‘i am the egg man, i am the walrus, goo goo bidoop’?
barcombe mills, river sleek… away from the familiar dunking in the sea, I had forgotten, the altered buoyancy, the different feels of river water
swam meandered around the bend, found an ash tree, limbs leaning out halfway across the water
embrace, yawn back into the ‘Y’ stretch of her branches, feet up, as tho in a bath… gently humming ‘islands in the stream’
damsel and dragon flies, their irridescent zip and flicker, whilst thronging the riverbank, pink flowers of himalayan balm
a microcosm of wonder!
only… leaves and sky above, the gentle tug of water below
flow. everything will pass
a traditional afternoon paddle in the kayak, with RP up to the anchor inn for a pint, a serendipitous bumping into karen,
celebrating her birthday weekend (me wearing my sri lanka t-shirt)
then back in a sorrily half deflated craft
a roam up to the fort, then home for peanutty tofu gloop and a fiendishly fun and ingenious virtual escape room!
a deeply pleasant day!
exuberance over vanity! ha! occasionally i scrub up well… in twilight, from a suitable distance…
but here i look entertainingly battered… actually its not me, see, nothing like my profile picture… erm it’s my great uncle… bulgaria!
crikey, on a large monitor its even more disturbing!!
age folks, it’s a’gunning for us all
grok the joy of being ourselves, a deeply beautiful thing
all together now… tho can’t decide if i’m more kenny or dolly! what a choice!…
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thanks guys!…was pondering earlier, whilst coding, just what it is that makes the riparian environment so warm and comforting?
astonishing how the brain whilst ostensibly busy still finds space to mull over more interesting things!
of course, the personal resonance from childhood, i grew up near the River Mole, usually docile, at times almost plodding
a river, somehow quintessentially ‘english’, not in some dreary patriotic way, just that i think of celtic streams being more of a gush, rush and babble!
cultural, almost archetypal associations, stretching back through the obvious ‘wind in the willows’, hammy the hamster(!), blakes ‘clod and the pebble’
an environment, seemingly unchanged for millenia
people have always pottered and dawdled the afternoons away on a sunny river bank… why would we not?
as i was telling my sister, oh i do love to pontificate, many of our river names stretch back to the neolithic, and are some of the most ancient words in the cultural kitty
tho having said that the wonderfully onomatoepeic ‘ouse’ is a more recent celtic word ‘usso’ meaning water
as always its mostly about the trees, the serene trinity of Alder, Willow and Ash, the uplifting feeling of just speaking their names aloud
they hold the space, strengthening and cosseting the banks, proffering up a dappled shade, encouraging a rich, prolific diversity beneath their aegis
when your low on the water, the horizon is blessedly contained, everything is intimate
sound scape of the slap and plash of the paddle, the lip smacking plop of a fish, greedily surfacing for a mouthful of insect
oops…waffling about nowt…
tho i have heard the reverse opinion, truth that is turned about, like a glove pulled inside out:
that flowing water loves to be cool and always summons shade
like some potentate, accompanied by a eunuch bearing umbrella, else reclined in his sumptous palanquin… words, words, like the river, forgotten the where and the why to hurry!
enuff
