Drifting

It is almost impossible to believe that we are at the end of March, past the spring equinox and enjoying the sight of new-born lambs. There is more snow here in North Yorkshire than there has yet been this winter and the Met Office "feels like" temperature has not yet topped zero.
A lot of snow fell at the weekend while we were away but the roads have been ploughed and travel is straightforward so I set off on Monday evening for a 12 mile run happy in the knowledge that the whole route was on roads. The last part of my journey was over the moor road behind our house crossing the Watersplash, made famous in the credits of James Herriot, and Surrender Bridge. It's not an easy way to run - there's a lot of ups and downs - but it is an easy way to navigate. I checked sunset time make sure I would be home in the light and set out, a little later than planned maybe, at 4.45pm. The first 9 miles were no problem, along the main roads, enjoying the views and not even minding about the gathering snow shower. I turned up the moor road, noting the sign to my village - 3 miles. I followed a tractor for a while and felt confident that if a tractor could get through then so could I. Then the tractor turned in to a farm and the road turned into a snow-drift. I was running into bad weather, up-hill, with 10 miles of tiredness in my legs, and suddenly realised that no vehicle had been over this road in a good few days. No 4x4 would get up here; I was knee deep in snow in places, walking quite slowly as I picked out signs of my route and getting colder as the dusk drew in. I took out my phone to take a picture of a snow-drift higher than my head and the battery died. Less than two miles from home I was aware that I was in a situation a whole load scarier than I had imagined!
As I plodded on, running when I could see the ground scoured bare by the wind, and trudging through the drifts where there was no road, I wondered if I should be more worried. I did have a rucksack with water, food and and extra jacket; there is a limit to how lost it is possible to get simply trying to get up one side of a hill and down the other; I knew there were a few houses dotted about, including the farm of the tractor driver; and while I could still walk or run, I was heading home.
From the warmth of my living room it became a bit of a story to tell but I am learning a lot about assessing the risks of an "easy run" in this new landscape - I never contemplated having moutain rescue called out on my behalf in Bushy Park!
We're going to head up on the moor after lunch with the children and have another look at the impressive and beautiful snow-drifts: I have never seen so much or so elegantly scuplted snow before.  But we'll make sure we're home long before dark with tea and cake in front of the fire.

Pictures to follow...

Paris and Thiepval

Another lesuirely start with time to paint, paddle and put varnish on toenails, another pretty town and its boulangerie, and we arrived at St Cyr de Morin. Once again we were parked right by a playground and this time the boulangerie was less than a minute away!
The next day was our trip to Paris. After fresh croissants and brioche, we were very excited to board our train and head for the big city. It was cold, cold, cold and our first port of call was a cafe. Actions and a friendly manner enabled me to procure a straw for my little girl to drink her lemonade with, and the correct word for next time. My eldest opted for the very English Earl Grey.

In a whistle-stop tour we saw Notre Dame,

the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens, the Arc de Triomphe from a distance, picnicked by the Eiffel Tower and climbed the steps of Monmatre. After a quick stop for crepes we headed back to the Aire.

Next day we travelled through the heart of World War I territory. We visited the memorial to the lost of the Somme at Thiepval. The exhibition was just right for us as a family: plenty of information boards in English, displays and maps and a film for those of us who didn't want to read too much. There was a huge picture board of the faces of some of the men who disappeared in the Battle of the Somme and a computer data base with information about each man.My daughter used this to find soldiers with the same surname as her and then to find their photos. I grasped a whole new understanding of the nature of this war, played out in such a small area of the world. The place where this exhibition stood had  been in the centre of the action for the entire four years, passing back and forth and entirely devastated in the process.
We reached our last Aire, not far from Calais, where we were reunited with my best friend's brother and family and from where we departed for our ferry home. After a total of 1300 miles we delivered the motor-home to the hire company, marvelled at the tiny size and quiet engine of our car, and headed home!

