Sunday 27 February 2011

Inuksuk

Inuksuk
He always shot up by TV light.

This first line googles too easily. Not that it has any bearing on the inuksuk I made or the beach walk or anything other than it was the next book in the pile. I can't develop a link.

It was beautiful before 8 am this morning on Killiney Beach. The sun had just risen, the tide was receding into a bay as pond calm as you are ever likely to see the Irish Sea. It was hard not to think about the national election on Friday. The vote counting is not final but there has been a long overdue sea-change in Irish politics. Whether this matters is purely conjecture at this point. In a country that is now become the world's example of why governance is critical, why the role of treasury must be protected from ephemeral party politics and why voter apathy is corruptive, the interests represented by the newly elected are not clear. Sadly, as their individual abilities are equally opaque, their coalition combination may tend to vapidity. The task that lies before the new government is Herculean. Sovereignty is at stake. The chances of success are small if the annual interest on sovereign debt to be paid remains at 80% of the annual tax take.

Friday 25 February 2011

Obelisk

I would like to write down what happened in my grandmother's house the summer I was eight or nine, but I am not sure if it really did happen.

Another Booker winner starts this blog. And a reminder about the leading quotes; they are first lines from books I've read over the last year or so. They're in no particular order, the earlier ones come from the books at the bottom of the piles beside my bed. Sometimes I may find a way to relate them to the blog, like yesterday I was in in Dubai and Salmon Fishing in Yemen provided a coincidental and very tenuous link. You may know or guess or try to find out which book opens with the first lines posted. There's no reward or anything since I'm asking that you consider sponsoring me to walk (or continue to blog beforehand).

Back in Ireland to vote, I started the day with another walk across Killiney Hill, this time with family and dog, pictured at the Obelisk. I've been snapping the pictures with my iPhone, editing them with Camera+ and then uploading them to Picasa with PicUpp.

Thursday 24 February 2011

Terminal

Dear Dr Jones,
We have been referred to you by Peter Sullivan at the Foriegn & Commonwealth Office (Directorate for MIddle East and North Africa).

Here's a novel and for once, the name: Salmon Fishing in Yemen by Paul Tordoy.

Dubai Arrival
Walking up and down Terminal 3 in Dubai at 2 AM GMT (5 AM local, 3 PM in New Zealand), my dislocated mind wandered from why to why; why The Irish Bar to why Dubai Duty Free still trades so well (I presume booze and nicotine because everything else is pretty much the same as UK prices). 

I probably have walked a few kilometres, my bags slung from shoulders like panniers on a motorbike, burning calories and trying to stay awake. I needed the exercise after sitting for so long from Melbourne. I wonder if my bag will make it? I was forced to check it in Wellington but the disruption to air services due to the earthquake delayed my fight to Auckland such that I only had 40 minutes to get from Domestic to International terminals, check-in and then run the gauntlet through security and the boarding process. I made it, flustered and sweaty but at least I made it. There was a passportless German frau trying to get home after making it from Christchurch, shocked or aged or both, she seemed to think getting on a plane to Australia shouldn't be a problem, as if she'd earned the right to travel without documentation because she'd been in an earthquake.  I don't know that she made it.

I remembered visiting various architectural sites in the UK with my father a few years ago and finding where all the retired people went - they go on perpetual tours and live in hotels by night and onboard buses by day. Today, I realised that weathlty pensioners go on perpetual cruises. Most of the folk I saw in Auckland, Melbourne and Dubai were jetting between cruise ships and home.

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Aftershock

Wellington sunrise
I have to start somewhere, trying to understand.

The Queens Wharf was beautiful this morning though it was hard to enjoy it without some guilt. Yesterday, in the drizzle at lunch, I was on a ship tied fast to the Aotea Quay in Wellington when the earthquake struck Christchurch. A long way off, the deadly shear waves would not have been felt on the ship because they don't propagate in liquids. Yet we knew something terrible had happened within seconds because some of the maritime crew were from Christchurch and their mobile phones conveyed the bad news. One at least was told of his collapsed house, fortunately without any injury. 

We watched the TV coverage from streetside in Wellington afterwards. It shocked the people in the capital  as they watched the TV screens  inside the Arizona restaurant, the external speakers broadcasting the commentary as they stood in the rain.

For my part, I was touched by how many emails and text messages I got enquiring after my health. I was some 300 km from the epicentre and perfectly safe, thank you all.

Sunday 20 February 2011

Waffle

Sightseer.
So now get up.

And I did get up, to a day that stretched from waffles to green-lipped mussels, breakfast and dinner, both in Leuven. Between times, when not quoting from a Booker prize winner, I walked along the sea front, embarrassed or inspired by the 10,000 people doing the many events that make up the Round the Bay half marathon. One boy was a particular symbol of the morning; he was about twelve, his running number pinned to his red T-shirt, as he chased his family in his electric wheelchair, a huge grin on his palsied face.  A celebration of summer and what a beautiful day it was, and it was a beautiful day in Wellington.

