A childrens story.

The Tree that went for a Walk.

by Zachary Twoshoes

Her name is 'Summer', perhaps because she was born on mid-summer's day, exactly five years ago from today. Summer has curly fair hair, the sort that ties itself into ringlets, and she likes to wear dungarees and a summer hat when she plays in the garden.

At the bottom of the garden there's a beautiful beech tree. It has wonderful branches that reach right down to the ground. The branches have arranged themselves almost as steps,

spiralling around the tree. Summer can climb to near the top of the tree, and doesn't ever feel frightened.

I shall call you 'Emily' says Summer, with her arms around one of the beech tree's highest branches, and rests her cheek against its smooth bark. She can hear the sound of leaves rustling, answering her, and it's a friendly sound.

And mixed with this sound, Summer hears her mother calling. 'It's teatime' her mother says, and Summer slips down quietly from her hideaway in the Beech tree, runs across the garden and into the house. There are crumpets, with butter and raspberry jam, and Summers' Mum

has spread the jam into heart shapes in the middle of each crumpet. They eat them, sitting together at the table and looking into the garden.

The next day is a Sunday, and straightaway after breakfast Summer heads toward the beech tree. She climbs up to her safe place in Emily, and now it's as if there's a cradle there for her, in the branches, and she settles into the safety of them, and whispers to Emily. 'Sometimes I feel sad', she whispers, 'because my friend, Crystal, had to leave, and I don't know why, and I don't know where she's gone'.

And this time, when Summer listens to Emily's leaves rustling, she thinks that she can hear words in the wind, and Emily's saying, 'Tell me, so that I can help you'. So Summer tells the tree everything, about how Crystal left, about how she misses her, that she doesn't have such fun without her.

And Emily's leaves rustle, and the sounds that they make speak to Summer, and she hears Emily say, 'I can help you. I can take you to Crystal, to show her to you, so that you don't have to feel sad any more, because you'll know that she is happy'.

And Summer trusts Emily, and asks her to take her to Crystal, so that they can see that she is happy.

Emily cradles Summer in her branches, and rocks her until she's asleep, and then, very slowly, Emily starts to walk.

It's unusual for a tree to be able to walk, even in dreams, but Emily is an unusual tree, and she moves with the slow slide of a snail, which is so gentle that it doesn't wake Summer, as

she sleeps in the cradle of the branches.

Emily crosses the road, to ask the Chestnut Tree where they can find Crystal.

The Chestnut Tree gives Emily careful directions, and some roast chestnuts. 'Summer might like to nibble these later', thinks Emily, as she slides silently through the night, following the Chestnut's directions to the park by the Blackberry Brambles.

Summer awakes in the middle of her dreams, and, after she's had the chestnuts for breakfast, she plays in the park, staying close to Emily, so that she's sure she won't get lost.

And now a man with legs that seem as long as hedges is walking in the park, and Emily and Summer watch as he sits carefully on the bench by the pond. He opens his bag, and arranges a piece of pumpkin pie, a potato salad, and a jar of pickles on his knees, on a red and white striped handkerchief. His legs are so long that his picnic is at just the right height, as if he's sitting at a table.

And now his phone rings, and as he pats his pockets, looking for it, his hat falls off his head. It's dark brown, with a rim like a wheel, and it rolls along the path, toward the pond in the middle of the park.

Summer can see that the man doesn't know what to do, now that his picnic is so perfectly arranged on his knees, and his hat is rolling towards the pond. She nudges Emily, and Emily waves her branches carefully, and makes a breeze blow, and the breeze catches the hat, and

picks it up, and makes it sail back through the air, until it lands, gently, back on the head of the man with legs that seem as long as hedges.

He looks surprised, and Emily and Summer can hear him talking into the phone, telling the tale about how his hat fell off, and a breeze caught it, and blew it back onto his head.

Summer smiles, she's thrilled by Emily's magic.

And now Emily is whispering to an Ash Tree that is by their side in the park. Summer can hear the rustle of their leaves. The Ash Tree gives Emily a key, and tells her how to find a Lime Tree

that lives in the curve of the hill, next to the Whispering Wood.

And, after thanking the Ash Tree, Emily and Summer set off, to find the Lime Tree.

And when they arrive Emily gives the Lime Tree the key that the Ash Tree has given her, and

the Lime Tree gives Summer a leaf, the shape of a heart.

