THE PATH OF SEVENTEEN YEARS

I graduated seventeen years ago today. I had short hair, I wore a long black robe and I sat with the people I'd studied with, in a hot, uncomfortable hall. One-by-one our names were called; hundreds and hundreds of students in a continuous wave of hats and applause. Two hours of clapping.

It's funny now. I don't remember the exact moment of going up and shaking the Vice Chancellor's hand. I must have done it - I've literally got the t-shirt (and the certificate) to prove it. Yet I don't recall that culmination. Not half as well as I remember my long hours in the library.

I do remember standing on the grass outside the tennis courts. Steinhausen was there with his parents (who looked exactly like him) and I remember thinking he should have worn better shoes than his dog-eared old loafers. Then, I didn't know at the time that I was wearing my mortarboard backwards.

I remember Caroline smiled at me - and I realised I probably wouldn't see her again. On a course where there were more people called Dave than there were actual girls (University of Bath, Physics, Class of 2000), the Carolines were quite unique: pretty, smart and fun - yet somehow mysteriously studying physics with a massive crowd of comic-book nerds who could quote Monty Python verbatim.

My parents were proud of me. They beamed and they took photos with a disposable camera, and they chatted to other parents and they applauded and they asked my friends what I was like and they did all the other embarrassing things that all the other parents did, and on that muggy afternoon at the end of all things, I didn't mind in the slightest.

It seems funny, looking back now. Seventeen years. I was 22 - in a different world. Yet, time connects that day to this. There's a path, a set of events that could be traced, with every hour linking then with now. I wonder how I would have reacted had Future Me appeared and told me what would happen. 911, flumpbook, smartphones, Iraq, terror, youthwork, merging churches, technical writing, piano teaching, depression, anxiety, Zimbabwe-friends, song-writing, camping, friends, more technical writing, team leading, group leading, tea-making, more friends, coalition governments, President Business, the Yamaha CP300, the Nord Stage 2 EX, a couple of laptops, more depression, a blog, a quiz, hundreds of sleepless nights and not a whole lot of physics.

Hard to tell.

Caroline went into the army. Steinhausen disappeared. I went home, met Paul and started youthwork and that inexorable chain that leads to grey hair, to weary eyes and to here at this very desk, today.

I'm tired. I'm really tired.

LEX LUTHOR WITH A SELFIE-STICK

Back to the day job. Like a tired old acquaintance, the day job rewarded me with a stuffed inbox and a million things that needed instantly fixing. Thanks a lot, day job.

There was, however, something great about being a sort of deus-ex-machina, dropping in from a week in Wales to heroically right all the wrongs and patch all the holes. Of course, it was tempered by the fact that I had actually caused most of the holes and wronged most of the wrongs during the previous week. So not really that much of a deus-ex, after all.

More of a Lex Luthor pretending to be Superman. No-one's fooled.

Other than cramming my mailbox and shifting my gears out of holiday-mode, the day job has also reminded me today how weird it is - sitting here day after day, rattling away into this computer. It hurts my back, drains my eyes and occasionally makes me breathe-out slowly and count to ten... but it also pays the mortgage and lets me wander around Sainsbury's looking for pasta and fruit punch. Consequently, it and I have a peculiar relationship. It's like slow-burning kryptonite - sort of.

Lex Luthor eh. For other reasons I won't go into, I did a test today, to check whether I was a narcissist. I scored 7. I don't know what that's out of - the website didn't tell me, or specify the units of narcissism. It did say though that the average was between 12 and 15, that celebrities usually score over 18 and that real narcissists are over 20. It's possible that I even got 7 because I took the test in the first place.

I think the unit of narcissism ought to be the 'selfie'. I scored 7 selfies out of 20 selfies. I like that I made that up - though if it catches on, I'll have to add another couple of selfies to my narcissism score of course.

Like Lex Luthor, pretending to be Superman with a gigantic selfie-stick.

Urgh. Bring on the kryptonite.

THE DEPARTURE BOARD

I close my eyes. There I am. I'm standing in an enormous hall, and in front of me, suspended above my head, is a huge departure board.

What is this? Trains, planes? Not automobiles. The numbers flash by, yellow and digital. Some things are leaving, some things are boarding, some things are delayed. It's a constant stream of updating opportunities.