I needed to keep out of the sun after gettting a little too much yesterday so I went walking several times for just a couple of kilometres. People took full advantage of the cold water; swimming, kayaking, sailing, diving, fishing and rowing. Others took full advantage of the promenade; walking, cycling, jogging, strolling and generally lolling about. Lots to see as powerboats and helicopters entertained the posh while cross-harbour and cross-island ferries maintained communal ties. More traditional Moari links are clearly illustrated through the excellent Te Papa museum and perhaps less succesfully, the newly embattled Wharewaka, a wharfside building alleged to be too small to house the waka for which it was built.

Just another summer Sunday to Wellingtonians but a wonderful respite from winter for me.

Saturday 19 February 2011

Skyline

Sky Farm
Hot, thought the Parisians.

And as it is in fiction, so it was here today in New Zealand. Having decided that walking was a better option than cycling, and having bought some day packs to carry water, J and I took a taxi to Johnsonville to the start of one of the Welly Walks. By coincidence, our driver C, thirty-one years living in Wellington had done the same walk for the first time just a few weeks ago. He was genuinely pleased to be giving us the local knowledge that makes the difference. Mostly about the wind that can suddenly chill, which turned out not to be a problem today.

We started climbing up the steps incised into the forested slopes leading to Mt Kaukau. Hot and humid, birds exotic to us, tui perhaps, were calling while grasshopper or cicada-like trills filled the background. Up on the first peak, the clouds had blown across and the top of 120 m TV transmitter was lost to us. We headed on to learn that the start was the hardest part. Across Kilmister Tops, suggestive of a murder plot, along Parkvale Road and on to Johnson Hill, all along the way the views were, frankly, compromised by ugly overhead powerlines and the elongated scattering of ugly wind turbines. This seemed not to bother the sheep, cattle and cyclists we encountered, not that we asked their opinions.

In short, the views were quite spectacular though the haze denied us the South Island, compensated by views over Wellington harbour and the Queen Elizabeth, which docked this morning, on her maiden Pacific voyage.

It was after some four hours and 12.5 km that we reached Makara Road. A call to C had found him at home early and he organised another car to to collect us. Just as well, we were tired and had run out of water, in my case over two litres consumed.

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Drizzle

Trimmed Branches

Will you look at us by the river!

I first read this novel living where it's set in Perth in the nineties. It needed to be revisited and rewarded me well.

Unlike today's walk, for which there were few rewards. I went alone after my companions forgot to turn up. It wasn't too dreary but not a great walk either. It was just another 5 km along the Grand Union Canal and Colne River in the drizzle enveloped by the constant traffic hum from the M40. Neither rain nor noise seemed to affect the already paired coots, mute swans, mallard and canada geese that sailed past, the only things moving on the canal today. Long tailed tits, ring-necked parakeets and woodquest pigeon each broke cover in different ways. The winter flocked tits flitted from tree to tree, tinkling, hopeful to not disturb the watchful predators. The gangs of green parakeets screeched their uncouth challenges in groups of eight or more. The solitary pigeon crashed into trees and clapped on take-off as if in refined defiance.

It was muddy and wet and there were very few others about.

Sunday 13 February 2011

Loop

Shopfront Shopfronts
The boy's name was Santiago.
 
Another novel and easy to find. Read this if fiction confuses you.
 
Instead of reading, I was walking around Killiney Hill again. Just over 5 km on a bright day after a night of more rain. A Sunday morning of few joggers, even fewer walkers. We noticed that the street drains were clogged by the winter grit, the trees had been scalped after snow damage and the roadside bracken recently trimmed to promote renewal after the icy winter. Architectural features that are normally unseen behind branch and leaf, exposed for us to marvel and envy.
 
By the way, the photos posted on this blog are nearly all taken with my iPhone. Today's photo is from a chemist's shopfront in Dalkey.

Saturday 12 February 2011

Pier

Pier Steps
Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukranian divorcee.

Another novel, maybe easier to guess?

We walked along the sea front and pier in Dun Laoghaire where the early morning skies were clear but for contrails pointing out the southeast emigration routes, the chill air still, the sea calm, its oil-like surface ideal for escape by jet foil. A starfish passed over us, in the beak of a herring gull.

Oddly enough, there were very few people out taking advantage of the break in the rain. Perhaps we have lost confidence in our weather forecasters, as we have lost in confidence in authority and leadership generally.

Forget suspending your disbelief in the novel, read the current Vanity Fair on Ireland.

Sunday 6 February 2011

Stroll

When I was fifteen, I got hepatitis.

I saw the movie of this novel a few weeks ago on a plane after I'd read the book several months before. I found both disturbing and yet the movie was made much more so by being on a seat back display in full view of other travellers.
 
We walked around Killiney Hill and went on to Dalkey Village for coffee. The coffee shop had provided its across-the-road annex to a photographer and a wood turner, both of whom had some really nice work on show and of course, for sale.

Thursday 3 February 2011

Incipit

My Feet in 2008
He’s never been anywhere he’s never been. 

Another year, another challenge. Mine is to climb three peaks in Scotland within 24 hours in May, 100 days from now. You'll read more about it if you click here. The challenge is doubled because the team with whom I will do this must raise £3000, this being the point after all.

And so I offer you a double challenge too. You could try to find out which book opens with the first line posted here and I ask that you consider sponsoring me to walk (or blog in the meantime).

Here's the thing; this first line of this novel is harder than most by coincidence not design. I decided to use the books I've read recently and this was the first, going back about a year. Sorry, it doesn't google even though it was published in 2008.