Impatience!

Finished and ready to go. So, let's.. go back in the house and sit by the fire..

  We were going to go to Scotland in the van. But the weather decided otherwise.

Ahh.. memories of balmy evenings, friends and baking...

I was going to rebuild my clay pizza oven in the garden but I don't think the clay would be workable at these temperatures.
Everything is on hold awaiting the arrival of weather in which one can actually consider doing something out outside, other than scurrying from the car to the front door huddled in a coat.

This time last year, it was briefly warm and the two aforementioned post-brain-haemorrhage convalescence projects were in full swing. Ok it would be a while until the DVLA let me drive my splendid van, but I was happy rebuilding the interior such that adventures could take place in it. It allowed me to use the remaining fragments of thinking ability I could muster at that point and promised a future I didn't at various times then expect to have.

Similarly the sequential nature of stomping sand into clay and making mud pies in a way so as to be ultimately useful was also therapeutic, again in anticipation of better times to come when my head didn't hurt and the question "Marmite or marmalade?" didn't send me into paralysed apoplexy for three hours.

But time moved on apace. It rained all Summer but even so, the oven got used spectacularly effectively on a couple of very enjoyable occasions with dear friends. The van not quite so much. But the hope was there.

And so, here we are, the high pressure hanging over the British Isles, drawing nasty blasts of icy winds from Scandinavia. We hide inside, staring forlornly out of the window at the snowflakes, awaiting some sign that our frozen fingers may yet unfurl and shade our eyes from a cheerful beneficent sun.

But I have, what me old Dad used to call the "eeby-jeebies". I want to get GOING!
I desire to drive my van to outdoor places where we can spill out on to the grass of moorlands and drink tea, to sit on the step of my van, ok, swaddled in a fleece perhaps but drinking beer wistfully whilst the sun sinks gloriously below the Atlantic horizon.

My restless feet tap a mute Riverdance under the table as I think of all the things I want to be doing. I have seeds to plant, raised beds to repair, sheds to refelt. But not in that bloody cold! No fear!
So, inside passtimes absorb my restlessness. I now have 20 gallons of beer made recently (my big sack of malt is now half the size it was and the results are most spectacular, though I say so myself.)

A gorgeous pale ale I made recently.

But when can I sit in the garden? When can I stand, peel in hand, and slide pizzas into my oven with the blast of heat from the fire in my face, my eyelashes singed and my eyes streaming from the woodsmoke? It's been so long and we really do deserve some Summer at some point. It's not much to ask is it?

So, hope springs eternal. There will be beer on the patio. I shall rebuild my oven (and the process will be documented here, or those closer to hand: Come and help. And learn how to make one yourself). And I will drive to the sea in my van and look wistfuly westwards. And if you want, I will let you have a go in my kayak.
And a small enclave of Bohemia will decamp to North Devon where wine will be drunk whilst we talk nonsense as the sun goes down. That's the plan, anyway.

 

I look forward to seeing you there.

Sartorial Conventions

I do not look like this.

We sat around a table, the meeting in progress, laptops in front of us (a modern habit I deplore, akin to reading at the table). Everyone wore suits and ties. I like my suit. I had it made to measure and it is damn sharp, or so reactions to it would indicate. But often, suits are dreadful, ill-fitting compromises, shapeless and attempting to encompass a belly grown opulent on too much business travel, too many working dinner and too little exercise.
The absurdity struck me, as it sometimes does: We have all dressed up in clothes that are deemed to be a "uniform" for the corporate world. And yet we know who we are and what we represent. Why do we have to conform to this ridiculous convention and wear impractical clothing (it is not cool in Summer and does not keep one warm in Winter!) in order to be taken seriously in our business endeavours? Surely, our capabilities and intellect are apparent in what we do in the course of our jobs. What we wear to accomplish this should not be relevant.

And yet here we are, all similarly attired and with stupid strips of cloth round our necks allowing for a tiny hint of self-expression beyond the conventional. And would we perform any less effectively were we in clothing that more suited our surroundings and personalities? Should I decide to turn up in a a dressing gown, silk pyjamas and a fez, I can imagine my judgement on other matters might be called into question. Though frankly, I feel this would be a spectacularly cool thing to do one day.
But, though I detest the lazy choice of jeans and a t-shirt, would attending meetings dressed thus really indicate anything of our capabilities or professional attitude? In fact, often, I do meet people who have wandered distractedly in to the meeting room in what would be deemed "scruffy clothes". And it has not been in any way an indication of how sharp they were or how well they performed their allotted tasks. Indeed, some of them have been wily and sharp and extracted far more from the deal than was their due. So should I regard them less for their relaxed approach to matters sartorial?