Taking our time

So far, we had travelled quite a considerable distance each day, but by now we were deep in France and ready to take things a little slower and visit places along the way.
We stopped in Autun, which had amazing pastries but lousy coffee and gave us the opportunity to buy some Dijon mustard. We visited the church and admired the paintings and sculpture, had a look at Napoleon's school and went to the Roman Amphitheatre. We took it in turns to stand in the centre and address the crowd. The acoustics were astonishing!
We stopped again in a medieval fortified town and watched lizards in the sunshine for a while and then carried on to Flavingy, the walled village where "Chocolat" was filmed. Famous for it's aniseed balls and my son was very happy to purchase some.
From there it wasn't far to Laignes where pulled up in a grassy area by a river. The children paddled, lost- and found - their shoes in the mud and we settled down to our nightly game of "Angry Birds". This had  become one of the highlights of our trip: each night, after the children had washed up, we made tea, ate chocolate and played cards. "Angry Birds" was simple enough for all ages to enjoy, skillful enough to engage in, competitive enough to make us laugh and quick enough to enjoy a couple of rounds each night. It can be hard for young children (and grown-ups!) to lose a game and I was moved and impressed as my three showed increasing maturing, grace and humour in winning, losing and all the near misses. In particular, this was were my eldest shone, pursuing victory with passion, accepting set-back with aplomb and keeping us amused with his perfectly placed personality. Ten days and five people in a space no larger than my lounge could have been difficult and explosive but this holiday brought us all much closer together and Angry Birds made small contribution!

Religieuse

Nantua was one of the places where we were able to stroll into the town and buy croissants for breakfast. We were holidaying on a tight budget and there were a number of times I felt that maybe the children were missing out as we didn't pay for entrance anywhere. Perhaps we should have gone into the Uffizi?
But I began to realise that the whole experienceof the trip was of enormous value. I had many holidays abroad when I was young and it is the Boulangeries and Pattisieries which I remember: the exquisite cakes, pastries and cream buns.

As a child, I didn't like croissants or the crusty French baguettes but now I love them and it was a daily treat to have a pastry for breakfast and bread and cheese for lunch. We visted boulangeries across France, either where we were staying or as our first stop of the day. They won't have seen The Birth of Venus of Leonardo's Adoration of the Maji, but the children have experienced the beauty, fragrance and taste of French pastries, had the delight of choosing from the array on offer and many an opportunity to practice their "Bonjour" and "Merci". Now, as as adult, I would love to have more time to spend soaking up the art galleries and museums but the children were far happier that we arrived at our Aires in time for them to play in the playground. We chose our next overnight stop largely because of the description of an adventure playground in the woods. We found ourselves parked outside a closed Theme Park outside a small industrial town, the rides eerie and still, with woodland hiding a slide which the three children enjoyed for an hour, giving the adults time to read a few pages of a book over a beer.

Nantua

We left Annecy after lunch and drove not too far to Nantua. The huge scale of my map of France began to be apparent now. We had been lent a road atlas of France but had left it at home, confident that our van came equipped with maps. It did:one atlas of the whole of Europe. Some of the smaller roads weren't shown, some of the larger roads weren't numbered, quite a few villages were just not there. Even the lake at Nantua didn't make the cut! But it was there, and we found our Aire, and above is the view from the cab. I haven't really captured the huge height of the mountains beyond, they were in cloud when I started painting and the sun came out as I watched.
 Nanuta seemed like a town which had been left behind, once beautiful it has been forgotten as the "Autoroute of the Titans" skims through the mountains above.

It was faded and sad, but it did have a Lidl and we were able to fill our cupboards for the rest of the holiday for 16 Euros!
There was also a monument to those who had been deported in the Second World War; the area was stronghold of the French Resistance movement and the town had suffered harshly at the hands of the Nazis. A plaque recorded the names of around fifty Jewish children and their teachers who had also been taken away, I think to Auschwitz. A group of three siblings were the same age as my three children and we spent a few sober moments contemplating the devastating effects of the politics of a neighbouring country on this tucked away little town seventy years ago.

