This last Tuesday, 17th July 2018 I had a wonderful day that started with a 1.72 mile walk ascending 54.79 feet before breakfast followed by 10 minutes practising the tune I am trying to learn on the keyboard. More and more frequently, that intense concentration starts to drag me towards a twobble. My eyes start to blur over, and the family of frogs in my head start to play kiss-chase or something with the toad and each and every time I try to look down at my hands and up at the music quickly, the whole kissing match in my head seem to lose balance and roll one way and make me feel rather off balance. I have been trying, beat per minute by beat per minute, to speed up the pace at which I can play the tune towards that as requested by the composer, but my brain struggles with this simple task and my fingers rapidly fall behind the pace and the whole attempt ends in disgrace. But yet I try again and again and again for the 10 minutes I will allow myself. Any longer and I risk losing the entire morning to a twobble. So, practice over I jumped on the bike for the 14 miles ascending the 1075.13 feet on the way to Dalmahoy for a day of Golf training. My eyes cleared quickly however I must still have been in a mild twobble for shortly after the start, when approaching the 5 ways cycle track junction at speed, an older lady coming towards me on her bike and wishing to turn right, indicated. On the cycle tracks we follow the highway code to make it easy for everyone, so I should have just continued, and she would have turned right behind me, but in my stupid dozy daze I decided to try to be courteous so pulled over to the right hand side of the track and continued towards her while gesticulating with my head and right arm that she could turn right in front of me. This of course confused her completely, so she stopped, as did I, with our front tyres touching while, on realising what an oaf I had been I apologised profusely. This lady clearly realised what I had tried to do so we parted in good humour but my goodness what an oaf I had been and as if in punishment by God each and every child I met with their parents on that track that morning decided to veer off without warning and head straight for me, forcing me to slam on my breaks and squeal and shudder to a halt. Each false halt forces one to lose one’s rhythm and go through the physical effort of having to get started again, so I was well and truly getting the message but kept my head and laughed with the apologetic parents each time how wee Johnny will understand it one day. Once on the narrower canal path the children with parents quickly disappeared and I was lost in the wonderful life of the canal I was passing. With birds chattering in the hedges and flying up alongside me, the three families of swans happily feeding with their cygnets in various sections of the canal, the occasional canal boat with the smell of diesel, coffee and bacon butties wafting across from the smiling and waving couples on board and then, dead ahead, a real treat. Standing proud and dead still right across the canal path was a handsome Roe Deer Buck. I slowed my pedalling to a slow and almost stealth-like pace to see how close I could get. I wanted, so wanted to be able to pull up just before him and pat his flanks, to wish him a good morning, but while we stared, transfixed with each other, another canal boat came up the canal and the excited family on sighting the deer spooked him off and into the bushes. I pressed hard once again on the peddles and gave thanks for getting as close as I did, about 10 metres, and certainly I could smell his musky hide as I passed through the spot on which he was standing.
Once in Dalmahoy, the home of my golfing torture, I was made to understand in no uncertain terms just how welcome I was and just what a wonderful opportunity the Dalmahoy Hotel and Country Club was giving me, no matter how painful and frustrating my attempts at golf were. Every member of the team, from health club reception to hotel reception, to the groundsmen and greenkeepers, couldn’t have broader smiles or warmer welcomes. Even the groundsmen would stop what they were doing, stand up and wave with a cheery afternoon, while the greenkeepers would wave continuously on their way past on their machines while I tormented myself on yet another hole of the pitch and putt. Even more incredibly, after my usual packed lunch, I actually managed to see a small improvement in my golf. I was finally managing to drive the ball with a 7 iron straight and true to the 100 yard marker for 4 balls out of every 6. This was a significant improvement and once or twice I even managed to get the ball out to 150 yards, but that was a guestimate as the ball went wayward to the right or left, but it hung in the air for ages and fell on hitting the fence on the left or the trees on the right roughly in line with the 150 yard markers. I was smiling and starting to find some satisfaction in golf! I received an impromptu lesson from another golfer on the chipping green outside then managed to putt reasonably well on the putting green before initially tormenting myself on the pitch and putt, and then after another wave past by a greenkeeper, managed to play the final two holes really well.
