As I say above, I {often} know not what I do. But occasionally stuff resonates, things seem clearer and we might sense a simple beauty that seems right, clean and bright.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Who knows?
I recall as a child enjoying a book: ‘Why does the glow worm glow?’ by E R Laithwaite.
I also recall, at about age 20, one evening in The Wig and Pen pub in Truro in Cornwall, an emotional alcohol fueled exchange about ‘the paralysis of analysis’ (do you remember that CS?).
Recently, after a few weeks soaking up a je ne sais quoi in the Vendée region of France, stuff seems brighter.
It’s one thing to ‘be aware‘ and police one’s habits and routines, (and yes, instinct can be flawed) but beware of PofA, a dearth due to dissection.
Yes, ‘Wake up‘ by any means but don’t stop living in the hope that you might find life in all it’s fullness elsewhere. The birds don’t stop singing to find true life.
To catch the sun’s rays a plant needs to open up.
Marvelously, glow worms simply(?) glow, especially in the darkest moments.
Dare I say, in the words of the Queen of Arendelle “let it go“?
I recall, at about 7 years-of-age, from my bedroom in west Cornwall, looking up out of my window at the sky. I remember it as a significant moment where I perhaps first consciously pondered ‘stuff’. But as often is the case when in proper Cornwall, it was my perception of the ‘natural’ that I was in awe of.
I looked out again last night, 40 years on, at a similar sky, from our bedroom in north-east Leicestershire (“A cloud is a cathedral without belief”.Mark Strand). Again, nature enchants me both in its fruitfulness and its aimlessness.
Something eternally elusive about the immaterial mesmerism of life and a sense of biggerness.
It puzzles me that (it seems to me) the dominant forms of what is wonderful or beautiful is the ‘natural’ – Nature.
From traditional religion through modern-day spirituality and current mindful psychology, glory is found in our perception of the sunset, the bud, the delicate, and the magnificent, natural world.
Human efforts to build on nature’s tapestry can sparkle and excite but often they fade, or fail or are tainted with underlying pretension and oneupmanship.
Am I wrong? Generally, it seems ‘stuff’ (art & craft, song & dance) created to celebrate ‘goodness’, rarely involves human achievements and or activities?
If a spirit of go(o)d exists, empowering human goodness, why do we not more frequently see celebration of this?
Religions routinely celebrate all things beautiful, bright, resonant and mystical.
Infotainment celebrates “The Blue Planet” and “The Magical Forest”.
Visual Art celebrates our relationship with waterlilies, mountains, high seas, light, water and flesh.
Entertainment might play with the human condition and our constructs might have moments where a hysterical hand-clapping and synthetic mirth-laden joy cause ecstatic behaviour but more often than not “Beautiful Day” is followed by “how long must I sing this song?”.
….perhaps it’s only in physical theatre and dance that we see celebration of human endeavour? I digress…
It seems to me we often focus on nature and the natural to see outside of ourselves…
As Emerson said, “The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.”
Margaret Fuller writes of Thoreau“He says too constantly of Nature, ‘she is mine.’ She is not yours till you have been more hers.”
Beckett’s Hamm and Clov deliberate “Nature has forgotten us… There’s no more nature … “
I long to see more than nature but alas… “Is it not time for my pain-killer?”
If you’ve followed my witterings about riding a bike to work, you’ll know it’s been 4 years now – through sun, rain, laughter and pain (well not so much pain as occasional f*$pp&*# exasperation). It’s taken me 4 years but I have found, or rather eventually acknowledged yet another way…
Back in August 2012 I considered Another way. I said then that the “new route has poor, fractured, token cycle lanes”
In November 2013 I was asked by the BBC “Did I think cycle infrastructure was a good idea?”
Last year April 2014 – we clocked about 9000 miles and in April this year, it was 4 years of bike instead of car.
Perceived “near misses” they may be but ask someone who’s been hit or injured by an un-miss and the bike rider comes off worse, often much worse.
I’ve decided it’s not worth it and taken the decision to ride an even more insouciant route – the alternative’s not worth the hassle.
The realisation that riding a bike is NOT the same as driving a motorised vehicle does take a shift in mindset. It’s not just a decision, it take a realisation.