Annecy

When we left Lake Maggiore, I was beginning to feel a little bit under the weather. By the time we reached our night's stop in France I felt terrible. It was a long day, a long - and expensive - drive, including the Mont Blanc tunnel. We arrived in Annecy in gathering gloom and spent nearly an hour trying to find our way through in the rush hour. We eventually found our Aire, to which the guide has warned us to arrive early, and found it to be a small car park with 8 marked bays and 8 motor homes. Actually, 9. And us. We pulled up in the middle, alongside the other extra, and hoped for the best. Before long there was a knock at the door and a friendly, bi-lingual conversation resulted in us setting our alarm for 7am so that we could move out of the way for the man to set off for work. We decided to chance a walk by the lake, the rain having stopped. Just as we decided to turn around and head back, and it started again. Having to shelter in a doorway, sprint back to the motorhome and deal with five soaking people was more than I felt able to cope with. I was overwhelmed with tiredness and the prospect of drying out our only warm clothes and awash with a cold.
But, as is so often the case, life is better in a team. And while I lay down and felt rotten, my best friend soon had the children in their pyjamas, hot drinks made, a bag of wet clothes and a plan to visit the laundrette.
Next morning saw us buying gifts, following the map from the man in the wine shop to wash and dry our clothes and eating French pastries from our first boulangerie of the trip.
I won't remember Annecy for its sunny lakeside shore, but we had fun

and life is always full of colour!

Northern Italy

We had planned to go to Milan next, but after a day in Florence, felt that we had had the city experience. We headed north, guided only by our guide to the Italian Aires, and found a beautiful car park. The continent embraces camper vans and dotted around the countryside are Aires, not just picnic spots or service stations, but places where mobile homes are welcome to stay overnight, and most have facilities to fill up with clean water and get rid of the used water from the sink and to empty what is politely known as the "black water". We were parked by a fresh water tap, in front of a children's playground and across the road from this abbey.

In the morning we set out to the village in search of bread. We asked a villager who impressed on us the need to go to Angelo's, but our lack of Italian and his lack of English meant that we had no idea how to achieve this. We found a high-class delicatessan selling mostly dried meat whose proprietor also did not speak much English but had some visiting clients who did. From her we learned a little of the local area and the produce of the abbey and, more importantly, obtained directions to Angelo's.
Before leaving we explored the Abbey. The cloisters were a concert hall of bird-song and there was a small exhibition about the work of the monks. We had not entered Il Duomo on Sunday as there was a huge queue; we were the only visitors to this church and were touched by the emptiness and sense rare and private experience.
Angelo's took a little bit of finding (not surprising that my limited Italian had not stretched to understanding the directions) but was more than worth it. A little bakery tucked around the back of a farmhouse we left with fresh, hand-made foccacia and it felt a true Italian experience.
The Autostrada conducted us north to Lake Maggiore, where we chose to stay in a campsite in Bareno and were rewarded by a lakeside pitch no more than five metres from the lapping waves. Undetered by the grey skies and chill temperature, the rest of the party opted to paddle and even to brave swimming, if only long enough to win a 10 second bet! I chose to sit quietly by and paint.

Florence

Florence. Il Duomo. The size and grandeur of this enormous building took me by surprise. I've seen photos of it and I've spoken to people who have been to Florence but I had no concept of the sheer hugeness of the cathedral.

We got back on Tuesday evening from a fabulous road trip driving a campervan from Florence to Calais.Our first night was in a hotel just outside Luton airport, 5 of us in one room, and we have spent 10 nights in a space smaller than my living room and yet we have come home closer and more loving than we left.

The idea for this trip had come from my best friend's brother and we flew out with him, his wife and two children, went to the Italian supermarket with them and decided to stay on the same campsite as them for the first night. The two girls have a delightful and blossoming friendship, the just-about teenage boys are a little more wary of each other and are wildly different in character but are developing a relationship. My eleven year old is content to talk cars and football to both dad and son, and anyone else who'll join in! The children got muddy scrambling up the grass bank and the adults chatted over red wine and Tiramisu.
I took my art teacher's advice and tried a quick-sketch painting rather than a photograph. For me it captures not just the view but the feel of sitting on the grass, the sounds of the chidlren playing and the sense of the moment.