Weird. I don't seem to have any luggage with me. Just the clothes I was wearing a few moments ago, before I closed my eyes, before I found myself... here. Perhaps I'm seeing someone else off. And yet. I appear to be alone.

A voice echoes from a loud speaker, hidden somewhere. It fills the empty departure hall with a rasping, automated voice, reminding me not to leave anything unattended.

The board flicks.

Suddenly, as though prompted, I decide to reach into my coat pocket. I remember the last time I did this. I pulled out a little notebook and a yellow pencil. Write, had said the pencil, write what you see. It occurs to me that I haven't done that yet. The pencil is still there. I feel its rubber eraser and the cold metal ribbon that ties it to the smooth octagonal wood. The notebook too - still stiff and spiral-bound.

There's something else. It feels like a long strip of firm paper, just longer than a credit card. It's wrapped around the notebook. Carefully I pull it out from my pocket and hold it between the fingers and thumbs of both hands. I look at it.

It's a ticket.

THE DRUIDS' STONE HAVEN

We parked up at the Druidstone Hotel, overlooking the cliffs. White water rushed in below, pounding and crashing the rocks as the tide blew towards the shore. It was a murky, spray-filled afternoon, perfect for walking. So that's exactly what my Dad and I did - we clambered down the steep stony paths, across the rock-filled stream and over the pebbles, to Druidstone Haven.

"Plenty of room for druiding down here!" I joked as we dropped onto the flat beach. It was enormous with the tide out. A couple of dogs bounced around at the water's edge, a hiker sat on a rock eating sandwiches, gazing far out to sea. My Dad clutched his binoculars and wandered out to meet the waves, which looked like they were half a mile across the wet sand. I bent down and started drawing with my finger.

I don't know what druids do at the beach. I imagined them chanting in a circle perhaps, thanking the sky for sending them the ocean. Perhaps though, they flipped back their cowls and monks' hoods and skimmed stones across the sea. Whatever it was, this place had ultimately become known as the druids' stone haven, and it certainly did feel ancient and sort of magical.

Oh don't worry. I'm not championing Druidism. Unless of course, it was just skimming stones at the edge of the sand! It just felt tingly, standing there on that massive reflective beach among the jagged boulders and slanted cliffs. If a great Welsh dragon had slunk from one of the caves, flapped open its gigantic wings and powered over the sea, I would probably have said that that felt about right for the place.

My Mum had been reading her book in the car. We got back, piled in and then headed back to Broad Haven to fly the kite. Well, at least we tried. It was so windy that the kite just circled in the air for a while and then nose-dived into the sand. In the end, it started raining so we rolled up the kite. For some reason, the Intrepids wanted to walk from one end of the beach to the other in the rain.

"I tell you what," I said, "Why don't you two do that and I'll meet you in the coffee shop?"

Moments later, I was drinking tea behind a rain-spattered window, reading Sherlock Holmes in the warm and the dry. This, I supposed to myself, is why I'm only really an Honorary Intrepid.

And so, just like that, it's time to go home. Today, we stuff the car with our things.... "Your mother doesn't 'stuff'," said my Dad, reminding me that my Mum is a bit more meticulous about packing than I am... and we head for the East, for England, for normality and for home.

So, two great castles, lots of sunny beaches, some walking, some reading, some eating; a lot of driving around the narrow lanes of West Wales, loads of sea birds and seals, some beautiful gardens, a couple of games of Scrabble, of Pit and Who Knows Where; some chat, some flowers, some wave-watching, and some sunsets.

It's been grand. I'm ready to go though. But perhaps there'll just be time for one last hurrah, hood-up as the wind blusters in, rounded stones in hand, skimming them across the water like the best of the druids. Though of course, thanking the Creator and not the creation.

PEMBROKE AND THE HALL OF MIRRORS

"There he is!" said my Dad, walking back to the car park.

"Who?"

"Henry the Seventh."

True enough, a statue of the Tudor king gazed up along the river, away from Pembroke Castle wistfully holding an orb as though as it were a hand grenade. Henry Tudor, VII, founder of the dynasty that ruled England for almost a hundred years, uniter of the roses and victor of Bosworth Field, cast in bronze in his home town.

