"Farewell to the flesh"

Today is Shrove Tuesday, and, befittingly, I am stuffed on pancakes. I was discussing this with my students this morning - it being Pancake Day, that is, not my being stuffed - and we looked at traditions in verious other countries. The Polish contingent mentioned feasting on herrings, while the Germans mentioned the carnivals in various towns, in particular the one in Cologne that begins in november and continues until today. The Italian student mentioned perhaps the grandaddy of all these public festivals, the Venice Carnival, and she mentioned the festivities, the costumes and the riot of licence that pervades it.
The word 'carnival' derives from the latin Carne Vale - literally, 'goodbye to meat', or less prosaically as I have titled this post. It is the last chance before Lent to have a blowout, a bit of a party, a bit of fun, before the forty days of fasting and penitence that is Lent. It might seem strange to have a period of abstinence just as spring is round the corner, but think about it: in European latitudes at least, and certainly for our ancestors, this is the time of year when there is dearth and lack, when food supplies are at their lowest, when there is still the long and anxious wait before crops begin to sprout forth, animals grow, things to ripen. Now, as you traipse down the aisles of Tescos, buying strawberries in the dead months, you might not automatically make this connection, but there it is. By making a virtue of starvation and lack, lent creates a sense of communality - after all, everyone is (or rather was) supposed to follow the rules about what you could and could not consume - hence the reason why all the fat in the house had to be used up before the beginning of the period.
In Islam, of course, you have Ramadan, which follows very much the same principal - a month of conscious fasting and abstinence, with people coming together for Iftar at nightfall. The main difference from Lent is that it follows the lunar calendar, so it moves forward by ten days or so each year. This means that someone will always experience the discomfort of a long, hot summer of fasting at least once during their lifetime. It doesn't have the literally visceral connection to food production and lack of the Christian tradition, but it does focus the mind on how it feels to starve like the poorest. Its message is ' here's what it's like to have no food at all', while Lent reminds us of how little we need to actually live on.
And at the end of both? A great big blowout on sweets and chocolates.
All we are asked to do is say farewell to the flesh for a brief time. And, as ever, my birthday falls right at the beginning of the period! So, as I say Vale to my forty-first year and Ave to my forty-second on this planet, I wonder what new things, what changes will happen, and what else shall come.

Head in the clouds.

a day out at Popham airfield, in a two-seater microlite, courtesy of Nur's birthday present to me last year for my 40th. Just in time for my 41st.
[edit] - I forgot to say:
I WANT TO SO DO THAT AGAIN!
the microlite looks, from the front, much like any other small plane, but it really is tiny - the fuel tank is directly behind the seats, and the whole thing is more or less made of plastic. It took off in an incredibly short space - less than 50m - and got up to a thousand feet in just a couple of minutes. Michelle, the pilot, was very helpful and explained a lot in the short space we were aloft. what really surprised me was how receptive the controls were - they just required the touch of fingers. The way the plane bucked and dipped was a bit unnerving at first, but it was just, in the end, like riding rough water.

5 minutes

That's the title and theme of this, and for how long I will write this particular post. It's based upon something I've been trying out with students, which in turn was based upon something I read about the novelist Anthony Trollope. Apparently, before going to his job at the post office, he would write for exactly three hours every morning. If he finished a novel at, say two hours and ten minutes, he wouldn't stop: He'd start a new novel.
Well, I wondered what would happen if I let my students write for five minutes, no more, no less, about a given subject, and tell them not to worry about spelling or grammar - what would happen? In fact, it has so far been an interesting exercise in what happens - newly learned vocabulary appears to be produced with far greater ease, while certain errors, mainly of spelling, disappear.
I then wondered what else can be done in five minutes, so I've just done a load of mini-tasks so far today - clearing up a letters tray, phoning the council about a grant, choosing a couple of birthday cards - and so far, it seems very productive. And there's my five minu

music

get spotify. I've been listening to it while working on some rather tricky stuff, and it's kept me going for nearly four hours. That's all.

Hard day at the office...

he actually fell asleep standing up, with his head resting on the sofa.

Annnnd.....breathe.