We spent Palm Sunday in Florence. We ambled around, ate ice-cream, crossed Ponte Vecchio, marveled at the living statues outside the Uffizi (our incomprehension of the English leaflet proffered us by Leonardo Da Vinci caused him to rummage deeper and offer us a German translation!), and admire the Cathedral. We paid 5 Euros to use the beautiful public toilets beside the Baptistry and were able to admire the model of the crane used to hoist the marble blocks to the top of the dome, ate our bread and cheese in the Piazza del Duomo and headed back on the bus to our mobile home begin the drive north.

Sunshine

The sun has been shining and it feels like summer. It's been a long term, a long winter and we are all very excited about going on holiday on Friday. We fly to Pisa and are driving a brand-new camper van home through Italy and France. When the idea first came up, in September, it seemed a little crazy, but here we are, less than 48 hours away from setting off. A much needed break, much needed fun time together, and perhaps, a line in the sand as life moves on from the old to the new.

Little Tryfan

I was scared witless. I don't think I've ever been as totally terrified in my life. It's not me in the picture, but it could be.
This is Little Tryfan, my second ever attempt at out-door climbing. Last year I had a couple of days at Harrison's Rocks: simple, roped climbs, one pitch, belayed from below, just like the rock wall only outdoors, in the sunshine. This year I was on Little Tryfan, a fairly easy (Moderate, a climbing standard whose scale ends at Extreme 10) but multi-pitch climb in the pouring rain.
Multi-pitch sounds innocuous, but what it really means is that when you have conquered your fears, struggled up the greasy rock, balanced on your toes with a sprained ankle in great walking boots - but you are beginning to understand the difference between these and rock-boots - you have to stand, alone, holding the life of someone else on the end of a rope, fifteen metres high on a ledge on the rock face, freezing and wet, contemplating the fact that you are about to have to do it again. And again.
I cried and I cursed, I hyper-ventilated and I panicked. And I put one foot above the other and I climbed. It was scary. And I did it.
Sometimes there isn't much choice; the moment of choice has been and gone and it is just a case of keeping going. Every step is a question of trust and I have to trust my choice. I have to trust my ankle to hold my weight. I have to trust the instructor who tells me I can do it. I have to trust my friend who holds the rope. I have to trust myself and find that I do have the resources to continue on this climb.

New Year

Swaledale is an amazing place to be: barren, beautiful, windswept and boggy. I have run on this moor almost everyday for the last two weeks. The first day I was slipping on ice but since then the bridle paths have become stream-beds and the ground a series of marshes and puddles. I have seen stunning sunrises and bowed my head into the howling wind and rain. I walked across the moor on Christmas Day, arriving half-an-hour late to church, wet and cold with mud spattered trousers into a congregation of locals in their festive best. I have walked up Calver Hill with my three children in cutting wind and stinging hail, to come home to hot baths and hot chocolate. I saw a barn owl yesterday, swooping over the heather, day-light hunting, its wings broad and sweeping. I have laughed and cried, played games, watched films and read my book. I am tired and rested, relaxed and still-humming. This year has been tumultous and up-ending, my foundational relationships have shifted, my life will never be the same again and my view of myself has been challenged, undone and is being rebuilt. I have hopes and dreams for 2012: I am scared, insecure and excited and in many ways I feel that I have a lot of growing up to do but it looks like being a good year.

New Bike

I've got a new bike! My life has been shaken up this summer and one of the goals that has come out of this is to try to use my car less. I am nervously embracing buses and gaining confidence with my Oyster card and I would like to cycle to more places. There aren't all that many opportunities to use the bike as I mostly travel with three children and I am always pushed for time, but I would like to cost the environment less, manage my time better, keep up an active lifestyle and spend less on petrol. So, I've got a new bike! It was a bargain: second-hand and I part-exchanged the old one I bought when I used to cycle to work before I had children. It came with all the bits I needed like lights and a little repair kit. (Not that I have any idea how to use that!) Yesterday was its first trip out. I went to the park and went round. This removed all the added difficulties of dealing with traffic, changing direction and having to do anything other than pedal -my companion had to use her brakes quite a bit as I couldn't keep up. My excuse was that I had already been running but in reality I was just a bit scared of going too fast so I just kept going. It's not much, plenty of people whizz on two wheels through central London in rush hour, but it was a baby step towards a big goal and I feel like I achieved something, that I am still growing.

