Ouch!

"With domineering hand she moves the turning wheel,

Like currents in a treacherous bay swept to and fro"

Boethius

Sometimes it feels like life may well be fated; like one of those computer roleplay games where you learn something from a passing conversation that becomes useful later on.  

Two weeks ago I was windsurfing in Cornwall.  Charlie, one of the instructors, told me about the agony he'd experienced after stepping on a Weaver fish the day before and how a guy in the cafe had made him put his foot in near-to-boiling water to denature the poison from the fish's spines.  Two weeks later I was surfing in Hell's Mouth, when I felt a sting in my left foot.  There was a moment of dread but fortunately there was a rather cute surfing instructor with a flask of hot water and a guy in a mobile cafe who gave me some more.  

Watch out for those Weevers, especially at low tide (no-one likes to see a grown man cry!).  I'll probably wear booties from now on...

Pisenlit Mademoiselle?

"Today I saw a little worm

Wriggling on his belly,

Perhaps he'd like to come inside

And see what's on the telly"

Spike Milligan

No this isn't Spike Milligan!  In fact it's Uncle Bob who kindly showed us his leeches as part of a free talk on the historical use of plants as medicines at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, Llanarthne.  Now obviously leeches aren't plants but they are found in the garden's numerous ponds and add a certain wow factor to his talk.

Also of note was the use of dandelion (corrupted from the French dents de lion = lion's teeth) leaves in salads.  You may have come across them in a posh salad referred to by their other French name "pis-en-lit" named for their mild diuretic effect!...

To begin at the beginning

"It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched courters' and rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloe-black, slow, black, crow-black, fishing-boat bobbing sea."


Dylan Thomas

Ok, so it's Summer and it's more like 2.30 on a blazing hot sunny afternoon than moonless night but the sights and sounds that surround me are the same as those that the poet himself would have enjoyed 60 years ago (or so the part-time writer, part-time chef at Dylan Thomas' Boathouse assured me).  The picture shows the writing shed, just above the Boathouse where Thomas lived, overlooking the Taf estuary, in the picturesque village of Laugharne, West Wales.  A perfect place to emulate the poet's poetic practice and "gob on a gull".

Thirteen too few?

"Whatever you can do or imagine, begin it; 

boldness has beauty, magic and power in it."  

Goethe

A fridge magnet once told me that there were two good reasons to be a teacher - July and August.  How true.  But what do you do when you realise that thirteen (weeks holiday) may just be too few?!  Well I started by quitting my job, selling a bunch of stuff and buying a rebuilt touring bike from the 70s.  I imagined a different life from the 9 to 5; one with beaches and mountains, sun, sea and sand.  And snow.  And so it begins...