It's an automatic process, of course: the exchange of gases within the spongy sacs that fill our thoraxes, the gentle rhythmic pull of the diaphragm, drawing air in, expelling the voided gas. Did you know, however, that with any given breath or exhalation, you only expel, on average, about 10-15% of the used up stuff? Athletes do a bit more, but not much.
Yet when was the last time you really, really focused on the act of breathing, or noticed it? There are days when the air really is like wine, a intoxicating heady rush, eager to fill your lungs; there are times when air blasts through you, cleaning you out - I once experienced this in spectacular fashion, while climbing Carnedd Dafydd, and I encountered a sudden updraught of pure, stromg cold air that didn't just clean my sinuses, it seemed to fill me with an wild, cold fire, and I felt I could have run for hours and hours; then there are days when the atmosphere is laden with perfume from honeysuckle and jasmine and late flowering trees and all is a lavish, luxurious drug of drowsiness. And still we breathe.
Yet when do you focus on the act of breathing itself? Try it: close your eyes, and carefully count the breath in, the breath out, diastole, systole. Feel the air moving through your nasal passageways, in, then out: sense how it feels against the mouth, the throat, the nose, the lungs. Feel your chest rising and falling, then become aware of how your pulse has slowed, and how much slower you are, all of a sudden, breathing. Now, if you're brave enough, stop counting the breaths, and let them flow, and now watch the show inside your head of your thoughts rising and falling, vying with each other to be heard, some gentle, some strident, all needy.
I must admit at this point that I've stolen this idea from Marcus' journal. The act of counting your breath, that is. And what I've found is remarkable. As I seek to focus on the breathing, suddenly I become aware of tens, hundreds of voices, all striving to be heard over the bell-toll of my counting my breaths, or the magisterial silence as I try to let even counting go. And eaach voice is a bit of me, all parts of me articulating worries, fears, anxieties, boasts, terror. Yet while I'm in counting mode, I can look at all this shouting audience and understand, REALLY understand, how trivial or important something is, and get it done if necessary.

ch-ch-ch-changes

I have, for my sins, or possibly just out of sheer torpor, just been watching the 1995 romcom The American President, featuring Michael Douglas as a singleton POTUS wooing Annette Bening. God I'm sad. There's one scene that stuck with me - the bit where the president is ordering an attack on some building with the full knowledge that a lot of innocent people will die. Just got me thinking: right now, someone, somewhere, is doing something that will have an impact on your life. It might be major, it might be minor, you might barely notice it, but because of someone else the course of your life has been changed, just because someone has said this or done that, or possibly because they HAVEN'T done this or said that. It might not be as dramatic as having the shit bombed out of your house, as Hamas and Israel between them have managed to concoct between them for the poor sods in Gaza, but nevertheless the path has been altered. And a small turn here ends up as a big diversion later.
Of course, this is a continuation of the theme of the last post. Who knows - maybe this entry has changed the course of someone's life by just a bit.

Do? Don't do? Mean to do? Do be doo?

And still the snow falls, and still the students straggle in. I was half hoping that no-one would turn up. Well, no, I was fully hoping no-one would turn up actually, but there you go. In fact, from what I've seen, my class is the only one with anything near full attendance today. Bah.
I've been sat here for the past hour, thinking over ideas for lesson plans, but distracted by other thoughts, mostly along the lines of 'I meant to do this and that, but..' I suspect it's the trip up to North Wales that's got me in this vein of thought. How much time have I spent pondering this very statement? I meant to study more. I didn't mean to become a teacher. I meant to do this. I didn't mean to say that. And so forth and so on... The fact of the matter is, we are who we are because of what we do, or don't do. Inaction is as bad as action, sometimes. Whenever I say 'Oh, I meant to do this (but didn't)' , isn't this an admission of some kind of failure? Isn't it me owning up to being an inert lump?
My failure, as a person, has been to be too analytical, too cautious in moving towards action, and thus end up not doing anything much. I have been afraid of action, its consequences and possible harm to others, to the point that not doing seems safer. Yet not doing is harmful in its own way, to myself in my self-esteem (because I don't do the things I want or should do) and to what others need from me, especially my children.
My aim this year, and yes, I know this seems like a late new year's resolution, is to move away from saying 'I meant to do...' and just do it, and avoid 'I didn't mean to do...' by doing the right thing - for myself, at least.

More Ice

Walked up to school with Angus this morning. There'd been a hard frost, and the hill that we have to walk up was one solid gleaming sheet of polished ice. It wasn't too bad underfoot, but cars were having a torrid time getting up. There was a queue of Mummy Tanks going nowhere quickly, stuck on the steepest part of the hill. Quite frankly, I felt absolutely no sympathy for them. These were people who were just driving a few hundred metres to take their kids to school before turning right round again.
Regular readers will know that I have no small antipathy to people in big cars, especially Mummy Tanks: These huge, seven-seater 4wd vehicles that are used solely for the ferrying of a couple of small children and the week's shopping, have never been used in an environment that would require 4wd (except today, of course, and then the Mummy Tank drivers didn't have a clue how to use it), and are there as sops to the egos of fearful, fret-filled souls. Why the hell use them? All you do is literally burn money in order to drive an extra half-tonne of metal around. All for the sake of showing what aBIG car you have, what a LOT of money you must have, what an IMPORTANT person you must be. And also, it shows what a bully you are, and how little you care for your own kids' future as you burn up just a bit more fuel and pollute just a bit more, just because you can.
I also despise them because they are the most poorly-driven cars around. Most of my near misses have been because some arrogant bitch in her Mummy Tank thinks she can drive any which way she likes - she's not going to get hurt, because she's in a big tank, and damn everyone else. However, they are not the only tits on the road. Men who drive vehicles with names like the Mitsubishi Warrior - they're high up on the list of Road Twats. why on earth do you NEED to drive a car called a Warrior? to show that you're a MAAAAAN? That you're macho? Or that you're a sadly deluded middle-aged fatty who's overdosed on pies? 'cos you ain't a warrior.
One of my favourite names for one of these stupid vehicles is the Pajero - this is because, in Spanish, it's slang for 'wanker'. And that sums it up nicely.

