DISTRACTED BY DUCKS

I was day dreaming in a team leaders' meeting the other day. The ducklings outside were shaking themselves into fluffy balls and the rain was circling into the lake. Under the fluorescent lamp and the gaze of the others inside, in here, in the zoo, the world was a little less interesting.

"I spent two hours going over it last night at home," growled one of the lions, referring to a dull piece of paper he didn't really care about. None of the others raised an eyebrow. This is normal. This is... expected.

I don't think my life is compatible with the lives of managers. They don't have extracurricular activities; they just have work, and work is their master. This wasn't the first time I'd heard this. A few weeks ago, I asked them how they actually had time to do anything practical given that the managers stack most of the days with meetings.

"That's what evenings are for," said one, with a sigh.

Sure, some of these people have kids, but from the look of it they barely interact with them, or look up from the flickering laptop screen on the sofa.

I thought that we were supposed to work to live, not live to work. What nonsense kind of future is this - where work spills over from its sloppy container and seeps into the rest of your life? Are most of us living in a prison of our own design? I felt like spinning round in my chair like Admiral Ackbar and shouting, "It's a trap!"

I mean seriously, who cares about this stuff to the point where it pollutes the best bits of your life? Is any of it really that important? What's it actually for?

I didn't say any of that out loud. But I am more resolved than ever, never to take work home with me. It's not happening. It can't happen anyway - I've got too much going on in the rest of my life.

I turned back to the ducks. They don't have any worries do they? Even in the pouring rain, they seemed to be loving life out there on the lake. There's a simple freedom to being a duck.

That might go down as the weirdest sentence I've written in any of these 749 blog posts.

You know what I mean though.

BACK TO THE MAGIC WONDER BOX

Okay so my phone is well and truly bust now. It's the same old iPhone story: charging port gets dusty with pocket lint, charger doesn't connect, phone dies. Thank you and goodnight, lots of love, Apple.

I think I might switch to Samsung, or maybe Windows, or maybe Nokia (this never happened with the 3210) or perhaps semaphore or carrier pigeon. Ah those were the days: scribbling out the letters WUU2? on a bit of ticker tape and then wrapping it round the foot of a squawking pigeon before flinging open the window and screaming 'fly, fly my pretty!' while it flapped off in a hopeful direction over the rooftops.

I can't complain too much. I am after all, typing on a magic wonder box which is theoretically connected to every other magic wonder box on the planet via bits of metal orbiting the Earth in actual space. When you think about it, the technology of that is quite extraordinary.

I think it might be the battery that's dead. There is no response at all and it's been plugged in for hours. I am incommunicado - which will probably annoy that handful of people who are desperate for me to make a PPI claim, or those jokers who are still adamant that I've had an accident in the last two years. Not to mention the 'experts' from 'Microsoft' who have detected a fatal system error on a computer that doesn't exist.

"Yeah, you do know that I only have Apple products, don't you?" I said, the last time they phoned me up.

Although that hasn't worked out too well in hindsight, has it?

If you want to talk to me, it's back to the old magic wonder box I'm afraid.

MAINSTREAM BUDDHISM FOR THE MIDDLE CLASSES

So HR are trying to get us to book ourselves onto the five week Mindfulness course.

Apparently it's all about stopping and noticing the world around us. Or as the promotional material puts it, "waking up to the sights, smells and tastes of the present moment. That might be something as simple as the feel of a banister as we walk upstairs.."

Guess how much it costs to learn how to notice your banisters: £95.

Make of that what you will, but if you want to do it, might I suggest you just go for a walk (free), listen to the trees (also free) and be thankful that you're alive (extremely free). If you're feeling really plush, you could even get one of those adult-colouring books, taking great care where you put the hyphen when you order it of course.

Where did this Mindfulness idea come from? Is it mainstream Buddhism for the middle classes? Did someone notice that most of the world is moving so quickly these days that everyone is stressed out and angry and we all just need to stop and smell the coffee? We're not all stress-heads, you know.

I don't think it's for me the old Mindfulness course, thank you very much. I could try it but I'd continually be wondering why I was paying 95 earth pounds to someone, to show me how to think more deeply about my surroundings. I am quite capable of that.

MONSIEUR CRAVATE

I've just seen a security guard wearing his tie outside his jumper. Is this a new fashion do you reckon? Collars neatly tucked into the knitwear, tie bulging out over the top of it like an absurd tongue?

Maybe this is how fashion starts. An individual forgets a belt one day and then six months later all the teenagers are walking round with their underpants hanging out of their jeans. Perhaps even years ago, Monsieur Cravate (I imagine) twiddled the ends of his moustachios and said to himself, 'Ah Monsieur Cravate you saucy French setter of the trends, if only there could be a way to hold zis ridiculously frilly shirt togetheur at the neck?

I'm not quite sure what the tie is for, actually. I can see it dying out. Even in my lifetime the bigwigs I've worked for, the preachers I've known and the executives who've strode by importantly have all abandoned the tie for open-necked shirt collars with a suit jacket. Weddings, funerals, interviews and court appearances are all still formal enough for the half-Windsor of course, but aside from that (and the cavalcade of red-faced politicians we all see every day at the moment) I very rarely see the tie, especially live and out here in the wild. I have a shoebox full of them, collecting dust somewhere.