Pembroke is a strangely vibrant little place. The blue flag with the yellow cross and the Tudor rose flutters from neat white flag poles and hotel frontages. Along the high street, gift shops alternate with pizza palaces and barbers with neon signs in the windows. And there, imposing on the cliff by the river, is the thousand-year old castle.

We naturally went in and had a tour. And what a tour! The guide described how attacking armies would have been trapped in the Barbican Tower where their fate was either in the hands of archers or hot tar poured from above. We climbed narrow, uneven stone staircases to learn how William Marshall had fortified the siege tower, how the town grew around the castle and how Margaret Beaufort had married the Earl of Stanley to ultimately become the mother of Henry.

We overlooked the great village and impenetrable walls, we stood on the battlements and peered through the rough slitted windows where archers would have kept watch. We shuffled around the roofless banqueting hall, imagining the colours, the songs, the food and the feasting.

The grey, threatening sky rolled quietly overhead. Birds fluttered between the ruined, moss-covered stones.

We got lost on the way back. It was a fascinating moment of self-awareness for me, peering over the steering wheel, reading the road-signs, trying not to get stressed. I think there comes a point in life when you realise where some of your character-struggles come from. I saw mine, suddenly reflected in my parents who between them, were showing me exactly what I am like sometimes in challenging situations. I had to be the opposite of myself in order to handle it.

I wonder though, does that happen with children too? It must be frightening to see yourself so clearly in their behaviour, and have to deal with it somehow, always knowing that you're exactly the same. Perhaps though, this is exactly why family is the best way to live - reflections of you everywhere like a hall of mirrors mean you're never too far from the truth, but always in the safety of people who love you.

It worked out okay. It always does, actually. We got back to Broad Haven and had a lovely cup of tea by the sea. The sun was struggling to fight its way through the cloud and ignite the sea. We had some time, so I wrote a quick poem.

This is the Sea

This gold-spun silk

This ancient blue

That shimmers soft

In summer's hue

This rolling green

These white-washed waves

That smash the rocks

Of windswept caves

This silver tide

That grips the sand

And rattles stones

With trailing hand

This endless deep

That calls to me

Though tumults roll

Through history

This ocean blue

This symphony

This restless soul

This is the sea

"I was worried that you wouldn't enjoy this week so much," said my Mum, sipping. "That you'd feel a bit stuck with us."

"We've done more though," I replied, "than I think I would ever have done on my own. I'd have just kept walking up the coastal path! Plus, I think we've done more than you would have done without me."

My Dad nodded silently in agreement.

CHANGING WEATHER

I think the heatwave is over. Last evening, a sea mist rolled in, a fog of fine rain that blustered and swept across the hills.

It's just as well - it's been ever so hot. Yesterday, in an attempt to do something a bit different, the Intrepids and I went to some lovely gardens. It's funny how we change with time isn't it? Years ago, this would have been the last thing I'd have wanted to do on holiday. Flowers? Plants? Gardens? I would have been struck by instant boredom.

As it was, I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, and I think far more than the Intrepids expected I would. In fact, the difference between how much they thought I would enjoy it and how much I actually did, was far more than the difference between how much I thought I would, and how much I did.

"So you enjoyed it then?" asked my Mum, sitting on a quiet bench in the courtyard.

"Yes I think so," I replied.

They had these great big plants with massive leaves - I mean you could shelter underneath them, they were at least three-feet wide! There were flowers of so many vibrant colours, arranged in neat borders, and rows of elegant trees gently wobbling in the wind. It was remarkably peaceful.

"Look at this grass, Dad," I said. "What type is it that it grows so neatly?"

He laughed and then told me that that's just how it's cut. I could have the same thing in my garden if I cut back the jungle, apparently. Then we talked about ride-on mowers.

There was a pond with water lilies, gently floating like flat green plates and bright white sailors. An ornamental fish guzzled water and the reeds swayed at the bank.

They had a biodome too. Well, they called it a solar dome, but it's the same thing - a gigantic greenhouse packed with tall palms and tropical plants. I found a bunch of tiny bananas, as well as some of those bird-of-paradise plants that glow orange. I don't think I could ever grow those in my garden.

So what is it that's changed? Have I just grown to appreciate this kind of thing? Or have I completely grown out of all the things I thought were cooler? Perhaps it's a combination - suddenly realising the beauty of slowing down for long enough to see the colours, perhaps treasuring the days more as you realise that they're not as infinite as once you thought.