A weekend away

Oh my thumping head. I've spent the weekend in Bangor, attending the UCNW Stage Crew 25th birthday bash and going up a mountain. I went up by train last sunday: I was going to hire a car, but after working out costs and petrol, it worked out cheaper to go by rail. Besides, it allowed me to have a drink or several. And, when I got to my destination, to have several more, and then some. I stayed at the Eryl Mor Hotel, which conveniently enough was directly opposite the pub. It also boasts, as I found out the next morning, a spectacular view across the Menai Straits, Bangor Pier and harbour, and the wide, snow-flecked sweep of Snowdonia.
It was great to meet up with a few old faces - I wasn't sure that I'd recognise anyone, or whether they'd recognise me. In a couple of cases, it took a bit of intent peering behind fading hair and wrinkles to work out who was who. Besides, alcohol was involved, which didn't exactly help things at times. I'd half-expected that we'd be meeting up at the Student's Union, but no: apparently, it's hardly open anymore, it's losing money and it's about to be pulled down. It was a bit of a shame, because I would have liked to have seen the old place one more time. However, its failing state suggests that its heyday had been when I was a student there, in the times when a room with a fire safety limit of 125 persons was regularly filled with more than 4 times that amount, where the air was thick with cigarette smoke and cheap 80s perfumes and body spray and beer fug and a frantic joy. Whether this is a good or bad thing, I'm not sure. I did walk past the place as I went home, and I could see the toll of the years - if it didn't get pulled down, it would fall down. Some things hadn't changed: the faded Welsh graffito on the wall of Jock's bar, the signage painted by green algae, the curtains on the upper floors in their half-open, half-torn, mostly stained state - even a half-drunk bottle of Newcastle Brown, placed behind a pillar and visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows, could have been there since 1989. Overall, though, I think we did best to stay in the comfort of the Tap and Spile.
On Saturday morning, nursing an aching head and a stomach full of a Full Welsh Breakfast (that's an English Breakfast, coooked in Wales), I took the bus up to Llanberis for a climb up Snowdon. My intention was to get the Sherpa bus to Pen Y Pass, then go over Pyg Track and down the Llanberis Path. Once I'd arrived at Llanberis, however, I quickly revised my plan. First, there was an awful lot of snow on the mountain: second, there was a freezing cold hard wind blowing gale strength. I realised that meant my original plan would be impossible to undertake because of the wind direction and strength and because the snow on the Pen Y Pass side would probably make any Snowdon ascent extremely difficult, even if well equipped. Instead, I took the Llanberis path, which is a tedious, dull, hard and very long slog up the mountain. There were plenty of other people going up the path, and it didn't cease to amaze me how poorly equipped some of them were. I went up with my trusty Berghaus boots, waterproof trousers, winter jacket, walking poles and a backpack with map, lights, food, medical pack, water and other useful bits; One chap I saw, while wonderfully coordinated in his clothing choice, had skimpy pixie boots, a lightweight summer jacket, a tastefully chosen bandanna and a jaunty little knapsack. Others were plodding up as though they were just popping back from the shops, including carrying a plastic shopping bag with a few bits and pieces in.
After getting past Clogwyn Station, the snow appeared, but it was deep snow that had been lying for quite a while and had turned into a very hard crust, with soft and rotten snow below. It had blown into drifts in some areas higher than my head, and left only very thin paths up, especially at the point where you walk under the rail line and look over Pen Y Pass towards the Glyders. I trudged on up, fighting my hangover and the wind and the cold, until I go to the point where the path deviates higher up from the rail line, under Carnedd Ugain and towards Clogwyn Coch, and saw a few groups of people sitting on the snow. Some where shuffling gingerly upwards on their bums, while others were shuffling gingerly downwards. After a few more steps, and not without a slightly rising sense of horror, I realised why: the snow had turned into an extremely dangerous sheet of ice, pointing down towards a sheer fall. I tried probing the snow, but it was quickly obvious that it was a solid icy crust. I also realised that I would have to be extraordinarily careful in order to turn round and get the hell out of there. It was brought home to me how you need crampons and ice axes whenever on the side of a snowy slope like that. Amazingly, some idiots with minimal equipment were still trying to get higher up. I decided to turn back, with lots of very small, careful steps and judicious use of walking poles. I wasn't helped in this by the wind, which was doing its best to unbalance me. What was also worse was the wind direction - from the south, meaning that it was relatively warm, meaning it was melting the snow, meaning that it was a rapidly increasing avalanche risk - if not that day, then later. Anyway, as you can tell, I made it off safely.
The next day, two brothers, in their 30s and both married, fell and died, less than 100 metres away from where I reached.