And yet, here we all are, sat around a table, collars chafing as we tackle the agenda. And I have things to sell, and they have requirements to fill. Does it really matter what we are all wearing?

I propose a new approach: Fancy dress business meetings. We should all be allowed, nay, encouraged, to participate in meetings having thought as hard as we can about a creative costume. Arguing pricing with a purchasing manager dressed as Robin Hood or Tinkerbell, or possibly a dalek (though this might be problematic for body language purposes) would be so much more fun and, I feel, productive. One could advertise one's position on a certain negotiation by what one chose to wear. Perhaps a particularly intransigent buyer could dress as Genghis Khan or maybe don a suit of  Black Prince armour, or a conciliatory sales engineer might appear as a Dickensian underling in the nature of Uriah Heep. A feeling that one's negotiating position was particularly strong could perhaps show their confidence  by donning an ostentatious codpiece. All manner of possibilities exists. And I am sure they would not detract from the process of business. In fact, I think it would improve things immensely, allowing a little more shared humanity into proceedings.

A local viking bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the author.

I have a meeting in Oslo later in Spring.They are a lovely bunch of chaps and very open-minded. I think, in deference to their culture, and my probable ancestors (if certain genetic traits are to be believed) I might dress as a viking for my presentations. I am sure this will go down a storm. respect for heritage is always appreciated.

Business worldwide has been grinding to a halt for the last five years. Perhaps a little eccentricity and individuality might be just what the world economy needs. And then perhaps we can rediscover our shared experience of the Human Condition allowing us all to treat each other as human beings again and not merely numbers on a spreadsheet or roles on an organisational chart.

One Year On and All is More Than Well!

I know I said I wouldn't mention it again, but today it is exactly one year on from the night I had my sub-arachnoid brain haemorrhage and I find myself unable not to reflect on what has been a very strange year.
From the moment of the explosion of the pain, light and noise in my head at pretty much the stroke of midnight (pun possibly intended, but it lightens the mood a little, don't you think?), my life has been different. Even now that I am, as far as I can tell, almost completely recovered, the way I view things is necessarily different. Those kinds of afflictions kill people. In fact, most people who experience it die. That rather puts it in perspective for me. After such a realisation that more people than not die from a SAH, it is impossible not to feel somehow as if you had a significant and lucky escape.
Life therefore has an entirely different complexion as a result. This is a Good Thing.

From the exquisite agony of the happening itself, the months of painful recovery, the confusion, tiredness and frustration, I have arrived here. It feels a good place to be. Paradoxically, it feels a better place to be than had I been a year on without it having happened. Perhaps this sounds a little trite, and I am sure that those close to me who had more awareness of what was going on than my addled self, might disagree. But it was a profound experience.

What strikes one, having viewed the world with a brain which had various regions malfunctioning, is how mechanistic the process of cognition, of sentience itself is. Parts of the brain have specific functions relating to how information is gathered and processed. When they are not working, cognition works differently.
I am going to be blunt here, and some of you might this difficult to accept, but when one experiences existence with a damaged brain and perceives just how different the experience is, it is not difficult to extrapolate this to what it might be like to have more impairment of the circuits. And ultimately, if the experience of consciousness is so altered by physical damage to the brain, then the complete removal of neural activity by death, must surely produce the ultimate change in consciousness: Oblivion.

My recollection of general anaesthetics tend to bear this out. And it does not bode well for notions of a soul or consciousness after death. I think now, if I ever doubted (and that would have been a very long time ago now) that definitely "This Is It: This life is all there is". Notions of afterlife seem fanciful hopefulness, and I have had all the confirmation I personally need to make it completely evident that consciousness is solely produced by the action of the neurons in the brain. When that stops, we stop.
And I am ok with that.

I am ok with that because it means that this new flavour life has, as a result of my reminder of mortality, acquired a new deliciousness. To be alive, to be mobile, to have a mind, and inside that a vibrant, colourful Life of The Mind, is, if we take the time to examine it, a dazzling experience. It is one I shall henceforth never take for granted.