'Monsieur Cravate, may I introduce to you, Monsieur Pierre de Button? Monsieur de Button has un invention ingenious! It uses the tiny silk threads and un petit disc of Ivory with holes in it. See how his chemise fastens together! C'est encroyable!'

'Encroyable indeed.'

Part of the problem is that no-one is really sure what the tie is for. I do think one day it will be as redundant as Tudor breeches or Victorian corset hoops. We'll look back at period dramas and ask ourselves why we half strangled ourselves with a useless piece of fabric, just to look like everyone else who was sweltering in the afternoon sun.

Someone has just told the security guard that his tie is hanging out and he is busily tucking it back into his jumper. That was a short lived fashion then. He looks a little embarrassed.

Come to think of it, security guards aren't usually at the forefront of what's cool are they? I won't be trying it.

SAFETY IN THE STORM

Somewhere between 2 and 3 I woke up to see the sky flickering through the curtains. It was lightning.

I really like a night-time storm. It's no respecter of sleepers; it simply roars in across the silent world and cracks open the sky until it pours with rain.

I threw back the curtains, cranked open the window and watched, perched on the windowsill. The air was full of that fresh, damp, earthy smell and the trees were rustling against a brooding sky. Their silhouettes stood bold against the deep grey bank of clouds that rolled above.

It seemed significant somehow, on the eve of the country making a big decision about our future. Thunderstorms bring change, and after months of an ill-tempered campaign, it was finally time for the atmosphere to shift. Whichever way this referendum goes, we all know that change is inevitable.

Change in my own life too. I feel it on the breeze, though I can't describe it very well. Much is required of me and yet I can't carry it; or at least I don't think I can, which is a different matter. I have to sort it out. Certainly, the old is gone and the world we're living in is very new.

The world lit up in a double flash of white light. For a brief moment, the garden, my next door neighbour's shed, the park, the trees, the grass, were silently illuminated into sharp shadows before falling back into the darkness.

Moments later, the thunder whip-cracked through the night and rumbled angrily around the valley.

There I was, squashed up on the windowsill, my knees drawn up to my chin, leaning against the open window, feeling the breeze. In the midst of great change, I thought, it's good to be safe.

IT ALL KICKS OFF AT THE ZOO

I grabbed a pen, flipped open my book and started to write while the meeting degenerated into a soap opera.

I read somewhere that it's a useful tip in meetings when you're trying to control any emotional responses - grab a notebook and start writing, anything, as though you were taking notes. Not only does it calm you down, but it also looks like you're studiously paying attention. Meanwhile the volcanic shouting (not at me) continued. There are a couple of things about arguments I've noticed that are quite important.

One is that angry people are almost always angriest with themselves, underneath it all. There'll be some reason why they're blowing up like Vesuvius but it's not always the reason they're locking onto. That's a smokescreen.

The other is that shouters can't listen while they're shouting, sometimes because listening prevents them from venting and venting diffuses the inward insecurity, but mostly because no-one else is saying anything and their own mouth is in free-fall. Bellowing rarely accomplishes anything but it does certainly change the atmosphere.

I looked back at my notebook later and had a reminder of what I had written:

Lion
Bear
Cat
Sea lion
Meerkat
Owl
Mouse

It's an interesting collection of characters. From the Lion who roars when poked by the Cat, then sulks in the corner, brooding dangerously, to the Owl and the Bear who try mediating with logic and learning while the Sea lion applauds everything insanely; the world is made up of lots of different people, a lot of them in meetings with each other.

I know what you're thinking. The answer (though I'd really rather it isn't) is Mouse. How do I know? Industrially scribbling in my notebook while Armageddon kicked off round the table.

Eek eek.

POLLEN DIARIES: PART 8

The Clarityn app has declared that today's pollen level is VERY HIGH. Just like that, in massive capital letters.

Don't worry. I'm not going to go in to great detail about waking up with my eyes stuck shut or the explosive sneezes that blasted a fine spray into the beams of early morning sunlight. I won't describe my pendulous, tingling, congested nose... or the irritating sniffle it makes me do whenever I feel it start dripping.

I braved it in the end and took an antihistamine, as well as squirting some nasal spray up each nostril. It's cold stuff - it feels like liquid nitrogen. Meanwhile the old digestive system seems okay.

I don't think I'm the only one using the nasal spray -  I keep smelling it everywhere I go.

I guess the pollen count must be extremely high today.

RED SNEAKERS

Right, back to it then, the old life-thing. Holiday over, hit the ground running and off we go again.

The hay fever's back too, would you believe. I bought some nasal spray, which I injected into each nostril (that was a sight) and then immediately sneezed back out again. It seems to have had virtually no effect - my sinuses are almost constantly congested. I am breathing entirely through my mouth.

"You're looking brown," said Rory, beaming.

"I've got no reason to be," I said, "It rained almost the whole time." I noted that Rory himself had gone a Mediterranean colour after his own holiday on Crete; I was almost albino by comparison. "Must be the open collar and the trainers," I said, glancing at my cool, red, canvas sneakers. I didn't feel quite so cool later on when I had to walk home in them, in the rain. Another wet-foot trudge.

