Impressions of Insanity

Impressions

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Saturday, July 22, 2000

18:13

Bum. Forgot to do my stretches. Have to bounce up and down a bit and do them now. Getting hyperactive again (half a cheese and tomato sandwich is enough, apparently, to fire up the metabolic engine) and started shaking. Feel like a small child about to throw a tantrum. Weird.

And what I really want to do is drink 2 jugs of strong coffee with plenty of sugar, eat an entire box of jam doughnuts, then run across Dartmoor.

Just shoot me now.

17:39

Oooh. Ow. Ouch. Mummy.

Have given up on the recumbent for the time being...hang on, I've just reminded myself....ok.

Have given up on the recumbent trainer in the gym for the time being on the basis that it always makes my back hurt. Have swapped for running on the treadmill, as the only other CV options are stepper and rower and upright bike - and I know I don't get on with the upright bike. While the stepper is hard, it's too narrow. It hurts lots, but in specific muscle groups.

I feel really out of shape today. Maybe I'm pushing the speed a bit too much. I'm sure I used to be able to run for about an hour, no problem. Still, bumped the crunches back up to 320, so a bit happier with that. The weights are still below the mark I had reached before I got really sick again though, and that's terribly depressing.

Feel a bit odd now (the story of my life). Head pain isn't as bad as I expected it to be, which is good, although I did have to stop for 5 minutes until the pain behind my eye abated while on the assisted chin machine. I don't feel tired, but I feel as though I have expended a lot of energy, so the flaring is pretty calm right now because there is nothing spare with which to flare, if that makes sense (as well as rhyming). Like turning the heat down under a pot of water so that you stop it boiling but it stays hot, only that's not quite right.

Um. How do I describe this? If you had loads of fish in a pond, and more fish were being added at a constant rate than were being removed through attrition, then the water surface would be constantly turbulent because of overcrowding. If an otter came along and ate a whole pile of fish, so that there were about the right number for the pond, the water would get smooth because all the fish were swimming peacefully and it would take a while for the number of fish to reach a surplus again.

Only I'm not saying that someone is adding coi carp to my system at a constant rate because that would be silly. They're probably hamsters.

I did my 2 hours in the gym, and it was a fair session, not good, but fair. Bit disappointing, but then I've lost a lot of ground recently. They're threatening me with more dietary restrictions, like I haven't got enough of those already.

Hugin reaches his beak through the window and brings back a badly scrawled list. The ink is fresh and wet, the paper is ragged and smudged. There are traces of other writing on it, as if it was just a scrap that had come to hand. The empath cannot see who was on the other side to hand it to him. He drops it and it flutters slowly down to the floor like a dying butterfly. Munin hops down and reads it intently. The empath does not bother. The birds will sort it out between them when it is appropriate.

Chocolate has hit the very disapproved but not quite banned list. I should draw a flowchart. I think I tried once.

El says she knows what's wrong, what is causing the flaring. She says it's because I'm still not able to shift properly. She says the system tries to shift the way it used to, it tries to adapt to changing circumstances, but there is no response. It cannot take on appropriate forms for different functions and is going into some sort of seizure for trying so hard. Or something. She says that's also why I found the running so hard, why I couldn't stop my shoulders from stiffening or ease out the stitch in my side. She says it's obviously not my fitness because I happily did 10 minutes on the rower at number 8 before my back started complaining. While I was running she was triggering me into these visualisations of flying over the sea and around the cliffs and hills of the Western Isles, pushing me to shift form, but I couldn't do it. I barely noticed the first 7 minutes go by, but I couldn't shift and the spell broke when she started trying to give me other forms besides the bird to see if it was just a block on that one form.

El pointed out that the system is used to continually shifting. It has not remained the same for a significantly long period in years. My brother describes what is happening as instability but I have not ever thought of it as instability. Instability is a result of the lack of solid anchor to one energetic form, it's a by-product of being able to shift so easily, but I haven't been able to shift since this latest episode of nightmare started. It doesn't feel like instability. It's a flashover, it's very different, although some of the effects are the same.

And, yes, I did check and the bruises are still there. I'm at a loss now. But damn hungry. The only question is, if I eat something will the heat waves start again?

As a point of interest, the heat waves now have cold spells in between them. Sound familiar? Only I don't think it is caused by the same thing (which may have been the lunar eclipse last time, from the number of people complaining of the same thing. And if I get one smart arse bugger mentioning "occult tides" again I shall smack him).

12:23

I spoke too soon.. Hot flushes are back. Started about an hour after having breakfast (muesli) and while I was getting frustrated trying to fix the dynamo on my bike (someone has thoughtfully severed one of the wires to the rear light). Finally tracked down the soldering iron but no solder, curses, and I'm working straight through all week now. Hardware shop shut half an hour ago and I have gym booked this afternoon.

