The Reward is the Journey

My new year's training schedule is going, very nearly, to plan.  I've not clocked up quite as many hours, or lengths, as I'd hoped to, but this is no more than a simple reminder of my sometimes unrealistic targets.  On the whole, and half term now behind us, things are going alright.  This occurred to me shortly after a recent training session, during which my energy levels seemed to see me through a longer swim than I'd anticipated, whilst maintaining a good pace throughout.  As with so many things in life, there seems little point in trying to figure out how or why, but to simply enjoy the experience for what it was. "Small change, small wonders - these are the currency  of my endurance, and ultimately of my life." Barbara Kingsolver As human beings we are, I think, programmed to analyse and calculate.  We want to figure it out.  Sometimes this leads to a sense of reward, profit or achievement but, from experience, more often than not, ...

It was an honour and a privilege to attend a Parents' dinner at the Oxford college where a dear friend's son began as a fresher in October. I went in my status as 'honorary auntie' (rather than fairy godmother), and appreciated very deeply the opportunity to reconnect with my own beginnings in Higher Education as an undergraduate, and also see things in parallel, from a different angle - through the eyes of a parent.  The short evensong service was spot on - two of my all-time favourite hymns and a marvellous homily acknowledging the role played by parents shaping our earliest education, and the two way teaching-learning cycle; highlighting how much, as parents, we can (and should look to) learn from our children.  I left after a delicious dinner feeling nourished on each and every level.  Conversation at High Table included many revelations.  It was a gift to be in an environment so evocative prompting several planned and unplanned reminiscences. ...

Was extraordinary.  I had intended to see it from the moment I saw the trailer for the first time.  The bold strapline 'Fight. Dream. Hope. Love' had caught my attention.  The BAFTA winning screenplay far exceeded any expectations I had had, based on the musical I had seen at Cambridge Circus some time ago.    What struck me most was that, at its heart, this film beautifully encapsulates what it is to be human.  It comes alive.  There is a wonderful love story, but this is not just about love.  To love is to risk being hurt, and we are not spared any emotion.  We are introduced to the heaviness of shame, which we see emerge from shackles only to be transported through a lifetime.    Survivors guilt is brilliantly portrayed by Eddie Redmayne whose brothers fall whilst he Marius saved, and we feel the chronic pain of Éponine's unreciprocated feeling.  We experience great richness in the lives of the downtrodde...

  Apparently, beetroot is the new hit.  Organic, of course.  I learnt this from friends who know a thing or two about stamina and one of whom currently receives a beetroot each week in her delivery from Abel & Cole.  So now we know what to do with it.  In fact, she attributes her victory in Sussex a fortnight ago to the delightfully 'earthy' tasting deep claret coloured juice.  That and a steady regimen of turbo training over the winter months.     Not bad for someone who was recovering from post chemo surgery just 5 months ago.  Watch out ladies on two wheels, with the supercharged power of nitrates Charlotte will be unstoppable. I could have used some beetroot this morning.  My clockwise laps round Richmond Park required much effort.  My legs seem to have forgotten how to move, and I got overtaken by more than my usual share of cyclists on their leisurely weekend outings.   ...

...and all things nice! Having been asked what she might like to eat by her mother, or perhaps au pair, she paused and studied the chiller cabinet, and requested a cheese toastie.  No, she was to have something sweet.  Why, I wondered, could she not be allowed to elect a savoury option.  A flapjack was produced.  A poor substitute for the toasted cheese sandwich she might already have got a taste for, as you sometimes do, simply on thinking about what you are about to eat. The flapjack was, maybe predictably, shared.  This was not, I realised, about entertaining a choice, but about enabling the older member of the party get what she wanted in that moment. I wonder whether gender played any significance in this moment that was (I feel sure) unlikely to have produced any further thought, and consequently what else might have been ingested by the little one together with her flapjack. Gender is between your ears, not your legs. ...

You tell all the boys "No" Makes you feel good, yeah I know you're out of my league But that won't scare me away, oh, no You've carried on so long You couldn't stop if you tried it You've built your wall so high That no one could climb it But I'm gonna try Would you let me see beneath your beautiful? Would you let me see beneath your perfect? Take it off now, girl, take it off now, girl I wanna see inside Would you let me see beneath your beautiful tonight? You let all the girls go Makes you feel good, don't it? Behind your Broadway show I heard a boy say, "Please, don't hurt me" You've carried on so long You couldn't stop if you tried it. You've built your wall so high That no one could climb it. But I'm gonna try Would you let me see beneath your beautiful? Would you let me see beneath your perfect? Take it off now, boy, take it off now, boy I wanna see inside Would you let me see beneath your beautiful tonight, oh,...

I couldn't help but recall a discussion I had at a meeting after a meeting recently.  There I was, happily swimming along, minding my own business (and tuned in to my tunes) only to notice him prepare to join my lane.  He had the choice of 4 others, but plumbed for the central lane where I was (and had been for over 2k).  Mindless perhaps.  Irritating beyond belief.  Unforgivable, I'd say. This is not the first time that I've encountered such an invasion.  There is, I think, no coincidence with the fact that I swim in the lane that is often marked 'Fast'.  It attracts a certain type of swimmer.  Me, for one.  I head for the middle lane, especially when the pool is less than busy.  It's the fastest way to swim.  Theoretically, there's less turbulence. It was going to plan.   Until he got in.   My Thursday swim was cruelly interrupted.  It didn't take much, but I lost my stroke, and then my breathing. T...

To feel overwhelmed is usually uncomfortable.  To feel underwhelmed is usually uncomfortable.  But what about the space in between?  I enjoy exploring the space in between, and sometime this week it occurred to me that I have rarely encountered the alternative to either overwhelmed or underwhelmed.   Might we start to describe ourselves as 'whelmed' to indicate neutrality?   In fact, 'underwhelmed' started life as a joke based on overwhelmed, and in language terms is relatively recent — it was first recorded in 1956, but became popular only a decade or so later. It seems to have become well established having entered common parlance, and filling a need for a single word to communicate the concept of failing to impress. The verb whelm does exist, though there are very few examples to be found in modern prose.  But it was, at one time, common.  It started as a medieval English sea term meaning to capsize — it’s related to the ev...