I thought about this later, standing and watching the sea mist. Time is to be appreciated - and the more you cherish the days, I think the more you start to see beauty in the incredible pace of life. Flowers encapsulate this, almost perfectly. They just gently grow in their own time, full of life, full of joy and colour and full of innocent hope. And that's their message.

Teenage Me would have looked at me curiously as I said all that. Perhaps even Twenties Me would have raised an eyebrow and changed the subject.

I breathed in the spray and watched the white bank of fog hide the sea. Tiny droplets of rain dampened my face.

"Yep, the weather's definitely changed," I said as I headed indoors.

CASTLES MELLOW

We sat in the shade of a castle wall. The Welsh flag fluttered at half-mast, white and green against the blue sky.

I like a castle. Once great symbols of power and strength, impossible to enter uninvited, and a silhouette, a warning on the skyline to invaders and rebels. Nowadays, they do everything they can to invite you in, rather than keep you out.

You can stand on rough, weather-beaten stones and look over the town through holes where glass would once have been. You can wander around the cool green grass that grows upon the banqueting hall floor and imagine the feast, or you can rest in the shade of crumbling walls and eat a quiet picnic, the like of which would have been unimaginable hundreds of years ago.

This castle, and the town around it, was and still is, Haverfordwest. We'd arrived by bus, just a short twenty minute breeze through country lanes, and we'd slowly climbed the steep hill, winding through the houses to the castle, the county records office and the Haverfordwest Town Museum.

My Dad instantly took the opportunity to talk to the lady outside about the flowers she was busily watering. He has an uncanny ability to recognise a moment, and so soon it was a discussion on how often to water hanging baskets in this heat, what kind of fertiliser to use and how brightly these little purple flowers (I forget their name) grow in the shade.

My Mum and I walked around the Museum, discovering the history of the town. There was a chair that David Lloyd George (a famous Welsh politician) had sat in in 1909. There were British Army uniforms, glistening red with their crown-imprinted brass buttons. There was an old violin, photographs of great speeches, an enormous wooden milk churn, and a Victorian cash register with stiff iron levers. It struck me as interesting how everything either mellows or seizes up with time.

Back out in the sunlight, my Dad was still explaining plants. I went back and sat in the shade of the castle wall.

Castles definitely mellow. They don't seize up. The stones are eroded by time and wind, and the sound of swords and battle slowly turns to birdsong and breezes. Oh and picnics.

After all that, we had a look around the town and got back on the 4:25 bus to Broad Haven, along with all the teenagers heading for the beach.

DOLPHINS AND PORPOISES

I've just checked my eyes in the mirror. Both are still red and puffy. Blood bulges from the vessels inside the white bits, tiny cracked and crazed lines like a miniature map around the watery iris.

Hay fever again. Only this time, I think the pollen got trapped in the layer of sun cream I'd plastered onto my forehead, which had then spent the afternoon sweating into my eyes. The irritation was unbearable.

Thankfully though, not during the boat trip around Skomer. That had been terrific! I learned about guillemots, gannets, puffins and black-backed gulls. We even saw seals, lolling about on the rocks without a care in the world.

"What about dolphins?" asked someone on the boat.

"We don' talk about dolphins," warned the bearded captain, "Bad luck they are. Though if we see any today, it'll be a rare sight indeed."

We sailed through a crowd of razorbills and puffins, bobbing on the waves. A gannet flew gracefully by, and on the sunny rocks, a lone cormorant stretched his wings majestically.

"This might be the only planet, anywhere, with life on it," I turned and said to my Dad, "And there is so much of it!"

He smiled, knowingly.

"Dolphin!" cried a voice suddenly from the other side of the boat. Everyone stood up, wobbling the craft from port to starboard. There was a moment of excitement as the blue waves broke momentarily. Then the captain, chewing his pen as though it were a pipe, simply said, "Porpoise" and everyone sat down, too scared to admit that they didn't really know the difference.

Later, I found myself sneezing on the beach. Later still, I was asleep on the sofa, exhausted from trying to gouge my eyes out. Sleep helped. I'm always amazed at how hay fever seems to disappear whenever I'm asleep. Even in the mornings it takes a few moments to return. Then, my nose gets pendulous and twitchy, a sneeze explodes and my eyes are itchy and sore.