'This is where we'll be able to see Crystal', says Emily to Summer, wrapping Summer tightly it

her branches so that she won't feel frightened.

Summer looks through the branches, and through a dreamy window in a little redbrick house

she can see Crystal playing in her bedroom.

Summer lets go of the heart shaped leaf, and it floats slowly downward. Emily waves her

branches, softly, and the breeze from the branches catches the leaf, carrying it through the

open window toward Crystal.

Crystal reaches out, and gently takes hold of the leaf, and holds it close to her heart, and

looks up toward Summer, and smiles, then waves, and then carries on playing.

Summer can see that Crystal's happy, and, now that she knows Crystal's happy, she knows that she can be happy too. She holds tight to Emily, and whispers, 'Thank you', into a hollow in

Emily's bark.

Summer and Emily stay at the Whispering Wood for a while, and then they set off for home,

sliding carefully through the moonlight, to return to Summer's house and her snuggly bed.

Portfolio

Ken Dickinson

A selection of interiors, furniture, objects, photos & writings.

Interiors

Kitchen Space, Regency Flat, Brighton.

I love the way rooms work and I love their potential to work differently, after a spot of re-configuration. I love the bit in the middle too, especially if I'm working for someone I care about.

The space above is my sister's kitchen in a fantastic flat on the seafront in Brighton.

I removed the door to allow the table to be moved away from the stove, and built the work station and open cupboard to facilitate the feeling of a family room, as opposed to one that's there solely for cooking and eating.

The  bold palette of colours, with their sidewaysey stripes added a Regency air and was a simple solution to provide an warmer, more relaxed feel in what was previously a sometimes shadowey and gloomsome space.

Mid summer sun working well with the stained glass window.

 

 

 

 

 The bathroom above was designed around a 1970s Avocado tub. I love the challenge of incorporating the past with the present to send it into the future, and by removing the box work from around the bath, painting the exterior bronze and adding some outlandish aubergine feet, I felt happy to design the rest of the bathroom with the knowledge that there was a solid style direction to follow.

With thanks to Alex Beleshenko for help

 with the glass

I developed this style direction into a submarine theme, and incorporated custom-bent copper pipework for the shower rail and used a ship's porthole to borrow light from the attic above using a complicated combination of light tubes and mirrors. The sash window was completely re-furbished, and ran up and down like a train, just, maybe, as God had intended.

I based the design for the window on an photographic image of a seated sculpture I'd taken years previously, where I imagined the birds flying around the sculpture in the photo as the sculptures' thoughts, as representations of the chaos or creativity that exists, albeit invisibly, as a force field around us all.

 

Adjacent study and kitchen, Swansea.

The spaces above incorporate a couple of items of furniture as important parts of the design. The sentry box display cabinet was constructed with mdf and hardboard laminate to achieve the curves at the top as well as providing the rebates to house the shelves themselves. It originally incorporated a filing cabinet below, but the digital revolution had it's way with that.

Round, rolling, friction free and fun doors are incorporated in this catering sized stainless steel kitchen unit. Roll either of the end ones to open and to pick up the middle one en route. They'll stay in the open position until nudged, when they'll obligingly see-saw back into the closed position, via a system of rollers and weighted handles. The middle one also opens independantly. There's a You Tube clip here.

The kitchen also incorporated a starry LED ceiling, and an original 'English Rose' Cabinet, built after the war by the guys that had made the Spitfire. Coloured Jenga blocks form the counter top edging and there's also a cantilevered surface that folds away to reveal a pull out ironing board.

  

Furniture

The chair below is reclaimed from a skip and extended with MDF panels. I've extended a few chairs and a couple of tables and this is definitely my favorite. I like to sit at stool height and I like to build from a starting point of re-claimed materials. I also like the eccentricity of this piece, with it's single arm. The desk and shelves behind are irregularly curved and the support is a smoothed beech branch from the woods.

Extended chair and lobby work station

I like to start with a hand drawn and coloured sketch before committing to accurate measurements and final computer generated designs for bespoke fitted furniture. This sketch worked through the elements of the brief to incorporate a period piece of furniture within a larger set of bookshelves. There were conditions regarding fixings and no fastenings were allowed near the period piece itself, and in theory at least, it can simply slide out from the wall. Some decorative scrolling and the incorporation of inset wooden balls into the centre of the shelves attempts to marry the two styles into one piece of furniture.