The old life-thing is difficult. I've found myself (not deliberately) resuming with my inadequacy, trying to work out why it matters so much that I feel so hopeless at everything. People are astounded at that, but I genuinely do feel it - inadequate, I mean.

We played another barn dance gig last night and right in the middle of the Nottingham Swing Set, I listened to myself showing off. It's not good enough, is it? I twiddled into the blues and as usual went completely over the top, seemingly just because I could. It's terrible musicianship.

"How do you think it went?" I asked at the end.

"Rusty," said Tom, honestly.

I'll say.

It's not just the Nottingham Swing set or Circassian Circle or whatever, it's everything. I don't have the ability to leap to the next level, and that is exactly where I need to be - especially at the moment. We're in a church season where everything has shifted, and shifted suddenly. Even after walking and thinking around Lyme Regis, I still don't have a clue how to catch up. I am inadequate, stuck in the wrong season and out of time. It's as though I've turned up for a dinner party in a yellow sou'wester and Wellington boots, or a barbecue in a tuxedo or something.

Though I guess that one would be alright if I wore my cool, red sneakers.

Perhaps I just need to let go of all this and remember who I am. After all, it's not the sneakers that make anybody cool, is it? And I have a feeling that my own inadequacies won't matter all that much once I figure out who I really am.

SUN, SEAGULLS, STORMS AND SHADOWS

"I say!" I said out loud, thus proving it to the surrounding old-age pensioners. I was sitting on a bench watching the world go by. Suddenly without warning, and rather like an old friend turning up out of the blue, the sun was out.

The man next to me rustled through his copy of the Daily Express and muttered something about it being 'about flaming time' and then went back to the folds of his newspaper.

Everything is happier when the sun is out - especially at the seaside. The water glistened and sparkled, the clouds parted and shadows appeared. It was a very pleasant morning. And not at all what the lady in the fudge shop had predicted.

"It'll be settin' in now," she'd said with a faint Irish twang, "Just like yesterday. You here for long are you?"

"I'm going home tomorrow," I said, "But I was out yesterday and I got soaked,"

"Ah did you love, that's nice," she said, twiddling the ends of a pink and white stripy bag. She went on to tell me that it would probably thunder today and that would be that. I thanked her and went on my way.

It was so nice that I decided to spend the morning on the beach, reading. What a treat - a light breeze, some cloud but mostly bright, warm sunshine. I threw my rucksack behind me, shuffled into the stones and lay back with a book.

Would you believe me if I told you that a seagull stole my sandwich? I mean the other day, one had a go at half-hinching my cod and chips - surely it couldn't happen again? It did though. It swooped in from behind me, fluttered its wings in my face and swooped off again. I didn't really know what had happened at first. I looked down and my last tuna sandwich had disappeared, leaving only a trail of bits of lettuce, and me holding a crust. A lady a few metres away, looked at me, looking bewildered, and laughed uproariously into her hand. I didn't think it was that funny.

It did start raining eventually, so I went back to my room to watch football. It struck me today how absurdly young the players are. That has happened all of a sudden, somehow.

After all that, I thought I might venture back out again but when I looked out, the sky had turned a deep shade of purple and rain was tumbling out of it and cracking the pavement. Then the world flashed bright white for a moment before thunder split the heavens open. I decided to stay in for a bit longer. I wrote another poem while I was sitting inside listening to the storm. It's about thunder and lightning but I'm not quite sure what to call it. Maybe...

Don't be Scared of Thunder and Lightning

I don't think it's God moving tables around

I don't think it's Zeus taking shots at the ground

I don't think it's Thor with that hammer of his

And I don't think it's Bel getting into a tiz

I don't think it's Perun, or Indra or Bin

Nor Teshub nor Tarhunt nor Chinese Xin Xing

It's not Aunty Mavis in one of her strops

And it's not someone angry at harvesting crops

No, ionised air is the reason it booms

And it cracks and it rumbles through windows and rooms

A discharge of current from sky to the ground

It heats up the air and it propagates sound

So the next time it flashes and rumbles about

It isn't a deity trying to shout

It isn't responding to something we've done

It's weather, like fog, or the snow, or the sun

There's nothing to fear from a rumble or two

So you can enjoy it and savour the view

There's never a need to run or to hide

Just don't use a tree for shelter outside

Storms don't last forever of course, so later I did trek out for the evening. As beautiful as the morning had been, so the evening turned out to be. The sea was calm and golden, the sky was laced with coloured clouds. Long shadows fell across the rain-washed stones. Golden Cap was lit once again in the evening sunshine. This will be my last evening here this time, and it was great to end it the way it started. I sat on a bench and tried to process all the things I've thought and prayed about - in the woods, on the beach, up and down the stones and sand, on the cliff tops, in the corn field with a cup of tea and some chocolate buttons. I certainly do feel relaxed, which of course, was the whole aim in the first place. How long will it last? I wonder.

I stood up to zip up my jacket and make my way back to the hotel. The lettering on the bench caught my eye as my own shadow fell across it. For Gwendolin and Charlie, who loved this view, it said, just as it had said on Sunday. I can see why. Thanks Gwendolin and Charlie. I loved it too.

