Shell Island, A Day Out

So where to start, at the beginning I suppose. I left home in a rain storm, it was pouring.  First stop the petrol station, Morrison’s to fill up. Standing in the line to pay, a voice, pleasant and smiling “Mr L. what are you doing here”. After a blank, its Anne Marie from work, and relief, “Going for a walk on the beach.”   Her turn to be puzzled for a moment, then a shake of the head and a smile. 

On up the M6 and then across the M54 and then the A5 to Shrewsbury. Although the River  Severn is high, I have seen it higher. On into Wales towards Welshpool, the rain has stopped, but the clouds are still heavy and there is lots of spray thrown up by the traffic. After stopping in Welshpool to get a sandwich to eat in the car it is time to head into the hills, westwards towards Dolgellau. There are fewer cars now, often there is just me speeding along. The road rises and winds through the hills and small towns of mid Wales. Finally one long steep incline, higher and higher we climb, towards the clouds. At the top a sense of relief, we made it up the hill, but also we are almost there. down the other side, just as steep, towards Dolgellau and the beginnings of the coastal strip and the Mawdach estuary. On towards Barmouth and then up the coast heading for Harlech and its castle. Before the castle we turn left in Llanbedr and head towards the sea and Shell Island. 

I always park up at the start of the causeway and the walk up the path to the dunes. Today I had some company, at least part of the way. Three sheep ran in front for a hundred yards or so. 

Apart from the sheep I did meet a couple of other visitors, but they were leaving as I headed towards the dunes and the sea beyond.

I was wrapped up and warm, the Mayo and Kermode podcast chattering away in my ears. 

The dunes were higher than I remembered. Many of the spaces full of water from the recent rain. I had my Wellies on, but, there were many places too deep even for me. 

Eventually  after what seemed long hard slog, though, in reality, it was 10 minutes, if that, I trudged down the final face on to the beach itself. I was the only person there.

I looked up and down the beach, to my left the sand  stretched away and merged into the shadows at the base of the distant hills. The only signs of life being the occasional seagull standing around  waiting for the tide to turn I imagine. The clouds that had lifted during my journey west, now were beginning to break apart  allowing the sun to show through. I ventured towards the distant hills across the still damp sand. 

There are all sorts of bits and pieces washed up on the sand, this time there were few if any man made objects. Most were marine in origin, there was alt of seaweed of various species, but every so often a piece of non marine origin stood out.

To be honest nothing much happened for the next while, I walked, the sun tried and mainly failed to breakthrough the cloud cover, the wind blew and the waves rolled up and down. Mayo and Kermode bickered gently in my ears. I eventually turned around and retraced my steps northward.

Continuing past my original start point I walked on up the sand. In the distance I could see the sand ending and the rocks  taking over. A cormorant, flew towards me, heading south. 

Abruptly the sand ended, replaced by rocks and stones, ranging in size from full blown boulders to pebbles and grit. On the seaward edge the gulls ignore me and continue to watch the sea. Standing looking at the rocks I could see they are covered with seaweed, mussels and barnacles. After a while I catch a couple of flashes of unexpected movement in and on the rocks. Standing still and waiting, not my greatest attribute, gave me a chance to search the nearby rocks more thoroughly and eventually I caught sight of the culprit. In fact there were three of them, Turnstones, 

They deigned to stop their foraging  every so often and occasionally there would be more than one in the same place, all three, not a chance. I moved slowly closer, to get better pictures. On the whole they ignored me scurrying around the rocks searching for food. However they managed to keep their distance so I left them to it after a while  and continued on.

The rocks are easy at first to clamber through, it just means you have to spend so much more of your attention on watching where you are going and planning out your route. So less and less time is spent looking at the scenery and or contemplating well, life, the universe and my navel. After a while Kermode and Mayo have finished and Melvin Bragg and his friends are telling me all about the South Sea Bubble. It is time to head back to the car. Through the deserted camp site and back along the causeway catching site of flock of Shelduck foraging in the salt marsh and a couple of Redshank running around in the channels.

Eventually the car and a sit down. It has been a while since I have been out on my own for any length of time and the thought of just getting in the car and heading back home. It was still light so I drove back down to Barmouth and spent another hour wandering around on the beach.  Here I was not the only one dotted around the expanse of sand were small  groups, and occasional individuals, getting out into the fresh air while it was light and the rain held off. 

As the light finally faded I headed back to the car and then back through the hills to Birmingham and home 

again

I thought I would write something, as I have not for a long time I think this is the seconmd time this year. My Camera broke,my ipod broke, so in time i got new ones, but in a way it is not the same, I have found it harder to sit and write stuff down. Maybe it is writers block, more likely needing to go to bed. So this is Sunday morning getting closer to 1:00 am and I am sitting here killing time before i do go to bed, Yes, tomorrow is another day and I do need to keep putting stuff down.