Anyway, sleep helped a lot. I woke up feeling a lot fresher.

THE MAN IN THE BLUE CANOE

There's no wifi for miles and I've almost run out of mobile data. It's okay though, it means I truly have to switch off.

After buying a hat, racing into the sea and standing there while the cool waves lapped about my ankles, I sat with the Intrepids on the warm beach.

There's the man with the blue canoe

His wetsuit glistens as if it were new

The paddle in hand

His toes in the sand

A statue he is, so noble, so grand

And waiting for something to do

I read another Ray Bradbury short story. Why are they all about death? I mean Ray, you're an awesome writer, and your descriptive prose is second-to-none, but you seem to be obsessed with terminality. This one was all about a farmer who cut down a field of wheat that represented all of humanity, including himself and his family. The last was about a car accident, and the one before was about an old lady who turned out to to be a ghost! What about robots and time travel for a change? I'm on holiday!

Then, after some lunch and a cup of tea, watching the tide, we drove (I drove) to St Davids.

St Davids, the UK's smallest city, is essentially a village and a cathedral. We had a look round. The cathedral was stunning - vaulted, hammer-beam roof like the underside of a ship; tall, strong, stone arches; latticed and stained-glass windows that let the sunlight dapple in to paint the flagstones with patchwork light. Best of all of course, the cool air of an old church on a hot summer's day.

Or perhaps even better - the practising organist, hidden behind the pipes. He struck up a complicated medley of organ tunes that none of us recognised. My Mum, who loves organ music, was in her element while the long pipes rumbled through the stones.

"Right, what do you want to do now," asked my Dad, outside in the baking heat. I think he was just glad he could stop whispering.

"I know what I'd like!" I said, suddenly sounding like I was five years old, "Ice-creams on the cliff top!"

We didn't find a cliff-top, but we did find ice-creams. I made short work of mine, trying to put into practice my long-held method for eating them before they melt. Then my Dad and I left my Mum reading a book, while he and I walked up the coastal path and talked about greenhouses, growing onions, and how to connect up a water butt to the guttering.

This feels like a real holiday then, I suppose. Time stretches longer, pressure is a memory and the world is cloudless, sunswept and hot. It feels almost exactly like what I needed.

Of course, I am still tweaking those balances. I went for another walk on the beach at sunset, just to get some air and some space.

As I dropped onto the sand, I noticed a group of people standing in a long line at the water's edge. They were silhouetted by the sun of course, so it was difficult to know which way round they were standing, but it was deliberate, whatever it was. They were about five feet apart and motionless. I had a theory.

I did the only obvious thing to do. I joined them. I stood at the end of the line and stared out to sea too, my sunglasses on and my hood over my head. The water shone like silk, the waves rippled calmly in, and a line of twenty people turned to look at me.

I smiled back.

"Um, do you mind me asking," I said to the nearest one, "Are you praying?"

"Sorta," he said, with an American accent. "We're at the end of a sort of pilgrimage. We've spent some time with God and we're throwing things from the past, baggage, into the ocean before we go home tonight."

It turned out that they were a youth group from a church in North Carolina and they'd been here for a week. This final baggage-throwing exercise was their last thing to do. I asked if I could join them, picked up a shell from the wet sand, thought about it for a while and then hurled it into the sea.

Well, I'm on holiday - it's exactly the time to let go of stuff, isn't it?

THE SUNSET AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

It felt like the edge of the world.

The sun, full and round, hung low over the sea, casting a golden path from horizon to sand. The sky, cloudless and blue, stretched out beyond it as though it was a curtain to somewhere uncharted, a wall of fading light above the silhouetted land.

I smiled as the waves lapped gently against the sand, steadily collapsing in straight lines along the shore.

I like a sea-side sunset - there's a magic to it. The low-angled light catches the edges of things and paints their outlines with silver - buildings, boats, beer glasses, elbows, knees, rocks, windswept hair - all magically highlighted, and alive with light from the great disc at the end of the world. I like the way that figures turn and cast long, unnatural shadows across the flat, wet sand, while all of us are bathed in that warm gold light.

I'm here then - on holiday with the Intrepids. My sisters think I'm crazy, and for a while I wondered whether it was a good idea myself. However, I still think there will come a day when they wished they'd thought of it.