 

The ball detailing can be seen here in the inset photographs.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

A three piece modular clock. 

Rearrangable in a variety of configuraions. Ceramic.

Boxing Hares. Constructed in multi layed OSB to create a feeling of energy and movement, the look that you get maybe from a photograph of movement via stroboscopic flash. The finished pieces were coated in the plastic component of GRP, and are aging well. They're planted with climbing hydrangea, that I hope will soften them over time.

Dancing Oak, Aldermaston Manor, 1986.

I painted this large fallen branch in emulsion paint as part of a sculpture project in the grounds of the Manor House at Aldermaston in Berkshire, in the mid Eighties. It's from a once giant oak tree now in the very last stages of its life, the tree itself remaining only as a huge hollow with a few twiggy beards here and there. This is one of a few huge segments of its fallen crown slowly disapearing around it. They say that an Oak tree takes two hundred years to grow, two hundred years to be, and two hundred years to die. I like this intervention in the death of a tree, to celebrate its form, and to mark one aspect of its longevity. The inset image shows a couple of other pieces of work from the project, and gives some idea of the scale of Dancing Oak.

  Photographs

Under a Quickthorn Sky

 

 

 

I enjoy interventions in photography. I like the mixed media feel that the intervention, once photographed in juxtaposition to the original photo, lends to the photo itself. The original image above, prior to the intervention of the quickthorn flowers, speaks to me of solitude. Of a journey, a pilgramage, or a transition. It's one of the last photographs I took of my mother before she died.  We were walking in the Pennines in the North of England and when we stopped for a rest we noticed little snow flakes gathered on our coats, looking like those magnified photos of symmetry that you see in school science books. I remember us both being entranced, and it made the day. Years later, I wanted an image of Mum for the wall, something to remind me of her, evocatively. I played with the quickthorn flowers in an attempt to represent the magic snowflakes, and loved the way the two components of the composite harmonised. Like the words chosen for a poem create a meaning beyond their literal sense, the elements of this composite image, that of  a journey and the beauty of moment take on a larger meaning. I think that there's feelings of care, the care of the universe, and purpose, the purpose of the journey, contained within the final  image.

I love aspects of Reportage Wedding Photography, and in this photo I love the juxtaposition of action and portrait. As the groom sparks up the genuine Trotters Independant Trading  mobile for the drive to the church, his still pyjamed son looks to the camera like the cover boy of Mad magazine. I love the straightforward documentry role that the camera can play, and I love portraiture. I've had the pleasure of having had two portraits selected for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Award and have loved the previews for these exhibitions at the NPG, hobnobbing around the exhibition with free wine.

 

Photography for me has always been about telling stories with pictures. I photographed the top image of this set of three through the letter box of an old church hall near Cwmbrwlla, Swansea. It wasn't possible to make out much detail through the gloom of the letter box with the naked eye, but the camera took this in its' stride and the revealed interior intrigued me in the way that only forbidden places can. Bright white poo and feathers from the pigeons in the rafters above carpeted this long abandoned workshop, speaking of  the way time passes, about how the human environment changes without the presence of humanity.

A few years later there was an awesome arsonic fire in the church next door and the workshop lost most of its own roof in the tragedy. I was mooching about looking for photos when the owner turned up. He told me his tale. How he'd bought what was then the church hall in the 50s to use as a workshop and how it had latterly been used as a store for the evangelical kit that the church used to take round various Christian Outreach ventures. The word 'word' in the final photo was all that was left from a display that had quoted the Biblical book of John:  'In the beginning was the Word'.

I took his photo as we mused about this. How that all that now remained amidst the ruin was the the word 'word', that, according to Biblical John at any rate, had been there since the begining of time.

 

  Writings

The two pieces above are extracts from larger works, an illustrated short story about love and a poetically annotated set of pictures from Rasquera, Catalunya, Spain.

And there's a link here to a children's story, A Cake and a Cat called Forget-me-not.

A Childrens story

 

A Cake and a Cat called Forget-me-not.

 by

Zachary Twoshoes

Henry and Irene live next door to each other, in two little houses on a hill, just around the corner from here.  They've been friends ever since Irene locked herself out of her house, and Henry helped her, and now they often spend their weekends together, so that it's not so far, from Saturday to Sunday.