TEA BREAK NUMBER TWO AND THE MIRACLE BREW

I had the lid of the flask balanced on one knee, a packet of chocolate buttons on the other and I was carefully opening one of those little pots of UHT milk. Above me, the tree plopped rainwater into the tea and pattered onto my hat like somebody randomly tapping. This was tea-break number two on the Most Difficult Walk I Have Ever Done.

I went West today. I headed out beyond the fossil beach and climbed the steep wooden steps to the coast path that leads to Seaton. The sign said it would take between 3 and 4 hours, would be an 'arduous' journey across 'unpredictable' terrain and included no routes back to the sea or the main road once you were on it. It was all or nothing. I like a challenge. I am clearly missing some wiring.

Little did I know at that hopeful signpost, that this would be the Most Difficult Walk I Have Ever Done. It started raining about an hour in and that made everything slippy. I was roasting under my raincoat but also getting soaked, which left me with the choice of being wet through or being cooked for most of the way. The path itself was a mud-slide through the woods, twisting and turning between the trees and the roots and the brambles, scaling up the cliff and then climbing back down with steep wooden steps. I fell over eight times, slipping in the mud, thinking about Jurassic Park, stumbling in the sopping puddles of murky brown water that line the route. My hands were black with soil and stinging with nettles. Rain pelted me through the trees and yet again the woods seemed interminable.

So tea-break number two was very welcome, under that tree in the pouring rain. I'd spread my raincoat out over the moss-covered earth and opened up the tin, ready to pour myself out a beautiful cup of hot tea - lid of the flask on one knee, packet of chocolate buttons on the other.

I found myself thinking of my friends, Megan and Adam. They're in Morocco this week. I bet they're not sheltering under a tree drinking tea in the rain. Then there's Rory and Danni. They're in Crete, a beautiful Greek island which is all green, white and blue in my imagination. I pictured fluffy little clouds floating lazily over a deep green ocean and tall cypresses waving against the warm blue sky.

Would I swap? I wondered.

After a while, I came to the conclusion that I really wouldn't. This kind of arduous eight-mile adventure has its own reward, and I like it. Besides, this is what I have chosen - and there is a beauty about the solitude of the woods. Tea rarely tasted sweeter and the leaves have never sounded richer or happier than when blown by the breeze or dripping with rain. We're all different I suppose.

I got to Seaton feeling elated and exhausted, and I settled for some lunch in a little coffee shop there. They had a copy of the Daily Mirror so I skimmed through all the celebrity and sports junk and tackled the crossword. Then I walked along the stony seafront before waiting for the bus back. By that time the rain had really set in and there was no way I was going back the way I came.

I thought up a poem in the bus shelter. It's called Miracle Brew:

Miracle Brew

The rain cascades

On the Perspex cage

Where I wait on a plastic seat

I'm damp and I'm cold

And I ache cos I'm old

And the water's got down

to my feet

The bus won't be here

Until later this year

And the rain trickles

Endlessly on

Past graffiti and smoke

Like a terrible joke

Oh I do hope the bus won't be long!

But miracles do

Come out of the blue

And stop you before you can ask

I remembered with glee

The leftover tea

Which was swirling around in my flask!

Oh miracle brew!

How beautifully you

Come pouring to cheer us all up

I unscrewed the top

And opened the stop

And the tea trickled into the cup

The rain cascades

On the Perspex cage

Where I wait in a world getting wetter

But if you're like me

With a flask of tea

It's already feeling much better

Shortly after this, the bus appeared and for a very welcome two pounds and ninety pence, it took me back to Lyme Regis. I asked the bus driver whether there was a stop near my hotel, and he very kindly stopped right outside it. "There is today!" he said, cheerily. I doubt that would happen in Marrakech or Crete.

Mind you, I have never felt more alive or more exhausted. Or soaked.

THE HATTIE STONE

It rained a lot today so I didn't much feel like hiking across the coastal path. Instead, I had a day around the town, sketching in Costa and being woefully inadequate at today's crossword.

I did manage to go fossil-hunting though. Beyond the Cobb and the harbour, there's a stretch of rocky beach where you might get either caught in a mud slide, stuck in the tide, or lauded with international fame and fortune for some paleontological discovery. I've always been one for adventure.

I felt like an astronaut. I had my raincoat on with the hood up, waterproof trousers billowing in the breeze and my rucksack pinned to my back while I carefully navigated over the stones. Slippery rocks and pebbles tend to move when you step on them. On the fossil beach, no-one can hear you scream.

Well, I suppose the teenagers sheltering under an umbrella might have been able to. She wrapped her arms around him and he held the brolly over her head. I guessed that they were more interested in each other though, than the distant cries of a bedraggled spaceman trying to keep his balance twenty metres away.

I didn't find any ammonites or trilobites or tyrannosaur femurs or plesiosaur skeletons or the perfectly preserved and feathered skin of an anklyosaur. In fact, the most interesting thing I found today was a stone with the name HATTIE written on it in permanent marker. I quickly concluded that the Hattie-Stone was not a spectacular prehistoric find and so as the teenagers kissed and the rain hammered onto the rocks, I headed back to the safe bit of Lyme Regis.

It's a very patriotic place, this. There are Union Flags all over the place - probably because of the recent Royal birthday. Although, given the number of 'Vote Leave' posters around, it might just be a less subtle message they're hoping will be visible from the other side of the ocean.