We're staying in a place called Little Haven, in West Wales, which (contrary to what my work colleagues predicted) is turning out to be... delightful, and not the setting for a zombie-apocalypse or mysterious deadly sea-mist. Well, at least not so far, anyway. It's a tiny cove of cobbled and colourful houses, two timber-beamed pubs and a view of the bay. A little further round is the long, flat sand of Broad Haven, upon which I found myself watching the sun setting magically over the great Atlantic, having excused myself from the Intrepids for an hour. Life felt incredibly balanced in that moment.

I think that's what this week will be about - finding the enjoyment by creating just the right amount of balance. Tip one way and we'll be into the world of uncertainty my Dad hates - tip the other, and we'll be bored and my Mum will not enjoy it. Spend too much time together, even just a little bit too much, and I'll be longing for the air of my own company; stay too long with the shadows on the sunset beach and I'll be slipping into melancholy faster than the sun slips out of sight.

So, it's balance then, carefully, beautifully, gently resolving the tension between the comfort of the shore and the great unknown adventure of the horizon. I can do this.

MORE QUIETNESS AND FEWER WORDS

I'm still feeling quiet. You'll probably have noticed me writing less frequently too. It's all part of it.

Not that there haven't been things to write about! Yesterday, for example, I surprised myself by ranting about how ridiculous high heels are.

"Do you wear them often?" asked Erica, laughing. I flushed red.

"Only at weekends," I joked, though I was mildly embarrassed that I hadn't realised my engineered diatribe about how nature had given us a perfectly suitable foot with ample width to support our mass, and how reducing the surface area and bending your legs out of shape was both preposterous and perilous... had given her the impression that I actually wear them and was complaining out of experience.

Then there was the conversation about whether vegetarianism is a label or a lifestyle. That had started because my sister was protesting about the price of chicken.

There was even a sunset I could have written about, not to mention the recent disaster in a tower block in London, about which I tried a poem. I sat in the park feeling a bit lost for words, to be honest.

Nope. Just quiet, and still learning how to listen.

I reckon I'll get lots of opportunities to listen over the next week: I'm going on holiday with the Intrepids.  My Dad likes to read everything he sees... out loud. It's amusing with road signs and notice boards. I'm just praying we don't encounter anyone with comedy t-shirts while we're out walking through the Welsh mountains.

It'll do me good though, I hope. It feels timely - there is a lot to tackle when I get back. And I will need to be listening.

RESOLVING UNWISDOM

I went for another walk today. This time through the woods. I was trying to contemplate how I felt about a particular friend of mine, someone whom I consider very wise, telling me that a recent thing I did was (in his view) 'not very wise at all.'

I don't much enjoy being unwise, even though my history is littered with unwisdom. Hindsight shows those moments up like a UV light. This however, was a bit more recent and very difficult to chalk up to the folly of youth. And no, not enjoyable. When he pointed it out it seemed quite obvious.

It's nothing serious by the way; I'm not in any kind of trouble. It was just one of those moments when the dilemma made it difficult for me to see what the right thing to do was. According to my wise friend, I had picked the wrong path.

The wrong path eh. The sunlight flickered between the tall trees. I scrambled up a slippery grass bank. A small bird rustled out of a bush and flew away through the leaves. Then the air fell silent.

One of the things I like about being a Christian is that even when you do pick a bit of an unwise path, you're still only a step away from God himself. And today, as if to illustrate that point precisely, I felt that exact thing in the middle of the woods. I had to stop. I put one hand over my heart and closed my eyes. Everything was pounding and my eyes began to tear up a little bit. I felt as though He was standing next to me, there between the trees and the butterflies.

You might think I imagined the whole thing I guess. I've been around long enough to know though, when it's beyond me. I walked on, trying to listen, trying to hear. Soon the paths reconnected and I was back where I thought I was. Wisdom restored, I suppose...

My phone buzzed happily in my pocket.

It was Winners, asking how I was. Winners is not the 'wise' friend I mentioned, but he does have a fair amount of wisdom himself. I quickly told him what had happened - how God had used my journey through the woods as a metaphor for something deeper and more wonderful.