Henry's eyebrows are the lowest you've ever seen. They're so low that you can't even see his eyes, and this makes him look as puzzled as a jigsaw that's still in it's box. Henry has marvellous ideas for inventions, but, because he always looks so puzzled, nobody listens to him.

Sometimes this makes Henry sad.

Irene has a heart shaped face, with a mouth like a rosebud. She doesn't like to wear her glasses, because she thinks that they make her eyes look a little too large.

She loves to bake cakes and has delicious ideas about the ingredients, but, sometimes, the cakes taste quite, well, quite surprising. The last one she'd made, with raspberries and raindrops, had smelt of seaweed, and tasted like a tomato.

Henry has a clockwork cat, called Forget-me-not, & Forget-me-not suggests that since the sun is shining, as well as the moon, they should call for Irene, and go together, to Ring-a-bell River, and watch the fish play.

Henry and Forget-me-not knock on Irene's door. She opens it wearing a yellow coat, and a purple hat. Her belt matches her eyes, which are a greeny-gold colour, the colour of the sea when the sun is setting. Irene is beautiful, and always has a tale to tell. Everyone listens to every word she says, even when she's whispering.

They walk over Remember-me Hill and down to the bridge at Ring-a-bell River. They stop here, resting their elbows on the edge of the bridge, and watch the fish play.

The fish are playing on their phones when an idea pops into Henry's head, like a pinball. One minute he's watching the fish play, and the next he's wondering why doors are square, instead of round. 'Because', he says, looking as puzzled as ever, 'if they were round, then they could just roll along, and they wouldn't get stuck, and Forget-me-not would be able to open them too, and could help me when I make tea'.

There's a silence, which goes on for a little too long, and, as Henry's expecting a reply, he says 'Pardon?', quite loudly. Irene's been thinking about baking, instead of listening to Henry, and hopes that Forget-me-not will say something.

But Forget-me-not's having a little cat-nap, so Irene says the first thing that pops into her head: 'Moonbeam cakes taste better, if you batter them with butter', she says, looking as beautiful as ever.

Henry very nearly says 'Pardon?' again, because Irene's moonbeam cake was the worst cake he'd ever eaten, and had smelt of rats, and tasted of sprouts.

Forget-me-not purrs, the sort of purr that cat's purr when they're not quite sure what to say, but want to seem friendly, and suggests that after they've said their good byes to the fish, they walk back home, and put the kettle on, and have a cup of tea.

They link arms, walk back over Remember-me Hill and settle around the table in Irene's kitchen. In the middle of the table, is a cake. 'It's a lemon cake', says Irene, proudly, 'made with real lemons, and rainbows'.

It's a pink colour at the bottom, green in the middle, and violet on top. Henry has a little taste, and Forget-me-not has a large mouthful. It tastes so peculiar that it makes Henry's eyes water and Forget-me-not's whiskers change from straight lines, into zigzags.

'Golly', says Henry, trying to be polite, 'What an unusual taste, for lemons.'  'And what an unusual taste for rainbows, too', splutters Forget-me-not, who's had to drink three cups of tea, one after the other, before being able to speak at all. Because the cake smells like bonfire night, and tastes of pickled eggs.

The taste of the cake takes up all the room in their heads, and they're quiet for a while. Forget-me-not is far too busy straightening his whiskers to say anything anyway, but in the middle of the quietness you can hear Irene say: 'I'm sure they were lemons, and rainbows, because I saw the labels on the jars, with my own eyes'. Henry burps, softly, and then says: 'Pardon?'.

There's another silence, as silent as the sound of a snowflake, landing on a toadstool, when a thought falls into Henry's head. He coughs, delicately, looking at Irene's shiny hair and her perfect outfit. 'I wonder', he says, 'I wonder if it's possible for a person that makes cakes to get the ingredients muddled, and, instead of lemons say, they put pickled eggs in, and maybe fireworks instead of rainbows?'  And then adds, quietly, 'Especially if that person is not wearing their glasses'.

Forget-me-not looks thoughtful, and then, all of a sudden, realises that when Henry says 'a person that makes cakes', he really means Irene, and this is why his whiskers are zigzagged, because instead of lemons, Irene chose pickled eggs, by mistake, and fireworks instead of rainbows, because she wasn't wearing her glasses.