Peak District

Tired legs, sunburnt nose, refreshed outlook - good trip.

A Sign I Need

Spotted at Oxford Circus yesterday: This, I decided, was a sign I needed on my head!
I'm off to the Lake District today, four days of walking with my best friend. (Well, three days of walking and a day in Manchester drinking coffee and visiting the art gallery!)
It's been getting overcrowded in my head - the entrances to this station are closed for a while.

Peak

I have had one of the craziest and most fun weekends ever! My best friend will be qualifying as a Mountain Leader soon and is topping up her log book of 'Quality Mountain Days'. As she will be a leader, it helps her if she has people to practice leading, preferably inexperienced people. This is where I came in. So on Friday night, the moment my husband came in the door, I headed out to the Tube station and travelled up to the Midlands for two days walking in the Peak District, excited that I am 'allowed' to do this, that my children don't need me so much and my other half is capable and happy looking after them.

Conditions were awful, great practice for navigation and decision-making skills, and we soon realised that our 15km plan was over-ambitious as the strong winds were almost blowing us over with our heavy rucksacks.We trekked through the peat bogs to a more sheltered spot and a little stream and set up camp before it got dark. Tucked up in our sleeping bags we were cozy and happy, eating hot food and chocolate and catching up on conversation. Soon after nine o'clock we decided that we had better get some sleep. About ten minutes later, like a pair of Brownies on camp, we had started chatting and giggling again. More tea, more chocolate and eventually we fell asleep around midnight. So much tea may not have been such a great idea as we had to get up, wriggle out of our sleeping bags, put on walking boots and trudge across the tussocks of grass in the howling gale to pee! At least we were sure we were well hydrated.

Sunday morning saw us up, drinking more tea and enjoying luxurious chocolate porridge (I am noticing a theme here!) before breaking camp and heading for Kinder Scout. The fog came in, the rain fell and the wind blew. I had opted for glasses rather than contact lenses for simplicity's sake, but soon found I could barely see, so I was assigned the job of counting footsteps while my friend led with the compass. It wasn't easy. We had a good idea of where we were, but didn't have a precise location. Eventually we were met by some super-hardy fell runners and asked them if we were on the path to Kinder Scout. 'This is Kinder Scout' we were told, so, good enough for us, we headed back.

By now, I was tired. And hungry. And thirsty. The simplest of questions made my want to kill my much loved friend and I suddenly realized that it wasn't her, it was me. I wasn't doing so well. Water, chocolate and cuppa-soup heated on the amazing jet-boil soon revived me and I was back in the fun zone.
It wasn't long before we were back at the car and eating ginger cake from the tea shop. It was a blast from start to finish and I can't wait 'til our next trip, in February, to the Lake District.

I learned some important lessons though:

When you want to kill someone, have a drink of water and eat some chocolate, it may help.

You can still be 9 when you are nearly 40.

Pretty close is good enough.

Stay in the fun zone, and if you slip out of it, notice and do something to get back there.

Cuppa soup is made in heaven.

Learning

These are my first attempts to paint trees. I have joined a watercolour class - something I've wanted to do for a while. I was very pleased to find that my local Adult Education Centre was running one at the most convenient time possible. It's is an established class so I am one of just two new girls. We sit together and whisper about how we are not very good and how we will never be able to paint like the others. We sneak glances at each other's work and admire and say how we think it's so much better than our own. We are anxious about getting it wrong and, and I speak for myself here, are jealous of other's praise and eager for teacher to notice us.
It's a scary thing, learning something new. It makes the learner vulnerable. I really don't want to make mistakes, even though I know they will cost me nothing. I don't want to be seen as a failure and yet I am desperately looking for affirmation. I am easily discouraged and get tired quickly. A word of encouragement brings a smile to my spirit and a harsh word a tear to my eye.
I think it is an absolutely vital experience as an educator to put myself in this place, over and again, to feel afresh the vulnerablility of the learner as I teach my children

