Off The Grid
We went away for Easter, up to north Wales, where the house we were staying in had even less phone reception than we get at home, and a strange habit of blowing up routers. As a result we spent much of the week without the internet. It was interesting going off grid for a while: I’m someone who is rarely if ever without my phone and would have expected it to be fairly tortuous. As it was, it really didn’t take much getting used to and I quite enjoyed doing a few of the things I always mean to in the evening before I waste all the time on my phone. And then the internet came back and everything went back to normal. Oh well, maybe I’ll have another go at No Phone Fridays.
Letters
I have a friend who is very sick, and so who has gone home to receive treatment. I know little about the condition or the prognosis, except that it will take a long time. I’ve been sending my friend letters from time to time as a means of keeping in touch. I don’t have any expectation that they’ll be able to write back, but I hope that reading the occasional witterings about what’s going on here will let them know that they’re very much in our thoughts. But letter-writing is a strange, hard thing: a lost art, or perhaps one I never had. I remember writing letters a long time ago to a school friend who had moved away, and have a very strong echo in the feeling of self-consciousness in trying to think what to write. I’m not writing profound stuff – just what’s going on at home and everyday thoughts, but it’s striking how different it feels to knocking off an email or a text. It’s a very different form of communication, for reasons I don’t really understand, and one I think I’m not very good at.
Swims
Half term last week, and we had a night away at some relatives right on the edge of Dartmoor. We’ve been visiting them regularly – probably every other year or so – for a long time, and have had some great times up on the moor itself – good weather, long walks, and most of all, good swimming. It’s only a month or so since Easter and I was swimming in the sea off Angelsey. That was very cold, but the water on the moor was delicious: a definite edge of coldness, but little enough that I didn’t need to be active to stay warm. The water was so clear, you could see fish playing at the bottom of the pools. I’m not sure what they were, but they were quite large. Baby trout perhaps.
I am a 100% committed wild swimmer. Love it, even when it’s brutally cold.
Our relatives are moving house, only 10 minutes away but no longer on the very edge of the moor, so we’ll never have such easy access to the moors again.
Rocks
Another thing that the moor often sparks in me is the desire to get back onto the pottery wheel. I’m not quite sure why, but I find the landscape turns my thoughts to pot making very often. In the past it’s often been the textures of the hillsides that I’ve focused on, but this time it was the ricks on the tops that drew my attention, weather worn cracks like the glyphs of Mayan stellae. I need to get the kiln up and running and start throwing again. 
Fireflies 