Irene isn't really listening to Henry, and she starts to sing a little song, instead of replying, and doesn't stop until Forget-me-not holds up a paw:

'We should listen to Henry,' says Forget-me-not, firmly, 'because  this cake has made my zigzags quite whiskered, I mean, my whiskers quite zigzagged, and the muddles are ingredients. I mean, the ingredients are muddled. It has fireworks instead of rainbows, and pickled eggs in it, instead of lemons'.

Irene swallows, and has a little sip of tea, and Henry's so happy to be listened to, that, one after the other, his eyebrows slip slowly up his forehead, until he doesn't look puzzled any more, and you can that his eyes are shining.

'Let's make another cake' says Irene, and her eyes are shining too, 'and this time, I'll wear my glasses, and won't get the ingredients muddled'. 'And then', says Henry, smiling, 'we'll know what lemon cake really tastes like, when it's properly made with rainbows'.

Forget-me-not purrs, sounding surprised. Because, now he can see Henry's eyes, he can see that they're a beautiful greeny-gold colour, the colour of the sea when the sun is setting, exactly the same shade as Irene's.

Dali and the Pyrenees

I finished my Pyrenean Odyssy at a place called Banyuls-sur-Mer on the Mediteranean Coast. I wandered onto the beach front with its smattering of bars and took off the red rucksac for the last time. I ordered a beer. I wondered how I felt after the 800km of walking over the central spine of the Pyrenees from the Atlantic coast.

I realised that I didn't feel anything in particular. Or, perhaps more precisely, I felt that I'd done something slightly too hard for me, but that that something had been akin to knocking my head against a wall.

Anyone with the right amount of determination could have done it.

I ordered another beer. I'm to meet my friends Rob and Barbara here. We plan to spend the night, and then to motor back to their house in Rasquera, Tarragona, stopping, en route, at Salvador Dali's house in Port Llligat, Cadaques.

For a hit of Surrealism. 

Surrealism, with it's neatly unrelated combinations of images and events appeals to me after the seemingly relentless predictability of these monster mountains, with nothing but the expected as you pass from one high col to another.

I realise how I'd longed for the unexpected as I'd ached and inched up one improbable pass after another, to be confronted only with more rocks, or sun, or sky.

I remember walking up to one high col with an erstwhile companion, Nick, a serial long distance trekker from California. He was ahead of me, and as he reached the top I shouted up to him, asking him what he could see.

Rock, snow, clouds', he replies, 'what were you expecting, Las Vegas?'

And I realised then that I was expecting something else from this walk in the hills. Something undefinable, something that I didn't know that I wanted.

Later I was to realise that I had had just this, but it took me a while to work through what it was.

Here's some images from the house that Salvador and Gala Dali built in the fishing village of Port Lligat, down the road from Cadaques.

Andre Breton laid down the law about surrealism in the early 1920's, explaining it neatly as the pictorial or other expression of the real workings of the mind. Others have explained it, perhaps more succinctly, as an attempt to portray irrational thought.

The pictures here show Dali's expressiveness at work at his home. There's a gentleness about his take here, a softness that allows irrational thought a place amidst domesticity.

Once you're past the taxidermy in the hall a lot of the space seems, well, homely. The bathroom's a sedate tiled affair and there's one room dedicated to photographs of Dali himself with assorted glitterati. The effect of all this is to make you feel quite at ease, almost at home. We all like tiles in the bathroom and photos of ourselves with other people.

The house is, in fact, a neat compliment and contrast to the Dali museum at Figueres, with its inside out Chevrolet that rains on the occupants (on the insertion of a couple of Euros),

and its outsize eggs and loaves as battlements.

The totality of my Dali experience, post Pyrenees, kept me thinking about my wanting the unexpected, or my wanting the real workings of the mind explained, via my experience in the Pyrenees.


After a while, safely back in the UK, and able to process the experience, I realised what I had gained amidst the predictable snow, rock and sky.

On the High Route in the Pyrenees I would wake up with a clear sense of purpose.

To get to the next stage on the trail. 

This would be an understandable challenge, possibly navigationally demanding and would maybe also include a frisson of physical danger. 

And there'd be a reward too, in the shape of a safe pitch for the tent or a mountain refuge for the night. There were two sorts of refuges in the Pyrenees, staffed and unstaffed. The staffed variety provides food, wine and blankets, and the unstaffed; simple shelter from the storm.

