Despite my still painful leg (it actually only hurts when I stand still bizarrely) I went for an 8 mile walk with my brother and niece up a great big hill.
Like building patios this has been the kind of thing I have been lacking in the last few months of constant writing (and trying to write). ItÂ’s a much better work-out than even anything Nelson could devise (I mean my personal trainer, not the historical figure for any non-regulars. Not to say Horatio wouldnÂ’t have had his own exercise video if he lived in this day and age) and yet it is somehow relaxing and invigorating at the same time. Looking behind me over the hills and lakes made my spirits soar. IÂ’d been worried I wouldnÂ’t be able to keep up with my family, who have been running up and down mountains all week, but I proved myself to be practically as fit as my 12 year old niece. I reckon I could probably take her at tennis too!
We stopped by a tarn for our lunch. ThatÂ’s a big pond up a mountain to those of you who (like me 24 hours ago) donÂ’t know. There was no-one else around and apart from the occasional plane passing over it was totally quiet. There was an island in the middle of the tarn. I decided that I would like to build a house on it and live there. Solitude in such a beautiful place would not be so bad, though IÂ’d hate to be the paperboy who had my house on his route.
It might not be such fun in the winter, but at least would guarantee me being dubbed BritainÂ’s most eccentric person.
Especially if I also wore an unusual hat.
No man is an island, but I think thereÂ’s certainly a part of me that wants to live on one. I am aware that I already do. But I want to live on one alone. To be the king of all I survey. It doesnÂ’t have to be a big island either.
When I was on holiday in Thailand in early 2001 my girlfriend of the time and a couple of her friends stayed in beach huts on a (comparatively) isolated island called Trat. We were there for three or four weeks and one night I noticed that at around midnight as the moon was rising over the hill behind our hut, a small bank of sand was formed a few yards out to sea because of the unusual currents going on. It was a tiny island of sand. For the few nights that the tidal conditions were right I would wade out to this secret temporary country that belonged to me, with a beach chair and sit and survey the sky and the progress of the moon. I was the king and all the citizens of this magical land and occasionally stayed out there in silent (and drunken) contemplation for an hour or so.
It was great. Though I suppose what made it really good was that I didnÂ’t have to stay there all the time and I was within a few feet of other people. So when I was in the mood for company, or when the sea swelled and swallowed my domain (implying that as a king I was some kind of giant Cnut) and swamped my plastic throne, I could wade ashore.
I still think of those few days with fondness though. Within the week the island disappeared. Perhaps it was only there every thousand years, or possibly just on a monthly basis. They were calling me Chard at the time and so the island was imaginatively titled Chard Island.
DonÂ’t look on the maps. It is uncharted. If you should chance across it then do not enter my domain under pain of death.
I was glad I wasn't on my own. My niece lives in France so I haven't seen her for ages and it was good to spend some time with her.
Though my belief that I will one day prove myself to be brave and heroic in a time of crisis took another (almost literal)battering later on the walk when we encountered a ram wandering on the slopes. It was clearly in a bit of distress as it was headbutting an iron gate. It turned, saw us approaching, lowered its head, paused and then began to charge.
Rather than leaping in front of my tiny niece, I backed off saying "oh fuck! Oh fuck!!" My brother and Emily stayed rooted to the spot.
The ram obviously realised he was being foolhardy (probably terrified by my swearing) and stopped in its tracks and ran away.
Not only did I have to apologise for my potty mouth (and I couldn't say "Excuse my French" to Emily, because she is French and thus knows that "fuck" is not a part of her language), I had to acknowledge that I had been frightened by a sheep.
So as long as the heroic situation I find myself in does not involve a swan or a lamb I might still be OK.