My mind came back in stages. There were times I thought it was all back. I was wrong then. But then the problem was with my organ of cognition. It is excusable that this organ, self-regarding but damaged, might be unable to examine itself correctly. I think as a result, I pushed too hard, came back to work too soon and set myself goals that were too high for the various stages of recovery. I hope this learning will not be required again. But it does perhaps make a case for a little compassion towards ourselves and others.

But now, I really do think I am all there. I thought so before and have said so here. But this time, I think I am right. There have been times this past week for instance, when I felt my mind was on fire with agility and a euphoric sense of its own possibility. I have so missed that.
Small physical symptoms persist which hint at the possibility that subtle cognitive effects may linger, though I personally am not aware of any mental impairments. If I bend my head forward on my neck, the pains in my limbs return: Stabbing pains, almost as if in my femurs and radius and ulna bones. It would seem reasonable to assume that these residual effects might be mirrored mentally and I am vigilant, in a curious rather than anxious way, to see if they manifest themselves. At this stage though, I can discern no phenomena of this nature.

So, here we are. A year. And an enormous amount of strange experiences. I have made the acquaintance of my own brain and how it operates, seen it not operate properly, relearned to use it, discovered new ways to use it in order to circumvent it's dysfunctions, and discovered a new taste for life. My memory is better than before, my ability to evaluate information is better, I have taken up tango, started reading fiction again and feel, if I may say, 110% at least of what I was before.

In all this, somewhat self-regarding, piece of prose, I hope there might be messages of hope for what can be achieved in the face of setbacks.

I have been asked by several people to document all I can recollect about the whole experience in the hope it may help other sufferers of brain injury to make some sense of the experience. I was initially against it. Until yesterday actually when it suddenly, for some inexplicable reason, seemed a good idea. So, I shall do that.

Well, if you have read thus far, well done. I admire your patience. But what I want to say to you is this:
The brain is an incredible machine (and sorry, but machine it is, but don't let this detract from its wonder). It is unbelievably configurable. And there is no manual! So, given as how lost function can be regained with practise and discipline, what else might it be configured to do???
I exhort you! Play with it! Feed it! Teach it and challenge it! Learn a language, take up dancing, write a blog, or just plain start talking to people in the street. And I promise you, you will be rewarded with unexpected and delightful results. It will reconfigure itself by what you do. You just have to do it.

A few thoughts on Serendipity (with a tip of the hat to..)

I can't ever make my mind up as to whether the happenings in our lives are  as a result of randomness, as exhibited by a cold, hard Universe indifferent to our existence, or if all the particles in the Universe, set in motion during the Big Bang, were always destined to arrive at a particular set of circumstances due to the laws that govern the interactions of matter and forces.
Ok, that was quite a long opening sentence, but as a summary of my own struggle with the conflicting concepts of determinism and randomness, I think it describes more or less the nugget in the middle of the whole conundrum. It is, in fact, quite a Biggie as far as philosophical arguments go and far beyond my poor engineer's brain to untangle.

Just lately, I have encountered several friends and acquaintances who tell me that all that happens to us is somehow predetermined. Fate, apparently, has its own opinion on whether we crash into a Jack Russell on our bicycles and hence arrive late at a junction where had we not collided with a dog, we would have met our ends under the wheels of the proverbial bus. We have that dog to thank for not only avoiding our untimely death, but the subsequent posthumous embarrassment at the state of our undergarments which by another quirk of Fate, might not have been pristine that very morning.

A local Jack Russell

Well, I am having none of it. Sorry. I know each action we take is the nexus for a branching tree of happenstance that is infinite in its possible courses, but to think there is some guiding hand of providence which decides in our best interests, which of those myriad sets of possibilities befalls us is just plain silly. Ok, it might exist, as might the gods of Mount Olympus with a chessboard containing rooks, bishops and pawns with our faces on. Equally probable to that is the Christian God with a Divine Plan, or even naughty elves who live in the shrubbery and hide our keys when we leave the front door open. They might exists, but there are no good, factual reasons to suppose any one of them does.

The manifestation of a possible deity..?

And I wish I had a quid for every time, over the last year, a well meaning soul has responded to news of my own recent cerebral misfortune with a "Well, it wasn't you time" or "Someone was looking out for you!" (Well, in that case, why didn't they bloody PREVENT IT happening in the first place then?). It was not so. Shit Just Happens. This is how I choose to regard it. And I am alive and grateful to be so.

And so, what we appear to have is Serendipity. I am grateful to a friend of mine for my introduction to the concept and all its glorious implications. I was aware of the word previously, certainly, but not of it's enormous significance. Our approach to the apparent randomness of Life can profoundly influence how we perceive events and what happens to us as a result.