It's hard to make it out here but if you look closely you can make out the shadow of the Refuge de Baborte, an unstaffed refuge on the so-called wilderness section of the trail.

The reward of shelter after the physicality of the day, and the knowledge that some Easterly progress had been made toward the Mediterranean begins to form a pattern in the mind. Nomad like, my life had made a different and straightforward sort of sense.

Long distance trekking is a very accessible package, far removed from the complex and sometimes labyrinthine challenges that we face in our workaday lives. It's one that, at least with hindsight, I value highly, and although the Pyrenees didn't offer me anything at the time that surprised me or offered to explain irrational thought, looking back, there were a couple of hints or nods to the proximity of Dali and the unexpected amidst the snow, rock and sky.

I discovered these upscale loaves, rock hard, almost fossilised in a sack in a refuge in Andorra, and earlier these wild strawberries looked very dreamy if a little bit lost on the Aneto-Posets map.

The loveliest irrational image I found though, was this: Walled Garden.

I love the way the Firethorn is growing only in the shelter of the rough wall, and stands as a splash of colour in an otherwise monochrome landscape.

The gift though, that I took from the Pyrenees, regarding the real workings of the mind, was the realisation that there are simple ways that you can live life. And even if, for me, it was only for a little while, it was a realisation enough.

Back on the trail

After a break in the UK for some photography work, I'm now back on the trail. The High Route in the Pyrenees.

This post relates to the end of the first section of the walk as I complete the section through the Basque Country.

- and the walk continues. I remain a solitary figure in a huge landscape.

I make a successful descent from the Pic d'Orhy as the weather deteriorates. I cross the Port de Larrau and via the Pic de Gastarrigagna at 1732m eventually reach the unstaffed Cabane Ardane.

This is effectively guarded by a couple of brutish shepherd's dogs, howling, and snapping at my ankles.

The shepherd is nowhere to be seen, and, tired after the adventures of the day, I ignore the standard wisdom of giving them a wide berth, as I swing a walking pole at them, and lob a couple of useful stones at them as they retreat.

I share the Cabane with a couple of clean cut French boys. They tell me a tale of the sky that afternoon. How it was full, thick with vultures. That a sickly sheep had become bones within the space of 20 minutes. Our collective mind naturally explores the likelihood of this happening to us, and I sense us scanning the sky with a certain nervousness.

And they worry about the mice scurrying around the hut too, and, in the morning, inform me that they  'didn't sleep a wink' on account of the scuttling of midnight feasts.

I've had an excellent night, undeterred by anything as harmless as mice, preferring to save my nerves for more important stuff, like exposure above glacial lakes on steep sided snow, or pulling up on precipitous holds as the darkness gathers, or even falling and twisting an ankle, and having nothing but walking poles to fend off a skyful of vultures.

I avoid the dogs in the morning by a simple ruse, and continue circumnavigating around the huge hills of Chardekagagna and the Pic de Bimbalette.

And then, almost without warning, I'm in a weird and wired landscape  I'm in a pass between the Col de Uthu and the Col de Anaye. It's the wildest place I've ever been. Neither the sketchy Spanish mapping or Ton Joosten's guide have prepared me for this beautiful lunar terrain. Limestone sculptures jut from snow fields and ancient pines rise toward a hard blue sky. And the entire scene is surrounding by punchy peaks.

The day is winding on, I've had a couple of navigational setbacks, and have failed to find water recently. There has been a fiercesome thundery heat throughout the day and my stalwart 2 litre water bottle is as empty as a broken promise.

I become benighted here, in this larger than life landscape, and the soft rain that had previously and delicately washed the beach leaves in the lower parts of the valley becomes heavy, sharp sided and cold.

I have the night trapped in my ridiculously small tent amidst a fierce electrical storm. I dub the tent 'The Coffin', and feel as squeezed as a genie in a coke can. It feels as though there's an earthquake in the sky, and the rocks are seemingly fizzing with the energy of the lightning. It's hard to describe the terrible sense of entrapment in the coffin. Certainly it feels bad enough to consider exiting the tent to the preferance of the storm as the fearful weather seems easier to deal with than the claustrophobia.

I grit it out, and realise that the hail and steep sided rain is maybe a godsend, and assemble my billy and drinking cup outside to collect enough water to drink in the morning, although the constrictions of the space and the necessary unzipping of the tent soak the sleeping bag.