Bizarrely, Winners seemed thrilled and puzzled in equal measure. I couldn't understand it. It was only later I realised that autocorrect must have kicked-in early on in the message chain and I'd accidentally told him I'd been in the presence of Godzilla.

So, there is always a way back to wisdom and it does start with seeking the Maker of it. That was my learning today - unwisdom doesn't have to lead to disaster, and there's always a way back if you start in the right place. Hopefully I can sort out the 'recent thing I did' and do it in a way that dovetails with God's brilliant plan for resolving my unwisdom.

I don't exactly want to be lost in the woods again.

POLLEN DIARIES: PART 11

I went to the chemist (pharmacy) today to get something for the old hay fever.

It's been bad for the last few days - explosive sneezes and a throat that feels like sandpaper. As if that weren't bad enough, my eyes swim in watery pools and my face looks as though it's been dipped in a vat of chillis. My nose is on fire.

I asked around before I went.

"Don't get the tablets," said someone, "They don't really do much."

Noted. I used to take those, I remember, and they upset my digestion.

"I've found the nasal spray to be the best," said someone else knowledgeably. I had no reason not to be persuaded, so I wrapped my raincoat around me and swept out of the door, en route to the High Street.

In the old days, the apothecary would have been a fascinating place: shelves full of coloured bottles of mysterious liquids, glass cabinets and jars. I picture an old man in a white coat who looks up at me from his ledger. He's wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, the arms of which disappear into his bushy sideburns. I remove my hat and scarf while he twiddles his wiry moustache.

Of course, these days the shelves are stacked with bright-coloured boxes - nappies, sanitary products, hair-dye, verruca relief, decongestant, travel-sickness pills, bottles and boxes emblazoned in words that end in Xs and Zs like Zovirax and Piriteze.

I found the nasal spray. It's called Prevalin. It contains:

bentonite veegum, xanthum gum, glycerol monostearate, potassium phosphate, glycerin, water, spearmint oil, water and 'mixed tocopherols'. Lovely.

I got back and read the instructions. After shoving it up one nostril and getting confused about why nothing was happening, I unscrewed the cap and tried again.

Two tiny jets of freezing spray shot into my nose. I yelped, twiddled my nose and then squeezed the nozzle into the other nostril and did the same.

Oh. You thought hay fever was bad. I haven't stopped sneezing since! My nose is now like a nuclear launch pad - bursting volleys of invisible spearmint and pollen into the atmosphere with loud, uncomfortable explosions.

Once again, the remedy is worse than the disease.

Still, I'm not going to complain about it. I'll keep going and give it a chance to do its work.

I'll be honest though, I sincerely wish I weren't allergic to grass in the first place.

SHUT UP AND LISTEN

Recently I've felt the need to shut up.

True, I'm not usually the most talkative person anyway. True, I can't seem to think and speak at the same time, and so often prefer to let my thoughts rumble before they tumble. And true, that has saved me from many an awful situation.

However, despite that, I do still feel unusually quiet at the moment. I think it's out of a desire to listen better: to other people, to God, and to the little rhythms of my own heart. I catch myself closing my eyes, drifting into the darkness and hearing my blood pound round my veins, or the gentle clock ticking through the silence, or that little thing you just said accidentally, reverberating.

Don't misunderstand it. I'm not trying to come across as some super-chilled Thought-Jedi who's always got something superior or wise to say; I don't get my identity that way, thank you.

In fact, I've found the opposite of that happening - those around me turn out to be much wiser than I am when I listen to them in the gaps when I'm shtum.

Tonight, as the sun hung low in the summery sky, I walked around the lake near the Intrepids' house. The trees were whispering to each other across the gold-painted water. I clasped my hands behind my back and I strolled.

There were many things I could have been doing, but I had chosen this - simply walking, praying and trying to listen through the gaps. What songs were the birds singing? What language do geese use? Do those tall trees understand? Is there music to the water lapping softly against the stones? What can I learn from all this?

I heard my footsteps too, softly treading the path, balancing on tree roots and brushing against the grass. I heard my breathing and felt my lungs rise and fall with air. I heard the cogs inside my head twist and turn as I considered it all.

I need to learn how to listen better, I think.

DEMOCRACY THE DAY AFTER

One of the things I really like about the day after an election, is that I can visit the BBC Website, look at the exact statistics for my constituency, see the numbers, and remind myself that I am one of them.