Mince Pie 10

I ran ten miles yesterday. I ran the craziest, wildest, wettest, hilliest, muddiest, windiest ten miles I've ever run.
I left my mum's house and drove straight into hammering rain, with the windscreen wipers on full speed I still could not see where I was going. My friend and I decided that the race would, in all likelihood, be cancelled but had no contact number and her dad couldn't find anything on the web-site as she coached him remotely around it on her mobile. So we pressed on. We arrived in the wind-blasted town of Peacehaven on the South Coast (incidentally where I spent many hours mastering juctions as I learned to drive over twenty years ago) under dull but dry skies. We emerged from race headquarters a little while later to blue skies!
However, that did not affect the sheer quantity of water on the course: we were slowed to walking pace as we slithered in single-file past path-wide puddles, or tottered along slippery ridges between muddy ruts. The wind added to the excitement, gusting visciously just as footing was lost on the slippery surface meaning that staying upright became an achievement in itself. Up the Downs we climbed, before descending at a hurtling pace like so many overgrown children running full pelt down a hill. It was enough to make me laugh out-loud at the sheer madness of it all!
The hills and the miles continued and I was thrilled to see the end, although so much of my mental capacity had been engaged in avoiding a faceful of mud that I had not had the usual road race feeling of counting down the distance markers. I got a spot prize, too, for my stupendous sprint finish (or possibly at random!) and a free mince pie. And a reminder of why it is such fun to run!

Deep calls to deep

One of the many wonderful experiences on our trip to Northern Uganda was the joy of seeing Murchison Falls. Astounding in their power and beauty, here the flow of the River Nile is forced through a 7m gap to fall 43 m, transforming the nature of the river to a calm, unruffled saunter.
Our first glimpse of the falls was on our River Safari, when we approached them from below. Spectacular in the distance, they were silent: we could see the huge waves smashing into the rocks but could hear nothing.
The next day, after a gruelling two hour trek along unmade, dirt roads, we were able to walk to the top and to see their full majesty and appreciate the thunder of the roaring water as it crashed through the gorge.

I was reminded of the psalmist writing, "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls' (Psalm 42 v 7), of how this is Creation's echo of God's wonder, of how even the rocks will cry out in praise to their Maker.
And I am reminded now that, no matter how my day-to-day is feeling, whether I am battered on the rocks, becalmed and unmotivated or rejoicing in life, the water of the Nile is still thundering over the edge, the waterfall is still roaring and there is a place of praise and peace.

Building a house

The focal point of our trip to Uganda was to build a house. A house like this one:In this house live 8 children and a house mother. One or two of the children may be the natural children of the house mother, the rest are orphans. Victims of the AIDS epidemic or the brutal civil war from which the country has known peace for a few years now.
When we turned up, a little past 8am on the first morning of the build, this is what we saw:

The corners had already been completed by the team of local builders. The corners require skill. Following a straight piece of string can be done by the inexperienced, i.e. us:

And so, the walls went up.

The large piles of bricks had to be moved around the site to where they were needed. Every so often we would set up a brick chain. Some of us passed the bricks along, some threw. Can you spot the flying brick?

And so, the walls continued to rise. I am third from the right, in the bright, clown trousers. Apparently they looked like pyjamas!

And so, the walls went up and up:

And on the inside:

The remainder of the skilled jobs, the pointing, the roof and the plastering, were left for the team to continue.

Job Done!

All that is left is to go back on the next trip, in two years, and see the family growing and living and loving in the house that we built. A house where the Watoto mission of rescuing a child, raising a leader and rebuilding a nation is lived out.

Unwelcome Souvenir

I have brought home many memories and experiences from Uganda. Unfortunately I have also brought home a particularly nasty virus - a flu-like viral infection according to the doctor at the out of hours surgery on Sunday morning. I spent all of yesterday in bed, most of it asleep, with a high temperature, sore throat, aching limbs, nausea and a throbbing head. I don't feel much better today.
The rest of the team are due to land as I write and my close friend will be coming back here for a celebratory cup of tea and a good long chat (or as long as I can manage) to de-brief. I hope that, with feeling so rough and the transition to term time as my husband goes back to school tomorrow, I do not lose the depth of feeling and the strength of the impressions I have returned with and, over the coming weeks, I am able to incorporate them into my life.