One pub even appears to be continually flying the Royal Standard - you know, the flag that they use to tell you that the Queen's in. I had a quick look inside to check but there was only an old man sipping a pint and a dog tied to a beer barrel. The old man nodded at me in the way that old men in pubs do and I nodded back. It was only on the outside that I twigged the pub was actually called The Royal Standard. That makes sense then, I thought to myself.

What makes less sense is serving a cheesecake on a slate. I wondered whether someone had tried ordering plates but spelled it wrong and thought, oh well, no-one will notice. I tried very carefully not to scrape the fork against it. It was tricky though because the white chocolate and strawberry cheesecake was absolutely delicious. If you ask me, this hipster fad of serving food in recepticles that are not usually suitable for the transport or consumption of food is already getting old.

I wonder who Hattie was. How did she come to write her name in permanent marker on a stone and leave it on a fossil beach? What was her story? In the grand scheme of things is it any different to the tale of tiny creatures being washed up by an ancient ocean and then crushed by mud, millions of years ago?

Well, yes, it probably is - but only because it's a matter of time. I kept the stone in the end. Maybe one day it will remind me that there are always things to be discovered, even when you're looking for something else. Though if you're about to serve a cheesecake, might I recommend a plate?

INTERMINABLE WOODS

"This can't be the coastal path!" I said to the trees. The trees were less than helpful, remaining silent, shoving their branches in the way, and dripping rainwater on me. I scrambled over a mossy root, slipped off it and got tangled up in some brambles.

I was lost in the woods. I had followed the path as carefully as I could and had somehow found myself hacking through jungle and poking the undergrowth like Stanley looking for Livingstone. My boots were wet and my rucksack was heavy. My skin was crawling with invisible ants as well.

I had attempted to walk from Lyme Regis to Charmouth, a place I remembered fondly from my childhood. We'd taken a rubber dinghy there on hot sunny days and floated down the stream with it. It was also great for fossils, being just two miles down the Jurassic Coast from Lyme Regis. The map thought it would be an easy enough walk, just trek along the coastal path and amble into Charmouth.

I picked the leaves out of my hair and brushed off the mulch from my jeans. Easy enough eh? The woods seemed to go on for ever. In fact, I was sure I had seen this bit of it before. I reckon I've got one of those faulty maps - it's the only logical explanation.

I like the silence of the wood. I like the dark canopy of leaves that blots out the sky and I like the tall, slender trees that poke out of the earth as straight as flagpoles. I like the way the light flickers through the tree trunks and the green leaves, and the way the sky peeks and winks between them in tiny slivers of light. I like all of that, normally. Today though, I was just trying to find my way out, and I fell over three times.

In the end I just collapsed, exhausted, into a clearing and looked out over the sea, through some tall grass. I poured out a cup of tea, opened a packet of Oreos and tried to forget where I was. I think tea-from-a-flask might be one of my favourite blends.

Lost in the interminable woods: what a metaphor. Sometimes life sends you into the woods and it feels very much as though you'll be camping there. You won't though. When I'd drunk my tea and the Oreos were back in the tin, I picked myself up, retraced my steps a bit, and found the path - it was the only option. Soon I was strolling across a golf course under open skies with the sea stretching out beyond the cliffs. All that matters is where you are now, what's in front of you now. How you got there doesn't really matter all that much, though my scratched, muddy hands told a story all of their own.

Of course the metaphor broke down a bit by the time I got to Charmouth. There wasn't really anything there! The river was wide and fast and fenced off, the beach was rough and stony. The wind pulled in spray from the sea and drove it up the beach like tiny wet bullets. There would be no fossil hunting today. 

I had a bacon bap from a café and talked to some pensioners about whether ketchup from a sachet was okay if it was orange. They said that they thought it would be fine, and seemed weirdly reassured that the sachet itself proclaimed, 'It's tomato ketchup'. I didn't like to point out that wasn't necessarily a good sign. 

After that I caught the bus back to Lyme Regis and started the Times Crossword. Started, you'll notice. There was no getting out of the woods with that one today - just not smart enough.

THE ADVENTURER AND THE DECTORIST

I sat on a bench belonging to Gwendolin and Charlie, who "loved this view". I could hardly have blamed them, had they still been around to blame: the sea stretched out, sparkling in the evening sunshine, lapping at the wet sand, rippling cool, calm and flat under a cloud-painted sky. Golden Cap, the highest cliff on the south coast, was bathed in the warm, low sunshine and very much living up to its name.

I am then, at last, on holiday. So far, I've driven into a drainpipe, tripped over my shoelaces, been intimidated by a hungry seagull and come face-to-face with a dog the size of a bear.

I am exaggerating a bit. There was no real damage to the car - just a clunk as I parked it. The guy who runs the B&B told me I probably won't need it again, which is actually fine by me, although it struck me later as an odd thing to say. I will need it to go home, of course.

"Are you here for work?" he asked as I filled out my form.

"Nope, just a short break," I replied, trying to remember my address. He told me I'd picked a good week and that it should be nice and quiet. I think, actually, I might be the only person staying here, so that is possibly inevitable.