We are brought up from the word go to experience the phenomenon of travel by motor vehicle. Who remembers as a child, peering out of the window as parents drove to wherever and pretending to drive yourself? Yes, at first opportunity I purchased a car. A VW Beetle, after that I got another VW Beetle, then a Ford Orion, then a Mazda 626, a Ford Escort, then a Toyota ‘Sportif’, and yes I now after a year of going without, we are a two car family again and our run around is an old Ford Ka called Dotty (used about once or twice a week).
But thankfully I remember (with thanks) walking to school in the rain and getting drenched – remember the 1980’s Parka coats that took all day to dry – character building? I remember fondly the paper-round where seasonal puddles came & went like clockwork. Then the weekly summer rides to the beach on the bike with walkman and ironically the Beach Boys‘ Little Deuce Coupein my ears.I digress…
Moving to riding a bike without the mindset or instinct of a ‘motorist’, (god is that what we are when we drive? Motorists? No, no more than a person on a bike is a cyclist! I digress again… ) Riding a bike as a human being without the trappings of cultural expectation and reaction is not easy.
Back to the point of the post, I have now moved off the main roads even more and it’s nice.
For a long time I’ve been using the first half of the route below, I’ve now adopted the second half…
Approaching Syston there’s a reasonable shared path…
After wending your way negotiating motorised traffic through syston (after the mocking white line on the road that suggests you should ride through the drains, debris and gutterage) there’s a shared path past Roundhill Academy…
After Roundhill and the Thurmoland roundabout there’s a good shared path around Thrummy.
Now the bit that takes some patience and tolerance – I wonder if the Council have plans to encourage people to cycle more? hummmm?
After Thrummy there’s a very poorly surfaced and disjunctive cyclepath(?) to Troon Way.
After Troon Way there’s a horrendous surface of the cyclepath(?) down Melton Road past Rushey Mead School.
After a wiggle through the park (which is nice) we have the community laden Harrison Road all the way down to rejoin the fun and frolics that is Catherine Street – don’t get me started on Catherine Street’s repeated daily illegal and dangerous driving, parking and speeding.
This new route takes negligibly longer than the previous weave through Rushey Mead, Gleneagles Drive and Catherine St.
As I say – I’ve decided it’s not worth it the risk – each to their own – for now I’m taking a more insouciant route – the alternative’s not worth the hassle.
Who’s up for a ride? Go on you know it makes sense!
However, I’ve just produced these posters and flyers for various folks who, to give them their due, didn’t give me quite as tight a deadline.
Alas creative colour theory, post-modern typography, artistic imagery, playful context, advanced semiotics, unorthodox layout etc is often prohibited when working for many utilitarian clients. Despite advice and ambition often clients “know what they want” and heaven forbid if you veer from their desires. Of course the fine folks above just wanted a quick poster and that’s what’s been done.
What you’re trying to do with any visual medium is to generate an emotional response, a connection, a fascination, an engagement, an association, an excitement and hopefully a response. All this can be achieved to various degrees with graphics, images, text, typefaces, colour and considered content.
It may seem easy – yes, making a cake is easy, but creating something that can be served to a host of guests and strangers; that will leave the desired lasting memory, that will generate a desired response, a decisive acknowledgement, and reciprocation… this is a tad trickier.
We’ve been tracking our walks etc with Strava ‘cos that’s what I used to use on my bike. But we recently wanted to follow a preset GPS (.gpx) route already mapped by derbyshirewalking.
A quick google and we found www.viewranger.com which can display routes, track your GPS position and track your movements.
Fantastic! Our android phones easily displayed the imported route, and an occasional quick check of the phone on route displayed our exact GPS position – even on a craggy outcrop (we were in the right place! 🙂 ) We have yet to play with it properly but it did the job on a quick jaunt around Bunster Hill.
Enchanted by the je ne sais quoi I like many others ‘liked’ and was somewhat enamored but the image.
I’d taken the dog outside for a tiddle in the back garden at 10.30pm and the moon was resplendently erumpent in the night sky. In today’s culture we feel drawn to capture something of the moment and I had to get my camera and see what i might capture. I guess in days gone by one may have sketched a picture or written a verse but the popular habit is of course to snap a pic.
I am aware that a more wholesome habit is to savour the moment and yes i did a little savouring and a little mindful of the trees, the sounds the lights and my place in things I moved on to play with shutter speeds etc and went back inside to see what i’d snapped.
