A Good Walk Ruined
Regular readers may remember that I curtailed my long walks in the evenings because a tendon in my foot was showing signs of playing up. I rested it and have, recently, been doing a relatively short walk when I’ve gone out. Tonight I decided to go for a longer distance again, although still only about 2 1/2 miles, along the old railway line and back.
It was a nice walk and I had no problems except on the latter part, coming up our hill, when my knees both decided to complain at the same time,
Carrick Knowe
The route of the walk goes by Carrick Knowe golf course, which, as their website says, is a lovely open area containing mature trees. The trees, alas, are desert islands in a sea of grass, but there we are. For the duration of lockdown the course has been closed. This had the effect that the course area was used as a giant park by families with children, who could go there for their daily ‘exercise,’ safe in the knowledge that social distancing is built into such a large area. I used to include part of the periphery of the course in my longer walks too.
The course is now open again and the impact has been immediate: no families with children, just blokes knocking balls around with sticks and paying for the privilege. I’m happy for them that they have their game back, but can’t help feeling that, in the bigger picture, something has been lost.
One thing about going out in the evening, is that the main road remains largely clear of traffic. The other people out walking were all taking care to maintain distancing, and I enjoyed that we all gave each other a nod or a smile of acknowledgement. Although I’ve become pessimistic regarding a lot of things about the coming months, I’d like it if this loose sense of community, however tenuous, prevailed.
Coming back, I could see a haar rolling over the brow of the hill. Otherwise, it was a sunny day, and I had my tomato plants outside in the sun for a lot of it.
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I spent a large part of the day working on the ‘work in progress.’ I didn’t write many new words, though I finished a scene and set up the next one, but I did come up with a new character and something of his background. Now I need to figure out how he fits into the story. Or maybe I should just write some interactions with him and see if more of his personality and a story come out of that.
He emerged from a writing exercise I set myself, one I used to do a lot but haven’t for a while. Essentially you set yourself a topic and write, without stopping, for half an hour. No revision, just stream of consciousness on the topic, a bit like brainstorming. Previously I’ve done this with colours; today my single word was ‘magic.’ The outcome was the suggestion of the character I just mentioned, a metaphor I hadn’t thought of before (that gives rise to another potential thread of the story), and a suggestion of a theme for the story as a whole.
Of course, all of this is buried in stream-of-consciousness ramblings that only I will ever see, but it spurs the creative process, which is what it was intended to do.
Meantime, thanks to those of you who said nice things about Beside The Seaside yesterday. It makes up for the almost immediate rejection of a submission by one of the agents I talked about.
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Music: I was listening yesterday to an old compilation cd I got off the front of Mojo magazine in 2002. Everything on it was early 1970s reggae on the Trojan label. I used to have a Trojan compilation album of early Bob Marley and the Wailers, Rasta Revolution. I don’t know where that LP is 🙁 This track was on it.
Bob Marley and the Wailers: Mr. Brown.
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