I went for a wandering adventure this evening. Lyme Regis is one of those places which is sort of built on a terrace that slopes down to the sea. As a result, everything useful is at the top of the hill and the beach is at the bottom. I remember this from my childhood. Holidays for us were 75% sitting on the beach in the rain eating sandwiches and 20% carrying chairs and picnic boxes and windbreaks back up the steps to the car park. The other 5% was spent trying to find a suitable place to eat, as I remember. That was never easy with my family.

I managed it okay tonight though, I think. I found a beachside café with some outdoor seating; I ate fish and chips off a square plate. As I reclined, feeling replete with mushy peas, a giant seagull squawked in, perched on the table and started pecking at the half-eaten battered cod I could not finish. I raised my eyebrows at it. It gave me a beady look and then flapped off.

I sat on the stones for a while and threw rocks into the sea, thanking God that the sea air has taken away my hay fever. Then I wandered along the seafront, overhearing snippets of interesting conversations.

I saw an old man in a Christmas jumper, metal-detecting along the sand. He was bent over, almost double, swinging his detector from side-to-side, looking for treasure under his faded sun hat and dark glasses. He was muttering to himself. I wondered what it was he was looking for. It struck me as a melancholy image - maybe a lost precious thing from years ago, perhaps a granddaughter's toy, perhaps it was just a hobby. I've thought up a poem for him:

The Detectorist

Ring pull, coke can

Covered by the sand

He turns about a tiny car

Within his weathered hand

Bottle top, pin-badge

Buried out of reach

Until the day he rescues them

And pulls them from the beach

Sun hat, weather-worn,

Detector swinging wide

But what is he detectoring

From side to side to side?

Lost things, buried here?

Forgotten out of hand?

Ancient shards of priceless

Treasure, hidden in the sand?

Lost things, lost world

Broken and alone

But who will go detectoring

To bring them 

Home?

It was while thinking about this that I got tangled up in my laces and had to have a sit down to sort them out. For some reason, I've brought extra long laces for my walking boots. I have to double-tie them and then tuck them into my socks. I sat on the sea wall and pulled them tight and safe. Then I got up and was immediately growled at by a massive dog on a lead. I smiled weakly and sat back down again.

"Come on," said the dog's owner, to the dog, as though the behemoth had just been sniffing a bin bag instead of snarling at an actual human being with long shoelaces. This is worse than the time I got mistaken for luggage on the Leeds to Bradford line, I thought. But that's a whole other (uncomfortable) story.

So anyway, here I am, relaxing on the south coast, enjoying a view patronised by Gwendolin and Charlie. I think I might start walking tomorrow. Who knows what adventures await!

LIVING OFF A THERMAL

I used the phrase 'living off a thermal' earlier, and I thought it could do with some explaining. You know, just in case you thought it had anything to do with radiators or long johns or something.

What I mean (of course) is the effortless art of soaring like an eagle on a pocket of warm air, high above the ground where you don't need to do much flapping to keep yourself going. The current does it all for you. It sounds beautiful but... you've got to learn how to get there, and even then you don't know how long it will last before you have to start flying to the next one. Hence me not doing any washing up for a week, rushing straight to church after work and (to my Mum's disappointment) living off microwaveable ready meals. Flap, flap, flap, soar, soar, soar, collapse, collapse, collapse, flap, flap, flap. Ping!

I looked around the room tonight at the ocean of hands in the air. There were people there who have much more stamina than I do. They'd been to everything, day and night for the last week and a half, throwing themselves in. They have found thermals that I have not. But is that okay? Does it show less passion on my part? Should I be more, dare I say it, spiritual? If it gets to 10:15pm and I look at the clock and realise I left work five hours ago and my desire is to be in bed rather than in a 'life-changing revival' is that... well, is it acceptable? Is it okay? Should I be flapping harder to find the thermal that gets me all the way through tomorrow without feeling so tired that I could throw up?

Thankfully, whatever happens, I am going on holiday in a few days' time. That will require very little flapping, and hopefully some very natural soaring by the craggy cliffs and sparkling seas of the Dorset coastline. 

I sometimes feel a bit like a sparrow in a world of eagles. It's not a lack of trying, it's more that I don't feel like I've got the right wingspan. I can play, and that is a thermal for me, and I can walk and climb and think and pray on my own, that's another, but I can't always stay awake when I've been working so hard to fly as fast and as bravely as others can.

LATE NIGHT PARK REFLECTION

I got home from choir as the sky faded into dusk. Long trails of purple cloud stretched above the trees and the first few stars were twinkling between them.

I unlocked my door, threw my bags inside and headed out into the park.

Choir had been good. For the first time ever, we got through five pieces with fifteen minutes to spare. Even Betty had been on top form:

"Were your ears burning earlier?" she said, leaning on her zimmer frame.

"Have you been talking about me again, Betty?" I asked, smiling.

"You're part of my therapy now," she replied with a twinkle, "Music, you see? Helps with the old-timers' disease... apparently."

I don't think it's called that, but I did smile. I suddenly got the feeling that somehow I was making a difference to somebody after all. There are few better things to feel.

The grass was knee high. I waded through it, pushing my way toward the bench that overlooks the valley. There was no-one else in the park. The moonlight caught the edges of the empty play area, painting silver strands across the wood and plastic, glinting from the metal of the slide. Night time makes everything more beautiful, it seems.

