of feet clad in boots and shoes have trod on these stairs. They look newish but I'm sure it's only cosmetic sprucing with a paint brush and elbow grease. The stairs have been the connection between the ground and first floors for approximately 220 years.

The building and it's grounds served for many years as a barracks for first the British army and then the Irish defence force. A row of photographs and sketches show very little has changed over the years other than the uniforms worn and the weapons carried.

So I wonder how many feet, have gone up and down these stairs?