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Sunday, December 01, 2013

Making waves - but little ones




Swimming on a regular basis you soon come to realize that some days are better than others as far as the actual stroke action is concerned.  This morning was one of those days in which the action seemed, if not effortless, then certainly achievable with less effort than normal.  I sometimes think that the difference is the other people swimming ‘with’ me.  Very often (always?) the other people have no idea that their progress is determining mine – unless of course they are like me and use other swimmers as markers.

The other swimmers this morning were a small child whose swimming was the sort of organized chaos which, even to my myopic eyes was irresistibly funny.  He looked as though he was worming his way through the water.  My other marker was a gentleman in the other lane who had a decent turn of speed but not quite as quick as me.  Both of them stopped from time to time after a couple of lengths, whereas I ploughed onwards without ever stopping.  This meant that I was constantly having a series of successes while my music pleasantly accompanied my achievements.  This went on until both of my markers and their replacements had left the pool and I thought that it was time to look at my watch.  And discovered that I had swum a full ten minutes more than my allocated half hour stint!

In the way that I figure these things, I have therefore decided that I can have the do it yourself risotto that has been languishing in its little plastic container for months as part of my 20% where I don’t have to worry about my diet.  In fact, giving how backsliding I was this week, I am amazed that I still managed to lose half a kilo, so whatever I am doing it is having the right effect.  At the moment, kilo by kilo.  Slow progress.

My writing continues, but the ten people in my tutor group seem to have writer’s cramp and neither post nor comment.  If this continues I shall neither post nor comment myself.  He said sulking.  It is early days yet, and there should, in theory be lots to read and comment on.  There better well bloody be!  Or I shall ask for my money back.  At least.

I fed my watch again today I the spate of sunshine that we had in the afternoon.  I did not, I have to admit, sit outside with it – that was going too far.  I am sure that the sun is just as hot as it was in the summer but it does seem a damn sight farther away from us than it was.  And while I am still wearing sandals as a last ditch rejection of the onset of winter, I am not prepared to be as skimpily dressed overall as I am in the feet area.

I have been reading cheap Kindle books of such awfulness that I am not even prepared to give the titles.  They were just the other side of being a guilty pleasure (like reading Agatha Christie) and more of a waste of time.  Still, I have also downloaded a couple of Kindle books of poetry.  I am sure that we are going to be overwhelmed with reprints of every poor trench dwelling soldier who was able to rhyme next year, but I am looking for bargains and wondering if they can be read in a Kindle format.  I have just bought one called, I think, Poems of War which goes back to the American Civil War and the Crimea rather than to Classical times.  Another anthology goes back to an English sailor writing to his love while fighting the Spanish in the sixteenth century.  This anthology traces the difference between the intellectual elite who write about warfare in the abstract and those soldiers who write about it from first hand.  As long as I can get used to the format, I am looking forward to increasing my knowledge of a whole range of poets of whom I have never heard!

Roll on next year when I think that I will be in the market for some of the books which are bound to be produced to mark the start of the conflict.  I still think that my old anthology called ‘Men Who March Away’ by Parsons is one of the best that I have come across.  I would be delighted to find out that a new one has been produced and will take over as my favourite!

Now, more writing on the forums and the vain hope of some sort of response!

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