I sat there for ages, watching the world slowly merge into the colourless shades of night.

It is still hard to contemplate the speed at which things are changing. In some ways, it feels like being inside a storm without any idea how big it is. To know that, you'd have to be outside it, or be able to run faster than it, or live in a time after it. I don't yet have the distance to describe this, nor would I want to. There's a beautiful hopelessness about that.

I also have a fear that this season might just ask me for more energy than I can give. I told my Mum that I'd been living off ready-meals and she made the worried-disappointed face that only mums have perfected. The tension between being sensible and living off a thermal is probably not going to dissipate.

The trees shivered. I checked my phone and realised I had 1% battery left. I took that as a sign that I probably ought to go home and recharge.

OVERWHELMED AND INADEQUATE

The window is open. I can hear the trees rustling in the park as the summer breeze tickles through them in the gathering darkness. There are trains far away, on their way to Oxford or back to Reading I suppose. I imagine their brightly lit windows flickering by as they rattle happily over the sleepers. A distant dog barks through the stillness and then suddenly everything is quiet, even still.

I'm hot. Buried under the weight of the duvet, I lie pinned to my scratchy sheet. The clock ticks and my eyes grow heavy while I contemplate it all. But it is hard to contemplate.

Up in the church office earlier, Mabel asked me how I would describe the last week or so. My eyes flicked up to the fluorescent strip lamp and then round the room for inspiration.

"Overwhelming," I said after a few moments, "It's the only word I've got."

"It's a good one," said she in her Northern Irish way. I nodded. I've never heard of, seen, or felt anything like this - over five hundred people responding to the gospel in just a few days, in Britain, in our town, in our church! Not to mention the incredible times we've been having in these evenings. It almost seems an injustice to try to write about it.

"I think I feel quite inadequate," I said to Mabel. "I don't think I have the tools or experience to deal with the shift that's taken place." I certainly don't; I'm still processing. I don't have the songs, the music, the words or the strength to capture it - everything I've ever leaned on for strength was based on something from a different season, and nothing will do now - nothing; this is all new. It is all overwhelming, and we're all just figuring it out.

I think it might be raining out there. It sounds like leaves but something is gurgling  - a gutter or a drain singing happily in the light scattering of rain. That's how it happens sometimes - it just starts raining and the thirsty earth sings to the sky. I wish I were out there, spinning through the long, wet grass, throwing my hands up as my face glistens in the lamplight. When it rains I get the feeling that everything is changing, everything gets wet and nothing is quite the same again. It's true for all of us, and right now, overwhelmed and inadequate, I need that to be true for me too.

AUSTRALIA AT THE OVAL

I've come to the park for lunch today. It seems to be sports day. Well, cricket day, anyway. There are hundreds of small people here in long t-shirts and shorts chasing after tennis balls and shouting things like 'Go! Go! Go!' and 'Catch it!'

I'm sitting on the skateboard ramp eating melon and grapes out of a pot I got from the Co-Op.

One of these kids is setting out his fielders as though they were playing Australia at The Oval.

"Connor, Connor, square leg next to the umpire!" he gesticulated at a hapless Connor who was staring at the clouds in the outfield. Connor flapped his arms and then shuffled wearily back towards the pitch and the exasperated bowler.

It's funny how important a thing seems when it fills your whole world. For these young cricketers, winning today looks like everything. But from over here on the skateboard ramp, the world looks a lot larger, scarier and more important than cricket. Perhaps it is, or perhaps the things I worry about are not all that much in the grand scheme of things, after all. Perhaps it's all relative.

Connor's just been told off for looking the wrong way and daydreaming while the ball flew past him. It seems his mind is elsewhere. I chuckled to myself as though reminded of something from twenty five years ago. He'll go far, that lad.

TIME TO COLLAPSE

I'm not sure which bit of the afternoon was my favourite: sitting in the park sneezing incessantly while my Mum cooed over all the presents she'd previously said she didn't want, or being bashed on the head to within an inch of concussion by a Nibling with a rounders bat.

Why is everything a light sabre? A stick of French baguette? light sabre; a collapsed umbrella - light sabre; a spare pole to my Aunty's gazebo - light sabre. And when they're not leaping around pretending that they're Jedis, the Niblings are holding out their hands and using the force to try strangling Uncle Matthew. Or walloping him with one of Obi Wan Kenobi's rounders bats.

My head was ringing like a bell, which made a change from the dizzy spin of hay fever. The grassy world reverberated around me, sending my family, with all its suddenly dysfunctional history, completely out of focus.

When I woke up I was somehow curled up... on the church carpet! How did I get there? I only vaguely remember telling the Intrepids I'd see them tomorrow. I have a hazy recollection of Sam saying goodbye by head butting me in the stomach as I made my way to the car.

Then, there I was, watching my shoes and lying in the foetal position on the patterned carpet, waiting for someone to tell me whether I would be playing tonight or not.

As it turned out, I was not, so I very feebly made my excuses and drove home, sneezing in the evening sunshine and feeling more than ready to disappear from the world for a while. I yawned as my boots trudged nearer to my front door. My iPad pinged with emails in my rucksack as it came into the range of the WiFi. I poked a key in the lock and the bunch fell out and jangled to the floor.