Pleasantly surprised with the image, (I took 6) I proceeded to sharpen and adjust levels and settings, i masked the ‘light’ and adjusted the background and again I was surprised but what appeared!
I guess we’re loaded with cultural baggage about stars, light, and the wonderment of the firmament? Or is it a more inherent sense we have about the night sky, the unknown? I don’t know. But I do know that my initial reaction was one of wonder and wow and some kind of appreciative je ne sais quoi. As did many others on social media; we ‘like’ and ‘favourite’ the image with a natural(?) appreciative reaction. Of course we also had the delightful references to cheese, pasties and farley’s rusks 🙂
And then the dust settled and we woke up.
It seems the ‘stars’ are perhaps digital noise from the original picture; it’s been amplified by the software. As our friend and more importantly science-writer Sophie rightly pointed out “how does the star field fill in under the moon – the stars aren’t in front of it, and you’d think the moon’s sphere would block the starlight from behind?” And she’s right.
The enchantment somewhat dampened we are left with the original picture. Still quite engaging itself it perhaps is a lesson in perception, smoke and mirrors. All is not necessarily what it seems, even if the author of the material, opinion, facts or truths means well and truly believes in ‘twinkle punk’ at the bottom of the garden, we may have been mislead somewhere along the line by noise!
I’m all for enchantment but be careful out there dudes, in space no one can hear you scream!
…there I go again, griping again! Oh, the taste #memories, did u have it as a baby? I digress…
Griping… Complaining…
The more we focus on at something that might annoy, offend or injure* us, we will naturally be more sensitive and more guarded against it.
When we’re in a corner or even if we’re ‘heading out on the road’ we are ready for the negative, we’ll defend ourselves – naturally.
When in a group or community we are often united by common dislikes (prejudice).
Our brains release stress hormones when we’re being negative, this affects our neural connections especially in areas used for problem solving and other cognitive functions. This also happens when we experiencing another person complaining: passive complaining is as bad a passive smoking. Hot head, cool head… which one prevails?
Yes we do need to let off steam occasionally but there’s a time and a place and a effective way to do this – easier said than done I know – take my word for it I know (*ask any ‘person who rides a bike’ it’s easier said than done).
Nearly everything we do we do habitually, and habits (thoughts as well as actions) are hard to change. But creating a more positive vibe by changing negativity is a good, healthy and creative idea.
OK, an observation is not a complaint: “It’s hot in here”. “I hate the heat in here” is a complaint. Change starts with awareness of what we are thinking and doing.
After thinking negatively add a “but”…
and change “I have to” to “I can”…
“It’s hot, I hate the heat in here, but I can go and get a drink” “It’s hot,I have toI can work in this office,I have toI can sort out heating/window, I have toI can go get a drink…”
Focusing on the positive, over time, can become a habit.
The seemingly natural negative can become the powerful positive.
It’s not easy, and takes time. Like chipping the edges of a block of stone to carve a sculpture. Or perhaps even cutting a rough diamond. Or even making a cake, a sandwich, coffee, cheese and biscuits… …I digress again. #happydaze
Swimming is one of the few sports you can easily do at any age.
Swimming lessons are a great way of meeting new people.
Swimming is the best allround exercise. It involves all the body’s muscles.
Having water confidence means loads of other water activities are possible.
Once you can swim, you can swim. Set for life. But keep it up.
Swimming lessons help children to set achievable targets.
More than 60 children drown during the summer every year in the UK, yet the majority of these deaths are likely to have been preventable. No one is ever drown-proof. However, being able to swim 400 yards continuously lowers the chance of drowning.
Learning to swim is a basic ability, like walking, it should be part of growing up.
Do you need print? https://julesprichards.wordpress.com/?s=print
The TV has been saturated with political bantering, bitching and back-scratching. The wife’s out for a few hours… So some digital doodling is well overdue.
I am reminded daily of numerous “flaws” by the voice in the lift and this image above captures “Flaw 33“.
As I say above, I {often} know not what I do. But occasionally stuff resonates, things seem clearer and we might sense a simple beauty that seems right, clean and bright.
Recently, after a few weeks soaking up a je ne sais quoi in the Vendée region of France, stuff seems brighter.
To catch the sun’s rays a plant needs to open up.
The faithful simply sing… one day at a time…
Another quick ident completed recently for a new small local swim school – you can see other print favours 
Swimming builds confidence and self-awareness.
Jules P Richards 