I know I am beigning to ramble, we that is what I feel I am doing. So until next time

A year with my Father

I was going to write something about the year gone by and, well see what happened. So far all I can really think about is this year and my Father and my time with him. So maybe if I can put this down I can begin to move on,. Maybe?

The beginning was as always his return in January from Columbia. He and Marina usually missed the worst bits, but this year took longer than most to warm up. He always came back with something or other wrong or needed fixing. This year it was his teeth, he had got some sort of infection before coming home, how long he had been in pain or suffering he would never admit to, half his face had swollen up and he had waited to come home to get it sorted.

Soon after his return he started on a new treatment for his prostate cancer, this he had admitted to 2 years earlier, but apart from news on his PSA levels had not really affected the rest of us since he had told us. He had had problems with his heart for several years and had been taking various concoctions to keep this under control. I knew he was not 100% and was rationally of all the things that could happen. However I gathered them all into a corner of my mind and glanced at them every so often to check that they had not escaped and stayed with my Micawber inspired view of the world.

So at first the Chemo therapy was no great trial. After a few days he was a bit sick, though thinking about it he probably would not have mentioned it to me any way. It was about this time I began to call him more often it was the middle to the end of February. We would talk a couple of times a week and most Sundays we went to the Lyndon House Hotel for a couple of beers and a bap.

The Chemo actually knocked him about a lot each cycle getting progressively harder and harder on him. Every three weeks he had a dose. His hair thinned rapidly and he just looked frailer and frailer. He said he felt “rubbish” and it was “killing him”.

The end of March, the 30^th to be precise was important. His 70^th birthday, he and Marina organised his party bringing together his friends from his extended social circle, His brothers and sisters in law, and his children, even Dan came. I managed to impress him with a present from his children, a bottle of 1941 Armangac. He told me it was good and he was able to impress the French club members who had some. One day I will get a glass.

He still played golf a couple of times a week, and had his bacon sandwiches. He bought a motorised trolley for his golf bag.

He went back to his oncologist in April or maybe May, how looked him over looked at his test results and decided to stop. The Chemo therapy was not working, he needed a plan B. There was a new treatment, but it had not been authorised yet, probably later in the year, October.

Slowly it seemed at the time my father seemed to improve towards his old self, but not quite. yes many of his old symptoms were there. He still had odema in his feet, but that had been there for at least a year, His breathing especially in the mornings was a problem. As the summer progressed his hair grew back, but his shoulders and hips seemed to belong to someone else half the time. He could still swing a club, drive his car and hold a pint.

I went on holiday and he made plans to go away at Christmas as normal and maybe to have his step children over and to take them to Europe for a holiday.

He found mornings worse, being able to get his breath after doing strenuous things like getting out of bed, having a shower. I knew he was in trouble when he asked me to take him to the hospital one Saturday morning. They checked him out and by the time we got to see a Doctor he was much better. It was then that I understood that he was terrible at telling Doctors what was wrong with him. He told them only bits and pieces and what he thought they needed to know. He would tell one thing to one person then something else to another. It made sense as I spoke to his wife, to my sister and brothers. By the time they let you out after chest X Rays and heart monitors and shrugs of shoulders, you walked back to the car, much improved.

Marina kept him going, I kept in touch and spoke to Marina who would tell me things that he never quite got around to. I talked to my siblings, kept them up to date, what did people do before mobile phones?

More unplanned visits to the hospital followed over the next month or so, and by October he was really struggling. Even going to the Pub was beginning to be hard work. I watched and realised as you nursed a pint, I took you home early that night.

After that he was finally admitted to Hospital with a chest infection, double pneumonia to be more exact. Your kidneys decided that they would have a rest and your heart felt the pressure.

After 2 weeks he had had enough of Hospitals, as ever my father had made up your mind and no one was going to change it. We took him home, where after the initial euphoria of escape wore off he declined. After another night in A & E we brought him back home, you had somehow convinced the Doctor not to admit you.

Just under two weeks after he got himself out he was back in. By now he was deteriorating rapidly and he died.

So now my father has gone I realise I have thought about him more in the last weeks than in years gone by. For over half of my life he spent Christmas in Columbia and did not come back until middle or end of January.

So where am I now, apart from sitting here on what was when I started New Year’s Day 2012? I don’t know how I should feel or think. At the moment I feel fine, though increasingly I am getting cross and frustrated. If life was simple and I could work out what was going to happen and well … I would feel a lot less frustrated. But other people are involved and that always complicates things no end.

My father did as he always did, left it to the rest of us to fill in the details and get things sorted whole he moved on to his next adventure.