It seems that "stuff happens" to us all the time. For instance, the imaginary terrier described above can be perceived as a nuisance or our possible saviour from a messy accidental death. Ok, that is perhaps a bit of a tenuous stretch, but you get the idea I hope.

As life unfolds and we stumble through the obstacle course that is the narrative of our existences, if we are receptive to the possibility that the unexpected changes in the course of events might bring us an interesting experience, then it is more likely to do so than if we merely regard the change of plan as a nuisance.

What concerns me is that Serendipity is being systematically removed from our lives by algorithms. Our routes are planned by Satnavs which take us to places without us navigating consciously, and without the getting-lost which often takes us to unexpectedly interesting places we might not otherwise have found. If we regard getting lost as a kind of exploration, it takes on a new meaning. For instance, once, I decided to take a route home on my bike which was not the quickest, but which I had never traveled before. There was no reason for this other than, I just fancied finding out what was down this little lane. I was utterly delighted to find an stand of plum trees which once had been an orchard for a large, now-vanished house. Had the detour been forced upon me by, say roadworks, I might have found it a drag, an annoyance, and not noticed the trees and hence not made several hundred litres of wine and hundreds of pounds of jam.

Plum wine which might otherwise not have been made

Similarly, though I like my kindle, I find it annoying that Amazon "suggests" books for me based on my previous reading material. Were I perusing a library, I might look for a book, and possibly find alongside it, another unrelated title that catches my eye and turns out to be a tremendous read. You don't get that level of haphazard delight from "Customers who purchased this also bought..." algorithms.

Such is the pervasive nature of this guidance, this "choosing for us" that an iPhone app (actually called "Serendipity") now exists which authoritatively instructs you whilst walking in a town to take random turns of its choosing, such that you encounter new places, perhaps very close to, but outside of your normal route. The reviewer noted that he had been amazed to find a park this way that he had previously not know about, though he had walked mere metres from it for a dozen years on his way to work. Discovery happened! How serendipitous! Except it wasn't really because it was to some extend guided.
It's a bit sad that this has to now be the result of a technological product and not of mere curiosity.

So, I thank my friend for the introduction to the concept of Serendipity. It can make unexpected into fortuitous. I shall keep an open mind and take unexpected paths in preference to those I already know. And let's see where it takes me, shall we?

Tango!

Sorry, I have been a bit busy. Also, I have been trying to find my way around this subtly altered brain. I think I have the hang of it now. I have been making things and doing things and this seems to have scratched my creative itch in the way I needed.
I have also been taking Argentine Tango classes, which I had promised myself for a long time I would do. Oh, I have danced for many years, but Tango I always considered the pinnacle of coolness and class. About ten years ago I saw the film Moulin Rouge and after my initial scepticism, discovered that the wonderful spectacle appealed to my sense of my own pomposity. When I saw El Tango de Roxanne, I swear I held my breath for the whole of the dance. And I really really wanted  to be able to dance like that. But I never really plucked up the courage to pursue it.

Well, time is short, as I discovered, so I got a move-on and Just Did It. I found Tango Alchemy with the enigmatic and authentic Eduardo and it suits me well. I imagine the alchemy bit is the taking of the base metal clod that I was and turning it into Terpsichorean gold. We shall see...
But it's bloody marvelous! Two months in and I think I can give a good account of myself with a willing and able partner. I just feels good. I wish I had done it sooner. But these things seem to have their time and circumstances perhaps needed to be right.

I had always thought tango to be that silly dance where people, cheek to cheek, the man with a rose clasped between his teeth, strode dramatically but ridiculously out of the room through double doors to some pastiche tangoesque music. And perhaps in ballroom tango there may be some echoes of this.
But what I was after was a more traditional and authentic style of tango, more akin to this
And I blinkin' will be able to do this one day!

It's a much more introspective and intimate dance than I had imagined. I can thoroughly recommend it as a passtime. I go home from my tango class with a feeling that I have participated in something both classy and exotic. Dance, as I have mentioned before, is a primal thing that puts us in touch with parts of ourselves that nothing else can. It can be a stage where we act out parts of ourselves that would never otherwise see the light of day. And this is wonderfully cathartic. I do believe I am addicted.

And that is where I have been instead of writing. But perhaps I can hold the attention of two Muses sometimes.

Click. Whirr... Ping! Hello!

