It's not like there's nothing going on though. Quietly bringing up the rear at the Kendal Winter League races. Quietly rueing the ease with which I entered the Helvellyn triathlon without as much as a thought to the practicalities of the training required, or the monumental effort it'll take for someone like me to finish before teatime. Quietly learning to swim properly in what feels like the dead of a Thursday night.
It's all about the quiet gestation of plans, a sea change in thinking, some sort of re-evaluation.
Some of the most enduring memories of last year came from wild camping on shorelines with the distant memories of crofters' lives drifting about us like sea mist. These places shouldn't have felt like home, but they did. And this year, we'd like to do more. A book that leads us on these journeys is none other than Hamish Haswell-Smith's The Scottish Islands. It's a guide book like no other. It's more a mythology that winds Scotland's past with it's present. An examination and an explanation of why landing on a bare, uninhabited island feels more than it should. Extraordinary stories, Norse invasions, amazing communities and cultures, improbable island owners. It's all there.
With this compass to the past permanently out, pages spreadeagled, perhaps a bit of quiet planning a good thing..
2 comments:
Nice mellow post Rhiannon, reflective & thoughtful. There is a 4 stage process often cited in creativity research; preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Maybe you are in a kind of mid-winter incubative period!!
On a more practical note, springtime marks the start of open water swim training at Bowness on Sunday mornings. My wife went regulary last year, training for the great north swim. Its a very mellow, informal, friendly affair with tea/bacon butties after. May be of interest in getting comfortable for the lake swimming leg of your tri.
see you tomorrow
Hi Duncan,
that's it, incubation. It's quite fun after a year of frenetic running about and rushing headlong into things.
Yes, need to get some open water training in. Looking forward to it- something a bit different.
cheers
Rhiannon
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