Now getting spasms down the line in my left forearm particularly, and in ribs and back. Sweating. Air feels too thick. Brain fog coming in. Feels like the node in my left upper arm, at the back on the tricep, is impacting. Quite painful. Already getting hungry again. Drank huge amounts of water yesterday, one pint after another. Getting thirsty again now. Wish I knew what was going on.

Worried about my brother. Don't know why. So hot. Can hardly breathe.

10:52

More dreams.

We were at war. I don't know why, or where, but the Land was familiar and I got the impression that it was a war that not many ordinary people were interested in, except as far as knowing what was going on where so that they could avoid being caught in the crossfire. There were Andy and I, who were involved, but were not actually on either side. We weren't mercenaries. I get the impression that we were sent in by someone externally to perform a task to prevent something happening as a by-product of the skirmishing. I don't think it was a rescue, I'm not sure what it was (though may have been something to do with the virus). We were attached to a troop belonging to one side in this war, who were willing, if not happy, to co-operate. They had been told what our task was, and seemed to think it was important also. Their Sergeant was a good man, quick to smile and with a genuine fondness for his men.

The terrain we had to cross was sparse wood, scrub and bog. The weather was late Autumn (again), full of mist, the air damp, rain ever-threatening. The grass smelled strongly of scrubland, perhaps even of peat. Water dripped from leaves on blackthorn and hawthorn. The area was extremely rural, but not entirely uninhabited. It was also in the limnal area between the territories held by the two sides, and neither side was ever entirely sure who they were likely to meet. It was certainly dangerous. We all had all our kit with us, as we were out there for some time. I remember that the soldiers were dubious about our ability to keep up with them and started taking the piss, but the Weapon just smiled at them and they all shut up after that.

We reached our objective, a small farmhouse in the middle of a patch of open moorland. Or, rather, we came within sight of it while we were still hidden in the bushes, and we were making plans as to how to approach it. Most of the soldiers in the troop had taken up positions around the place, and only the Sergeant was still with us. At that point we suddenly realised we were not the only people in the area, because there were suddenly a lot of people from the other side all around us, all with guns, all prepared to shoot to kill on sight. Or, worse, shoot to maim in order to take prisoners. We had to abandon our packs and run, and I remember being a touch distressed about leaving my nice new kit behind, but we did it.

We got separated, and I ended up at the farmhouse. It was a small house, not like the one from the memories, with roses growing all round and over the kitchen window. The kitchen was small and poky and quite dim, and all the floors were irregular. From one window there was a view of a stone bridge over a barely used canal. The people in there were mad as fruit flies and packing up to leave for a week. They thought that this would be enough time for the current hostilities on their land to subside. They had two dogs, a collie and a lab, both of which had more mental acuity than either of the batty owners, but both of which were carrying a virus that was crucial to the whole war thing. The woman, a bizarre cross between an interchangeable Emma (only about 60 years old) and the woman with the dragon sanctuary in the Pratchett books, with a bit of Tom from Waiting for God thrown in for good measure, decided that I was the "gel" they had hired to look after the dogs while they were away, asked me why I was late and started telling me the conditions of employment. She had a scarf tied round her head and was wearing an olive green padded body warmer, a tweed skirt and wellingtons. I knew damn well that there was no way they would have been able to get anyone to come look after the animals in the middle of all this skirmishing, and could see that they had already contracted the virus, which had affected their minds. I tried to explain that I was not here to look after their dogs and the woman decided I wanted the weekend off.

"We will definitely be requiring you for next Friday, you know," she said as they loaded a suitcase into the Range Rover. I wondered why it hadn't been taken by one of the warbands, then decided they probably wouldn't get very far but there was nothing I could do for them anyway.

After they had left I grabbed the dogs. I knew how to handle them so as not to get the virus and had to get them back to the place where I was based. I waited and watched for a good long while, but either the enemy soldiers had simply moved on, or something was happening elsewhere to distract them. I even managed to pick up my kit on the way back.

Andy had made it safely back also. We seemed to be stationed, or at least temporarily based, at a naval station. That was where we took the dogs. The last thing I remember was leaning against a guard rail on a pier with Andy watching a massive, towering warship that was used for carrying ammunition and ordnance sailing past. She seemed too high for her length and was painted this deep, disturbing red colour, the colour of blood. The name started with "A" but I can't quite remember what it was. I'd know it if I saw it. I think there were three syllables in it.