I know I said I wouldn't mention it again, but my mind came back over Christmas. Something knitted together, reactivated re-connected, whatever, in my head and my brain suddenly became illuminated like a whole night-time city seen from space.

I was quite miserable before Christmas as it was very evident from the inside that things were not as they once were. And I was bitterly upset by this. I felt slow, dull-witted and lacklustre and it hurt. I thought this was how I would be forever. And it could have been. That happens.

But somehow, it all switched back on again during the Christmas break. Suddenly, I seem to have all my faculties back. I don't know what caused it. Perhaps it was all the sleeping I did, or the respite from work, or all the company. I really couldn't say what.

I still get extremely tired in that unhealthy, impenetrable way that is familiar to me and only began last March. And I still become confused when there is a lot of information to process or when many voices talk at once, or even just one voice when I am trying to concentrate on something.
And I know that lots of people say "Oh, that happens to me too!" But there is a qualitative difference between usual, common-or-garden confusion and the sickening, lurching, spinning disorientation that I occasionally still experience. I also need to sleep a lot more than before - perhaps an hour a night more.
But these small inconveniences are all that appear to remain from my misfortune.

It's been ten months. I am back at last (at least I think so). And I am delighted.

So I just thought I would pop by and say hello.

I always wanted a treehouse

One of my friends, when I was about 11, had a lovely treehouse. We used to climb the 20 feet or so up the ladder into the hatch and a different world suddenly presented itself. It was in a lovely straight apple tree with an unusually long trunk. Apple trees are usually stumpy little things, especially these days when mechanical picking seems to be selected for. But this was a majestic specimen and rarely, as I remember, produced many apples. But as a site for a treehouse, it was perfect.

But then he had a garden that was an acre. In our diminutive (though large by modern standards) garden, there were only a couple of spindly silver birches and they rapidly outgrew the space and had to be cut down.
No chance fora treehouse there. I was envious.

My friend used to sleep out occasionally in his treehouse during the summer months. It was a six by four space with a felted roof which easily accommodated an eleven year old boy in a sleeping bag. This, we considered, was very cool.

A dark Boxing day landscape and some rain on the lens.

Today, we went for our Boxing day walk somewhere I wouldn't usually go. Our traditional walk was deemed unwise on account of the route skimming the edge of the Somerset Levels where at the moment, some villages are still cut off by floodwater after several weeks of watery isolation. Best not go there, we thought.

So we headed up towards the Cotswolds to the area I grew up in around Wotton Under Edge. It rained a lot, of course it did:  It hasn't stopped raining since April. But it was nevertheless very beautiful and I revisited some boyhood memories of fossil hunting and string spear-throwers. It's all a bit overgrown there now but when we were kids, the trampling of many pairs of juvenile feet kept the undergrowth down. All manner of games were played here and what finer playground could a ten year old lad and his friends hope for?

How could you NOT imagine hunting dinosaurs here?

It was, until that unreasonable tyrant puberty changed my motivations and made me feel acutely isolated and miserable, a great place to be a kid

And though I didn't really find myself experiencing any nostalgia for the place or the time, I did occasionally view it through the eyes of my ten-year-old self. It's strange revisiting somewhere from your distant past, but as I mentioned once before, memories are best viewed as just that and to attempt to recapture their atmosphere is usually a mistake. But I did stumble over some of that and I did get the urge to make a bow and arrow. But I didn't have any string and it was raining too hard anyway.

Looking at the small settlements, Wortley, Aderley, Nind, it struck me that the old ramshackle farms and crumbly buildings which used to house farm labourers are all now pristine, renovated and very des-res. Many of the old tumbledown cottages must now be worth half a million or so, with their limestone facades and in one case, thatched roof (we never had thatched roofs round there. What are they thinking?). One place even has a pair of stone stags on plinths. I know taste varies, but that is a bit tacky, surely? No, no, I shouldn't judge and perhaps they come to life at night and are joined in the garden by satyrs and centaurs. I like to think so.

There is, it seems, money about, if you look in the right places. And I do not begrudge this development: The places would surely have fallen down and been lost had they not been bought and done up. And it means there are plenty of people with sufficient disposable income to finance the local farmers' markets and enough pushy determination to keep the local schools open and to a high standard.

I always wanted one of these!

But in one garden, I saw this, and though I do not harbour any envy for the big, remote, beautiful farmhouses, I do envy these kids their tree house. I hope they use it and don't spend all their time on the PS3.