As I changed to head home again after a cup of green tea with a flapjack and a dark chocolate kitkat, I moved from the seat I was on to give a Japanese gentleman more room to change in. He asked me if I had been playing golf and I replied that I was trying, but struggling, to learn. He replied “Ah yes learning to play golf is hard indeed but to learn you must hit ball, hit ball, hit ball, hit ball, ball ball ball ball ball ball ball you must hit lots balls. But do that you will get better,” he said with a slap on my back forcing me to spill some of my tea as he stood to join his friends in the corner. I poured some more tea from the flask, ate and prepared for the 14 miles home.
As I rode I was met by more kamikaze children on bicycles and giggling apologetic parents, but it was great to see the children out taking exercise with their parents on this beautiful day, so I smiled and then winced when a big fat bumblebee came tumbling into my lips but it stung only with its impact not with its sting so I gave thanks that I had my mouth closed and carried on my way. Once off the canal and back on the broad, tree-lined cycle track that follows the old railway line, I passed a couple of female police officers on patrol up the cycle track and wished them a good afternoon which was returned with a smile and then, only a few hundred metres later, in the gloom of the darker tree-lined cycle track came a most extraordinary apparition. With white blond medium length hair and a defined spike upwards like he had seen a ghost came the skin and bones and deeply tanned body of a young man, late teens or mid-twenties standing on his peddles as he peddled completely stark naked. He passed without even an acknowledgement of me and my rather shocked face before I smiled on realising the reception that he was going to receive a few hundred metres behind me, though I am not sure why he was naked, he had nothing worth showing off!
I made it home safely to be treated to a wonderful tea by wonderful Allie as we recounted our news from the day.
Today we prepare for our trip south with the children to celebrate the union of my youngest brother Harry and his delightful fiancée Rosie. I ask us all to pray for their union together. May it be a long and happy one. Certainly it is well deserved.
On my last post I promised to bring to you in chunks bits of the last post that I had been writing to bring you up to date. I attach the first element of that unpublished post below.
Happy reading,
Yours aye
Archie.
03rd July 2018, I have just come back from a 12.7 mile walk ascending 1,457 feet. I could have cycled most of this today but it was a beautiful day so I decided I would walk the 5.1 miles from Newhaven to Blackford Pond ascending 417 feet, followed by a short 1.5 miles ascending the 830 feet of Blackford Hill, before doing a small 0.7 mile detour ascending only 7 feet to see an old stone arch built in 1887 and dedicated to Sir George Harrison who enabled the city of Edinburgh to purchase Blackford Hill as a National Park. I completed another 5.4 miles ascending 203 feet to meet up with my wife Allie for a mocha at the Porto and Fi Deli. As I set out on this bright morning I was determined to commit to memory the words of a poem I have created by combining the words of a few wonderful wordsmiths and that I one day hope to record on video to inspire and encourage others, as well as hopefully be enjoyed while triggering deep thought. By learning a line on each of my morning and evening walks, I have committed the two monologues I required to learn for my acting courses to memory. I was hoping that this walk would prove as fruitful but, post diagnosis, prognosis and during treatment, I found my long walks to be the only place in which I could find peace, not only from the pace and information demands of modern life, but also from my disease and myself. To sit on a hill or mountain top, so often on my own and survey the great vastness spread out in miniature vastness below me would often bring a deep peace as I nibbled on tenderstem and the other delights of the balanced daily lifestyle, looking, so very much looking forward to the last carrot stick, red grape and cherry tomato in order to attack the flapjack. However today, on this wonderful day, as I started to recite, ‘If we can keep our heads while all about us are losing theirs and blaming it on us,’ my head just screamed at me to shut up. Literally screamed, while slamming that particular memory file shut. It was clear that I was to walk in silent contemplation and as I walked in quiet contemplation I realised that there was so much more to Edinburgh, hidden away in quiet corners that one just does not find in a car, or even from a bicycle seat, such as the grand beauty of the middle meadows walk and the meadows themselves surrounded by equally grand architecture. With ball games being played by children and couples relaxing in the sun, and older couples gently strolling hand in hand in the shade, and cyclists whizzing and tourists pirouetting open-mouthed while orientating their maps, it was a joy to be able to pass through on foot unnoticed while basking in the glow of the sunshine and the positive vibes of all the happiness around me. And as I walked I realised that I had so much to be thankful for. Allie and the children, the Acting Out Drama School, the Dalmahoy Hotel and Country Club, Family and Friends, God’s wonderful creation and life itself.