Friday, July 21, 2000

18:31

The heat waves seem to have subsided again but I am now ravenously hungry at the same time as having no appetite. I could eat a horse, but I don't want to. Especially as we are going swimming this evening and I don't like swimming on a full stomach. Also, I am sitting in a cool breeze from the conservatory that seems to be helping. My torso and shoulders feel incredibly stiff, however - actually, thinking about it, this happened yesterday as well, only for the entire system to descend into spasmed flaring late in the evening. My head still feels clouded and dull, and I'm having trouble with motor co-ordination and words. Must remember to enter that into the diary. Of course, this could be the low phase of the carrier wave, as I'm still getting pain spasms and tiny little hot flushes which are confined to the spinal area between my shoulder blades. The hot flushes are accompanied by stiffening in my arms, I can feel it in the line down the outside of the forearm along the bone.

Last night it started going poo when it felt like my vertebrae were trying to grow spikes up out of my back. I will have to keep an eye out for that (but not literally, heh).

12:11

Trying to remember last night's dreams. They seemed to be a follow-on from the previous night's, but I can't remember much more than the decor of the house some of it was set in (white walls, open ground floor with two-level wooden flooring and a decorative arch on the ceiling separating the living area from the dining area). Not feeling too chipper today, although I managed to give the impression of being a happy, sociable bunny when we went out to dinner last night at our friends' house. Frood had to cut Sam's (the other one) and Simon's hair.

Incidentally, I'm dead chuffed with Frood's latest addition to his site (he's even less technically competent than I am and I do his html for him. Sorry about that font, he insisted). That turned out really nicely and I keep going to have a look at it.

Don't like having to do the happy sociable bunny thing, but I get the feeling if I stayed home every time I feel like crap when we are due to go out, I would never get to go out at all. Can an illness be like a dog? If I give in and stayed behind and moped would it learn that it can succeed and keep making me feel shitty when I'm supposed to go out?

Ghods, rambling now. Utter rubbish. I'm starting to sound like the doctors who keep telling me it's all in my head. Bastards. Still, Tom Baker hasn't said that to me yet.

I hope I don't call him Tom Baker to his face. No, I'd call him "Doctor", and that's ok, even if he doesn't have a very long scarf. Or jelly babies.

Just reread what I'd typed looking for mistakes and read "moped" as "mo-ped". Pain in my legs is making my thoughts erratic and disjointed. Or maybe it isn't, it's just coincidental with it. Everything feels jerky, like reeling in a big fish.

Hour and a half until I have to meet Sam (the other one, Frood has two Sams - a brace, by Bellamy. Bellamy! Bellamy!) at Touchwoods (no website, maybe I should do one for them) and help him choose a tent. What else did I agree to do last night after they started feeding me Pouilly Fum�? I think I agreed to do Jodie's spreadsheets for her, but that was given anyway. I think I did the "looking at people and telling them what's wrong with their back and why" game. Fiona had a fit when I told her she had crampy feet.

You tell them it's down to posture, which they accept, even though it's blatantly obvious you can't tell a person has crampy feet by looking at the way she is sitting. They would accept that explanation over the more accurate one. Sometimes people confuse me. Sometimes I'm not sure I want to be people any more. Sometimes I know damn well that I don't want to be people any more. Land was so much more soothing.

Turning aphasic. Having trouble matching letters with sounds and concepts. Words keep splitting apart into component parts. Got to keep a hold of this. Can't give in and lost my head now.

Ghods it hurts sometimes. you know. Running very hot.

Distraction. Neutral buoyancy, dear, is a matter of practise. Practise and good breath control. You wan to learn scuba diving, cheat, use a stab jacket. Must get mine serviced before September. And my DV. Or did I just give that to my other brother? Can't remember a damn thing any more. Ha. Supposed to have perfect memory. Not these days.

Oooh. Ow. That's new. Blunt knitting needle up into behind forehead through upper right quadrant of left orbit. Not had that particular type of torture before, and it's interfering with my vision. Hoorah.

Neutral buoyancy. It's all a matter of Avogadro's principle, you know. No. Not Avogadro, he was something to do with moles (no doubt eating spicy noodles and chick peas was his idea). Archimedes! That's the one. Turn of the screw, and all that. Archimedes principle is all about displacement of mass.

You can do this in the bath. It's why boats float. They say he discovered it in the bath.

A body in fluid will experience an upthrust equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body.

The bit that used to get the slower members of the class was that it's the weight of the fluid that is important, not the body (although that is also important). it's also why I occasionally ask winged Otherkin types what the air composition/density and gravity is like where they come from. Just because. Archimedes. What a groovy guy.