Naturally, or perhaps luckily, I survive the night, but these extremes of weather make me feel small, vulnerable, alive only via the benign good humour of the gods.

But now it's as if they're pleased to have a chance to demonstrate their good will, and the gods arrange for the day to dawn like a child's smile after a tantrum.

Its wonderfully clear, and there's an energy in the air as there is near a waterfall. I make tea, break camp, head off with renewed energy to Lescon. At one point, following an extremely sketchy trail of cairns I encounter one made of chocolate bars. Yes. A chocolate cairn. A cairn is a waymarker, usually constructed from a small piles of stones. I wonder if I'm hallucinating. I eventually suppose that some party must have left it for part of their party that has lagged behind. Maybe. Or maybe it's the benign gods, looking out for me. I dither, and then assume that this is probably the case, and help myself to a Peanut Brittle. 

After a seemingly interminable stretch on snowfields, and a little slip on some sneakily slippy and steep snow I make it down to fresh water. Its the source of a river, the Marmitou. The sound of the water is exquisite. The taste exotic. I drink about five litres of the stuff straight, wondering how I've never appreciated it so roundly before and why I've ever bothered to drink beer.

I saunter down to Lescon, and safety, and check into a Gite d'etape, a bunk house with food. There's singing, food and company, and the fact that we don't have a lot of language in common is a minor detail, after this taste of solitude and frisson of danger. 

Second Pyrenean Blog

'The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast', I quip to my friends Rob and Barbara as we sit on the terrace at their house in Rasquera, Catalunya.

It's day zero. My adventure's about to start. I'm to take the train to Irun on the West Coast, and then to get to Hendaye and the start of the walk. The High Route from the Atlantic to the Med. The tarantulas are larging it again. We drive to the train station. Rob offers me helpful advice about what to do if caught in a thunderstorm up there in the hills. 'Don't shelter in a crevice in the rock', he says, 'It can act like a spark plug'. I swallow, but don't pursue the metaphor. They put me on the local train to Barcelona, where I'm to catch the train to Irun. We have a jubilant parting.  And now I'm alone. It's just me and the 55 litre back pack. The Barcelona-Irun train is full. The guy behind the glass is profoundly helpful, books me a ticket via an obscure route, with a change in the middle. He's smiling all the while. I photo the departure board, to ensure I get off at the right place.

The train is slick, powerful, air conditioned. We speed across seeming desert under bruising skies for hours. I consider the distance. I distract myself with 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles' on   the kindle. I have an hour and a halfs wait at Castel Jon Del Ebro. It's a station in the middle of nowhere. There's no cafe, no bar, no departure board, just a bewildering amount of track and platform. The guy behind the glass this time is profoundly unhelpful. Curses me for not understanding Spanish. I wonder off, I sit on the platform, imagine myself in a spaghetti western. I'm Lee Van Cleef. I walk back into the booth, pull the cheroot from between my lips menace the guy as I assure him that the Irun train will stop here. I can't imagine missing this train in this no horse town. Another employee turns up, with a smile as wide as summer. He asks me where I want to go and escourts me across the track to an obscure line, waits with me until the train arrives. We communicate with smiles. I settle back into the kindle, arrive in Irun, after more spaghetti landscape and brooding skies. I wonder why I thought it'd be fun to do this trip alone. I find a pension, buy a couple of beers and a sandwich, wonder about the reality of  Tumbleweed, my imaginary footloose persona. I awake to the sound of trains passing the window. I'm surprised to see that one has 'Hendaye' illuminated in orange on its side. I feel as if the Gods are giving me chances. I'm confident enough to put marmalade on chocolate croissants, against the waiter's better judgement. I tell him that this is how I like them. 'Me gusto esta', I say, presumably fairly incoherently. I shuffle toward the subway train, there's a dusty white van parked opposite. The first three letters of the registration plate are HRP. Now this has to stand for the Haute Route Pyrenees in anyone's lexicon. The happenstance of coincidence and omen accelerate my progress toward the now imminent fulfillment of a dream. I'm in Hendaye. I shuffle around this tourist town in full kit, feeling a little foolish. I follow the guide book to the letter, become almost immediately lost. I ask a guy selling vegetables if he knows the way to an obscure railway underpass toward the outskirts of town. Rather miraculously he understands my worse than school boy French, points me in the right direction. He looks at my bag. We smile. I show im the front cover of the book, 'The High Route, Pyrenees', we look at each other, smile again. I set off, chuckling.

