We're catching up now. The last couple of weeks were brutal at work and I won't tell you how many hours I worked, but the sun came out on one of the days and I absolutely had to go outside for a couple of hours, so I did. I meant to go to Halfmoon Bay, which I haven't shown you yet, but I couldn't remember which road to turn down and got it completely wrong. I ended up here – I don't even know what this bit of the bay is called, but it's in Heysham. I had two cans of Red Bull with me (I know, I'm really taking care of myself at the moment), and some earphones because I had been listening to the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit soundtracks all day and didn't want to stop listening to them just because I was outside. The Hobbit is my latest obsession, which is weird because it's not new, and I didn't obsess over it the first time I watched it. But if you know me at all, you'll know that I obsess over things. Some obsessions can last for months, and some last only a week until I find the next thing. I'm very much a teenager in this sense. I find that it's one of the complete and utter joys of being single – there's no one to judge me for devoting too much time to staring at pictures of Thorin Oakenshield on my phone. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I would ever be prepared to give up this freedom.
Anyway, the point of me telling you this is that my Hobbit obsession last week (and which has carried over into this week as well) affected the colour and tone of my walk on this day. You might not be able to see it, but what I see in this photo below is Middle-earth. They're humans in the field, but Middle-earth humans.
It might help if I let you hear what I was listening to. Here: A Journey in the Dark and Gollum's Song. You could be in the middle of a bustling modern high street and this music would still alter your perception. So you can imagine how, here, by a slightly choppy sea, with the mountains of the Lakes in the distance, I was completely transported. It doesn't take a lot for me to imagine orcs, mind you. I sometimes see them in the kitchen when I'm listening to Michael Ball on Radio 2 on a Sunday morning, and there's no good reason for that.
To add to the fantastical illusion, I went to talk to some horses. These were not Narnian talking horses, of course. These were just your ordinary riding-to-Rohan horses. You need to be careful listening to atmospheric music when talking to horses though, because you can end up in a very emotional state – horses have a sadness about the eyes, like they want to talk to you but they can't because they haven't got the right vocal mechanics.
This one got so tired of trying to explain itself to me with its eyes that it fell asleep standing up. Is that a thing? Do horses always sleep standing up? Well, whether it's a thing or not, I stayed here for a couple of Hobbit tracks because it was all very soothing, and I soon felt my work stresses melting away. If you need to destress and you can find a horse to talk to, I recommend it. They don't judge.
I needed to move on though, stretch my legs out properly and explore a bit. If you listen to epic movie soundtracks – which I do daily, by the way – it's never difficult to imagine you're on a quest. It doesn't really matter what the quest is for when you're out for an hour's walk, just as long as it makes you walk with purpose. On this day, I had a vague notion that I was looking for a ring – which actually makes me a baddie because, in Lord of the Rings, the goodies already have the ring and the baddies are looking for it. But that's okay. We shouldn't take our imaginings too seriously – that way lies danger.
Right around here was where the music reached its very chilling peak, and there's no better place for listening to eerie sounds than somewhere that allows you to stare out to sea. Oh no, I'm wrong – a dark wood would be more sinister. I'll write that down – I must see if I can scare the bejeezus out of myself next time we're in the woods. Fun!
Good view though, is it not? You can't make them out very well in the photo, but there are some people fishing on that tiny spit of land just where the sun is reflected on the water. If you imagine carefully, they have ancient and many-times-repaired fishing nets, and they're scooping up the shellfish from the shallows, making the most of the summer's bounty before the winter comes. This is all nonsense, of course. If you care to Google shellfish seasons, I'm not entirely certain, but I think it's the other way round and the bounty is in the autumn and winter.
Moving on – and slowly, I'll admit. This wasn't really a walk for physical exercise so much as one for mental relief. Standing still but outside was the order of the day. Soaking up a bit of history in the grounds of St. Peter's is always very nice, whatever the weather, though it happened to be very warm today. I get all sorts of vibes from this place. There's a strong Saxon and Viking feel, but that's just because I know there are Viking and Saxon burial plots and tiny bits of architecture here. But it also feels Canadian to me because, when you go to the other side of the church and look out over the bay, it looks a bit like parts of Prince Edward Island, and I go a bit Anne of Green Gables. But this is another thing you need to be careful with – if you start mixing up too many books in your imaginings, you can end up creating a rift in the space–time continuum. So tread carefully.