It is definitely time to collapse.

POLLEN DIARIES: PART 7

Well it's late and I can't sleep because my face has exploded with hay fever. I'm red, puffy, blotchy and sneezy, and any of the other seven allergy dwarves you can probably think up.

I forget how irritating it is. Your eyes feel like they have been rubbed with salt and your throat is a pool of fire. Each nostril gets inflamed and blocked, yet still dribbles sticky wet mucus down your face (sorry but it's true) and your sneezes echo off the walls like gunshots. All the while I feel like I've been punched in the face by flowers.

Two people have suggested antihistamines today. The science is that they seal up your nasal passages, preventing pollen from scratching its way up your nose.

I don't want to go into detail but while antihistamines do seal up the nostrils, they also seem to unseal my intestines in an extremely unhelpful way. Sure I'd like to enjoy the sunshine of early June, but I'd also quite like to enjoy it without having to be in awkward-sprinting-distance of a toilet.

I suppose I should stop moaning. It's only for a few weeks a year, after all. People have to put up with much worse.

Me playing the electric guitar in town for example.

I'm only joking. We did go down and do some playing earlier though. We were allowed to play on the grass of St Mary's cemetery by John Lewis. I fiddled around on the electric as though I were still working out where all the strings were, while Rory played as brilliantly as he usually does and Bethany (one of the Excitable Americans) sang. A lot of people looked up at us as they walked by. I saw a few demons glaring at me and quickly reminded myself that I was standing on consecrated ground.

I hope we get to do more of that kind of thing. It felt as though we were singing out from the very centre of our town, under the green oak leaves by the gravestones in the grass. Things happen when you do that.

Well, I started sneezing, for one thing.

EATING CHOCOLATE ON MY OWN

Seeing as it is actually a Friday and relaxing things are supposed to happen on Fridays, here's a poem from a while ago, which I thought up while lounging on my sofa bed like a Roman Emperor. I doubt I'll get to do this again for quite some time, so here it is: a luxurious verse from a relaxed and bygone age (about three weeks ago):


Eating Chocolate On My Own

M'eating ch'clt n m'own
Jus chmpin't away
S'lip'n down qu'nicely
In'a go ol'fshn way
Thes'no-one here to shtopme
An'no-oneshere t'shay
They can't b'leive soneon so short
couldput it all 'way.

YEAH IT'S FRIDAY

I'm always amazed at how often people answer a question with an answer to a different question. Sometimes, even two. Consider this:

"Hey, how you doing?"
"Yeah, it's Friday."

I think I'm supposed to understand implicitly what this means. But the more I think about it, the less I get it.

It's an abbreviation of a much longer conversation isn't it? Somewhere, hidden in the middle of this two-line exchange is the required assumption that the other person is saying they're tired, looking forward to the weekend, fed up with being here, ready to go home, and yet not quite ready to state any of the above explicitly.

And somehow, the exact same thing happens on Mondays.

"Hey how you doing?"
"Oh it's definitely Monday."

Confused look... it can't mean the same set of assumptions can it? On a Monday? I'm tired, looking forward to the weekend, fed up with being here, ready to go home?

Okay, maybe it can.

It's still answering the wrong question though. And anyway, if I ask you a question, it shouldn't be up to me to do all the work to figure out the answer (I mean the real answer) should it? Surely, the onus is on the answerer!

Here's another exchange to which answering the wrong question could easily have got me into a lot of bother. Some bright spark thinks we ought to do So-and-So's-Got-Talent at Christmas.

"Matt! You'll dress up as Elton John, won't you?"

"No."

THE RIVER, THE ANGELS AND THE FIELD

I feel a wreck today. Scruffy clothes thrown on, tear-stained face, hair plastered to my head, still wet from the shower. I also feel like if I close my eyes for longer than a few seconds, I might not be able to open them again for a few hours.

I had wild, crazy dreams last night. One minute I was being pulled helplessly along the Niagara river, caught in the flow that dragged me closer and closer to the Falls. I couldn't work out whether or not I wanted to tumble over the edge.

Then, I was slumped in the corner of an all-night prayer meeting, listening to angels with violins. I was the only one who could hear them, and everybody else was talking over the top. I couldn't speak at all for some reason. But listening was beautiful.

Finally, I was in a field, waiting for somebody. There was a tree, right in the middle, its green leaves lit by the sun and caught by the summer breeze. The wind rippled through the tall grass and made me shiver in the shade.

So, it seems my brain might actually be doing more than just processing memories after all then. I have no idea what any of this means. The river, the angels and the field; I was alone in each one. I woke up and stared at the lampshade through blurry eyes.

OLD FOSSILS

So I finally booked a holiday in a secret location. And it's eleven days away.

Okay, not so secret. I'm going to Lyme Regis for a few days.

"Isn't that where the Jurassic Coast is?" asked Louise.

"Yep," I said, "Lots of old fossils. I'll feel right at home."

I'm hoping actually that I'll do a lot of walking up and down that coast in the few days that I've got. I really need it. I think even a month ago, I was saying, 'I could go tomorrow'.

As it happens, the next eleven days look like an ongoing mixture of exhausting and exhilarating, which is fine, but by the end of it I'm going to be totally ready to switch off.