I cross under the M10, have a can of sardines. I look toward the Atlantic, and the big ships nestled against the safety of harbour. I wonder about the next couple of months of my life, alternating between exultation and funk. I follow well marked paths, pour water over my head to cool down, meet a charming guy from Holland, intent on listening to the football match between Spain and Holland in a Spanish bar. I hike on, digressing from the GR11 toward the HRP, as dictated in the bible. The path trickles out, I'm thrashing around in the mist and prickle bushes. Precipitous, edgy, ugly conglomerate looms around me. I curse myself for a fool. The mist clears monentarily, I regain the obvious school boy ridge, with its safe passage down the mountain, shuffle down to the closed hotel that is the first nights stop. I'm  surprised to find my new friend from Holland already there, relaxed against a tree with headphones and a beatific smile. We're delighted to see each other. I settle into a routine over the next few days.

The bleak dirt tracks full of hunters jeeps and quad bikes changes character, slowly transmogrifying via a Christo like sculpture above Pamplona into my imagined heather hollows.

I gain my first glimpse of the high hills themselves around a squat and snowless ski resort at Iratty. A days marching and now I'm amongst them. I'm atop the first 2000 metre peak of the trail, The Pic De Orchy, a pointy mountain writ large like that from a child's picture book. It's as if I'm up with the Gods, looking down on mortality. The world seems to fall away, and I take care where to place the accoutrements of domesticity as I make a cup of mint tea, with extra sugar and exultation.

As scarey as a bagful of Tarantulas

The last few months of my life have seen a steady diminution of my material possessions.

All my lendable stuff has been lent, my stashable stuff stashed, the flat sold.

I'm down to one 55 litre back pack.

I'm staying with friends, on a small olive and apricot farm near Rasquera, Catalunya, Spain.

I'm making the final preparations for the trek.

Tommorow I'll catch the Barcelona train 

to Irun, and from there I'll make my way to Hendaye, the border town between France and Spain on the Atlantic Coast.

From here I'm set to walk the High Route across the Pyrenees.

500 miles from the Atlantic to the Med. The route stays roughly on the central spine of  mountains that separate France and Spain.

There're mountain refuges along the way, and there's also a couple of remote sections, where you have to rely on your wits.

I wonder how I'll cope with the solitude, the navigation, the physicality of it all.

I have a bag of essentials and very few luxuries.

About a week ago, on the way down from the UK, I'd crossed the Pyrenees around Andorra and Ax les Therms in the car. As I reached the top of the pass the mountains wrapped themselves in a vicious storm, and became as scarey as a bagful of tarantulas.

It rattled me at the time,  and last night I dreamt that my bagful of high tech survival kit had turned into the metaphorical tarantulas, gibbering up at me as I attempted to make camp for the night.

I grimace, steel myself, make a final check through the bag.

It's compartmentalized in dry bags. I have 'wardrobe' for sox and a spare T-shirt. I have 'office' for maps, and the luxury kindle, 'hardware' for the Sat nav and solar charger. There's a 'larder' too, a first aid kit, an ultra light weight tent the size of a bottle of coke, a tiny stove, crampons for the higher sections .... And not a tarantula in sight.

It doesn't seem much for 500 miles but it weighs over 15 kg.

But it's ready. I'm ready. I hope I'm ready enough. And if not. Well. I'm coming anyway, like we used to say as kids, when we played 'hide and seek'.

 'Coming, ready or not'.

Writing this, I realise that I've the same overwhelming mixture of sensations, now, as I had then, squashed in the airing cupboard or wherever, and they're taking short cuts between my mind and stomach.

Anticipation, delight, excitment and fear.

A heady combination.

I think back a couple of days. Barbara, my friend from Rasquera and I had been on the coast for lunch, and we'd spotted this sculpture at l'Ametlla de Mar.

Now then, I wonder, if I had legs s long as this, what would I be feeling now?

To be able to walk like the Gods, amongst the Heather Hollows of High Hills, and to take one's rests, with such elegance.

To tackle the mountains with style. That's what I'd like to do. Even if my legs are pint sized, human, and 53 years old to boot.

To tackle the mountIns with style. As my favourite poet, Charles Bukowski might have said; 'That is what I call art'.