Another thing that is very calming for the mind is watching a squirrel dig a hole in a graveyard. I don't know if you've ever done this, but you can while away a good forty minutes, just watching and smiling. You can't move, of course, otherwise you'll startle the little critter and have to wait for it to come back down from its tree. But there was something under there that this squirrel needed to get, and it wasn't giving up. It wasn't a body, no, don't be gross. Probably just a buried pile of acorns or something.
There, see? It got one, whatever it was.
There wasn't just one squirrel though – there was a gang of them, about six, and they were having a grand old time, frolicking about the graveyard, being disrespectful, the little tykes. I said them, I said, oi, get down off there, that's someone's grave! But they just ignored me, and one of them twisted around and scratched itself, then turned back and gave me a very cheeky look before running off to dig up another acorn.
I am sorry if you don't like cemeteries. Not everyone does, of course. Scroll past this picture if you don't like it. But I do enjoy a walk in an old graveyard. It's sad, sure, but also lovely and peaceful. And there's nothing wrong with being reminded of our own mortality so that we appreciate the fact we're still alive. I did think today that I would like to be buried here when I die. But I don't go to church – are there rules about that? If there are rules, I'll just have one of those green burials instead.
I got a bit closer to the fisherfolk. Can you see them now? I wasn't actually sure they were people when I first saw them because they were barely moving, and I thought perhaps they were tall rocks. But one of them did a little dance, I think celebrating a catch, so they definitely weren't rocks.
It's nice here, no? I do feel sorry for people who don't live by the sea. Maybe they don't know what they're missing so it doesn't matter. But I've always lived near the sea, even if I haven't always thought about it very much – I've always known it's there, and I've always been able to get to it within a few minutes. When I lived in Aberystywth, I could get to the sea in seconds because it was right outside my front door. I miss that. Maybe I should move to Aberystwyth. Wherever I end up, it won't be landlocked, I can tell you that.
My mind was very nicely empty now. But when I reach this state after being a bit stressed, I just want to hold onto it for as long as I can because I know that, when I go back to the house, my mind will fill right back up again. So I tend to stand and stare at things if I'm getting a bit tired, just being outside for a few more minutes. If you have got an empty mind, you can stretch those few minutes out for an imaginary twenty years or so, which is quite cool. I've lived a few epic lifetimes doing that. And no doubt I shall live some more.
It still hadn't given up. It soon did when an off-the-lead little dog came haring through the graveyard, yapping its head off, in a pointless attempt to catch a squirrel.
Try getting up there, daft little yappy dog.
Yappy dogs can rip a wide hole in your stress filter that's big enough to let the calm rush out and the stress flood in, so that was that. I did try to repair the damage by staring out to sea for a bit along this hidden path, but I could still hear the yappy dog, so I gave up. Plus I was hungry.
This will just look like an ordinary path to you, and it is. But it's also full of the ghosts of me and my children. I can see them still, toddling down here, falling and scraping their knees (but never crying – my children have always been the brave kind who enjoy showing off a decent graze). We used to come here a lot, to the little play area just down the hill, in the days when I was fit enough to push a double pram with three children on it all the way up this hill. I think I could still do it, but it would take me possibly an hour. Tomorrow, by the way, I will have three teenaged children.
Oooooh, go on then, I'll stretch the walk out for just a little bit longer! As well as the people who don't live near the sea, I feel sorry for the people who've never walked on sand. It's a bit special and I love it very much. Shoes on or shoes off, whichever. But it's not like walking on anything else and it makes me smile and breathe very deeply. I'm sure I look like an utter idiot, walking along on my own, grinning to myself and semi-hyperventilating.
I stretched out the walk just the tiniest bit more with a scramble over the rocks (which you'll recall are known as groynes). You just can't beat a scramble over the rocks. I'm not sure if adults are supposed to scramble over the rocks, but since I'm not and never will be an adult, I can do what I like.
Until tomorrow, landlubbers.
WQ
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