Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost (Tolkien)

 We went exploring in East Looe this week. Away from the centre of town, away from the tourist spots. 5 miles of walking. All hill.

My goodness we gave our quads and calves a workout. Sloping roads and long flights of steps. Stopping for a chat with a woman coming down as an excuse for a breather. It made the challenge of our own steep road a mere sprint in comparison to this marathon.

Oh, but the views.

Being on the opposite side of the river was like being on the other side of a mirror. We played I Can See Our House From Here, one of Mr M’s favourite games when we’re out, as West Looe Hill became our view with the sea behind it.

Most of our walk was residential. Good if you like architecture or if you’re nosy! If you’re a writer, you can call it research! More holiday homes on the lower levels, then lots of upside down houses clinging higher up the hillside, with main entrances on their top floors. Narrow roads that would challenge many a car and driver, as well nips and opes crisscrossing the hill: narrow lanes between properties that in London I would have previously called alleys or snicketways. When we emerged from the final one of these near the top, the roads became much more estate like, less Cornish and more generic in style.

At the summit, we knew if we turned left we would come to a parade of shops where, you can find one of the best chip shops in Looe, Ben’s Plaice, and the relatively new but fabulous Barbican Pizza. Keep going and you’ll come to the secondary school and the local football club, before you eventually reach the main parish church of St Martin’s on the corner of the road leaving Looe.

But we went right, stopping at the well stocked Spar for a much needed drink, then to the Wooldown, an area of open land edged by the South West Coastal Path and with fabulous views across Looe Bay. It’s not a park but a preserved piece of Cornish countryside within the town and is protected as such. So what you get are fields with hedgerows, havens for flora and fauna.

We sat on a bench with our drinks watching Looe Island disappear under the approaching sea fret and saw Hannafore Beach from a new angle. I wondered if this is what it might feel like to be a drone. Then we made our way down a track marked only by a line of flattened grass to a stepped footpath and onto the Coastal Path.

We were back on familiar ground now, having walked this section several times in the past. The path turns to tarmac, walls lined with benches overlooking East Looe Beach. About once a year, someone drives up here and onto the track, ignoring the signs, before abandoning their car and blocking everyone’s way after realising their error and deciding they can’t reverse back.

We ended our walk with lunch at Daisy’s Café, just up from the main shopping area back in the centre of town. I had a sandwich and salad garnish big enough to constitute a full dinner. The lovely Mr M had one of the best vegetable pasties in Looe, freshly baked.  

Even though we continued to ache for some days after, I’m really glad we did this walk. It was good to get to know our town better, and make some connections about where different parts are in relation to each other. To get a better feel for Looe as town in its own right and not just the tourist destination that it is. It made me realise how many people live here.

Next time, we’re going to explore more of West Looe: the streets our own house overlooks, up to the Downs, maybe the cemetery. And if our knees are up to it, we’ll see if we can manage Chapel Steps. (And if you want know why I put it that way you can get an idea of them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ofXnLQLHg) .

Here’s to exploring the places we live. And finding out more about them. Understanding, learning and putting down roots.

MOTHER’S DAY – Better Late Than Never

I wrote this post for last week. Then went away to visit family and forgot to pack my laptop charger! I considered writing something new for this week but what I wrote last week matters to me so I’m sharing it with you now instead.

Dear Mum

I can’t believe it was ten years ago I was facing my first Motherless Day. I remember going to the supermarket to buy something for dinner. But the bright lights, the people, and, worst of all, the card stand imploded on me like a migraine. I couldn’t breathe for the pain.

It’s not like that now. Missing you is more of an arthritic ache, like the one I get in my knee on damp days reminding me of the surgery I had all those years ago.

I miss you. All the time. I miss you in the big moments – four graduations I haven’t been able to send you photos of, one of them mine. I miss you in the small moments – I still catch myself thinking “Oh, I must tell Mum about that”, only to realise that you’re not there to tell anymore.

I miss your phone calls. How you would tell me, in detail, about the meals you’d had, people I’d never met, the birds on the feeder, flowers you’d seen in someone’s garden on the way somewhere. All those times I’d come off the phone not knowing why you’d called.

Now I know you were weaving strong threads of connection between us. And telling me you loved me.

I miss those calls and I miss knowing you are there for me to call. To swap recipes. To offload about work. To ask for prayers, which would happen right then on the phone, much to my embarrassment. Or just to hear someone speak in whole sentences after a day of my male household communicating only in single syllables and grunts.

I wish I could make those calls again. I wonder what you would make of my life now. Leaving my profession. Moving to Cornwall. Becoming a writer. I mean, I know you would be supportive and wise in your advice, but I wish I could physically hear the pride in your voice.

I wish I could show you our new home. I wish we could take our (yet to be found rescue) dog for a walk together on the beach. I wish we could exchange stories about my new hometown, where you spent your honeymoon. I wonder if you’d let me book us on a speedboat trip to recreate that picture of you and Dad. I’d like to sit with you in the little church that is starting to feel like it might become home for me. I’d like to talk about art with you and why it matters to me. I’d like you to hear my poetry and know how much you live on in my words.

Strange, this feeling of you being so far away and yet so imbedded in me. I’m doing OK, Mum. Ups and downs – you know how life is. You don’t need to worry about me not coping without you – you taught me too well. Even when you didn’t know you were teaching me.

I just wanted to tell you that I miss you. And I love you.

Liz

GRATEFUL IN THE GREY

I’ve felt a bit out of sorts this week, nothing terrible, just not quite myself. I guess it’s down to a near miss of a migraine, menopausal insomnia, and the weather. I know this is the UK but oh the rain, the hail, the grey of it all. Work has felt dull too, effortful and with little to see for it. And my Lent discipline, still full of valuable insights, has moved past the excitement of that hopeful first week.

I still find it too easy to count my negatives than my blessings. My imperfections stand out to me like misused apostrophes to an editor. But as I struggled to get to sleep last night, I remembered something I haven’t updated you about on this blog:

For those of you who don’t know, I developed De Quervain’s, a form of RSI that causes the tendons in the wrist/thumb joint to inflame and become painful. In the past, it resolved with anti-inflammatories and a resting splint, but this time it didn’t. So I had 6 months of increasing pain and debility followed by an extremely painful steroid injection into the joint.  If that didn’t work, I would be referred for hand surgery.

There was a lot riding on this injection. I was a tangled mess of hoped for recovery and feared permanent loss. I wrote about my first week post injection here:  https://thestufflifeismadeofblog.wordpress.com/2024/01/20/single-handed/. Return to function has been slow but it has happened, is continuing to happen.

Here’s some of things I never knew before to be grateful for:

I no longer wear a splint every night.

I can do up the zip on my coat.

I can chop vegetables again.

I can put the handbrake on in our car.

I can pop pills out of their strip.

I can carry two mugs of coffee at the same time.

I can type two handed.

I’ve started knitting again, which I have missed this so much.

I even did a bit of light pruning in the garden yesterday.

And to Mr M’s delight, I can wash up without pain or dropping things.

I’ve learned a few things along the way. The importance of good positioning and support when I’m on my keyboard. To keep doing my hand exercises regularly (and I can do all of them without pain now!). To take frequent breaks and limit time on repetitive activities, however enjoyable they are. How caring and protective Mr M is – I mean, I already knew that one but it’s so lovely to be reminded. That he and I are better these days at communicating when and how we need help and when we need to do things for ourselves.

There, the last week doesn’t seem so grey now. All these sunshine moments that I just needed to stop and notice and be thankful for.