"That 7 would be a 6 without me," I smile to myself, looking at the last digit.

Of course, it makes no difference to the outcome - the seat was won by 3,000 votes, but it does give me a small glow of significance, to think that I'm allowed to be part of the process and in some way, I took part.

It didn't use to be like this. To my shame, I didn't vote at all in the 2005 election. I was feeling disillusioned with politics altogether at the time, and I wasn't alone. They seem like calmer times somehow now, when I look back on them, but of course, that is no real excuse.

Neither is it like this in other parts of the world. In some countries, the majority of people who live there have no say at all - they're bent to the whim of dictators, megalomaniacs and corrupt leaders who cannot be removed without bloodshed.

Then in other places, men can vote but women have no voice at all, and are treated simply as property. History never ends well when women are treated as property.

So out here, in this quiet old corner of the world, we file into our polling stations and we decide. Then, in a peculiarly British way, we smile to ourselves as the Prime Minister of the world's sixth largest economy lines up on a stage next to a man wearing a bucket for a helmet, and another who's dressed as Elmo - and it's all okay.

I hope North Korea were watching.

BEING AWAY FROM HOME

I'm in Ely, the town where the bus drivers happily stop the bus, run off (leaving the engine running), relieve themselves behind the bushes and then dash back onboard, to the applause of several pensioners.

I like this city. Yesterday the Cathedral poked magnificently above the treetops, the English flag fluttering in the summer breeze. The quaint streets and pleasant green, the Tudor beams of quiet houses and leafy trees reflected the sunshine as though pointing to happier times.

I'm visiting my friends, who have made me toast, made me tea and made me laugh. To her great delight, Anita even beat me at Scrabble. I was of course, my usual uncompetitive, gracious-in-defeat-happy-go-lucky-no-it's-fine-it's-the-taking-part-that-counts self, while John and I poured the tiles back in the bag. Few things I like more than losing at Scrabble.

It's great being somewhere different for a while. It always feels liberating, as though I can shape myself to be something else for a few hours - the atmosphere is not the same as it is at home. I can be a stranger, an outsider and an enigma who appears and disappears anonymously, unknown and mysterious. I rather like that. If I could ever be famous, I think I'd miss that.

One thing the atmosphere carries here that I could do without though is the pollen. I'm sneezing again and my eyes are weak and watery. It's an annual annoyance that the nicest time of the year corresponds with this incessant assault on my immune system. I've taken ceterizine hydrochloride but so far it's only sealed up my nostrils like Victorian railway tunnels.

There is also something to be said for this town being a much more laid-back kind of place. I might be wrong, but where I live life seems to rush past. In lots of other places, not just here in Cambridgeshire of course, time is much slower, it seems.

After all, the bus drivers get a round of applause from the passengers for making them later than they expected. I think that's remarkable.

POLLEN DIARIES: PART 10

The hay fever's got me tonight. I'm sneezing all over the place and my eyes are watery.

Perhaps I shouldn't be out here in the park, watching the sunset. There's a lot of grass, getting right up my nose.

Is this the end of my sunset walks for a while then? Shame. Looking back, the hay fever lasted until the beginning of July last year! A whole month of this? I hope not. July seems ages away.

So. My vision is blurred by the tears and my nose is congested and explosive.

I can still hear the birds though.

There's one whistling in a tree near me. He sounds like R2-D2: such a complex pattern of trills and chirping. There are others squeaking and popping in the trees all around - I can hear them calling to each other, serenading the sun. Slowly the chorus fades as the light grows weaker.

There are two teenage girls out here on the next bench. They discuss the kind of things you'd expect teenage girls to discuss, and with exactly the same kind of intonations as ever. A loud giggle, an 'Oh My Days' and an expletive about how 'sexy' some guy is. I wonder to myself what the birds make of it, not to mention the distinctive rhythm of me sneezing and sniffling.

A distant car horn joins in. Then a train rumbles and whooshes over the tracks on its way to Oxford or Birmingham. A dog yaps somewhere, and still the birds sing.

I'm sitting here wondering now, whether animals get allergies. I guess it's possible. I've never heard a bird sneezing.

Then, they don't have flats to go to or offices to work in or air conditioning or cars. They just keep on singing as though they were made to do it.

I'm going indoors.