Anyway (why am I doing this? Not the giggling hysterically but the explanation of Archimedes. Anyone remember? Care? No? Fine). Anyway. What you need to do is work out the volume of your body. This is quite difficult when it comes to people, sadly, so start with something simple. Once you know the voume you can work out the weight of fluid it is displacing. So if you have a volume of 1 litre and you are in water, you are displacing 1kg of fluid. Now, if your body weighs more than 1kg it will sink. If it weighs less than 1kg it will float. If it weighs exactly 1kg you have achieved neutral buoyancy. Hoorah!

People are, basically, big bags of mainly water (according to an alien species in Star Trek anyway), but not just water. And there is the complication of gaseous inclusions of variable volume. Lungs and stomach and things. These things change not only a person's volume, but therefore person's density (where density is mass over volume). So on the one hand you have the extra weight caused by not being totally water but having solid bits as well and other things that are denser than water, but you have the reduction in weight from having big bags of air inside you. This is why most people can float to some extent if they have lungfuls of air.

Now we have to start thinking about pressure as well. At higher pressures the same amount of gas takes up less space (is that one Boyle? I always get the gas laws confused. pV=nRT and all that stuff). So. Achieving neutral buoyancy, dear brother, in the deep end of the swimming pool, is all about being at exactly the right depth with exactly the right amount of air in your lungs. So the point at which you achieve neutral buoyancy can not only be variable depending on how much air you keep in your lungs and how far down you go before trying to achieve it, but also variable according to what your digestive system is doing.

But you knew all that already.

Still. I think the worst of the brain meltdown threat has passed now. I need a cup of tea.

Thursday, July 20, 2000

15:34

Pain bad now. Jaw, head, chest. Flaring everywhere. Dreams last night that reminded me of home - not home home, but the home I have never visited. Dreams of work rescuing a small girl, the same small girl as I dreamt was kidnapped the other night. About 6-8 years old, bright, blonde, beautiful. Lots of walking, on rough dirt tracks with high grassy moorland banks on either side, and bent and rickety fences. In some places there was snow. There was a room that reminded me of the study in which an old friend of my Dad's used to hold his Hogmanay parties. He was a rich man, it was a big house. He was a large man, but had that elegance on the dance floor that some large men have.

I don't remember what happened.

Woke up sick, skin on shoulders burning as if I had been out in the sun too long. Eyes sticky and sore, vision wobbly. Already stressed even before I opened my eyes. It seems that I remember less of my dreams if stressors invade and kick out the memories. This wasn't the same as having it blanked.

And we went to the supermarket and it was awful, I was getting worse, then everything flared over on the way out. I felt the connection so strongly, as if I could reach out and touch my brother - and I did, or tried to. Felt his skin. The Postman Pat children's ride went mad, scaring me. Scaring an old woman. I went outside to wait for frood and it stopped. But on the way home, just as we were leaving the car park, I had a flashback to a time with P when sex was on the cards and it made me feel so sick. I was trapped by it, could hear the sounds he made. Oh ghods it's painful and distressing even to mention it. I nearly broke down in tears there and then. Not sure how I got home.

Pain now intense. Have had to skip swimming. WIll go tomorrow. Coccyx flaring now too. Period started early and strong.

I'm rather worried.

Wednesday, July 19, 2000

22:29

Feel very peculiar. Although, it has to be said, I feel peculiar so often I am starting to wonder what "normal" is supposed to feel like. Have suddenly redeveloped a taste for fruit teas, which probably means I'm getting dehydrated despite the amount of water I'm drinking, or it could be something else. It could always be something else.

Gym today was hard, my swimming form appalling. I keep thinking it should be turning to Autumn, keep having these flashes of Autumn scents. The way the world smells on cool, crisp mornings. I remember the way it smelled standing outside the front door of the garage back when the orchard across the road was still just an orchard, before they bult the houses there, when the leaves started drifting in the yard. Although I don't like the heat I'm not usually one to have any urge to rush the seasons past. I won't think about it too much. It is possible to read too much meaning into things. I think I'm just restless, stirred by the view out of the newly formed window.

I have been thinking about my PhD a lot. Today I had my first niggling urge to pick up one of my research texts and try to get to get to grips with it again, but instead found myself doing washing up and tidying, displacement activities I remember all too well from my times of cramming for exams. Still, it's an improvement over my previous total inability even to think about it. I have also become aware that my lack of motivation is almost entirely centred around Silsoe itself. I think if I could start my PhD again in a different place I'd be keen to get back almost immediately. But the thought of going back, the drive, the computer rooms, the labs, the bar, the library (which I never liked), all these things fill me with dread and a fear that feels like rotting flesh under pressure in my chest. A melodramatic description, but the only one I can think of that comes close to the feeling. I have no separate memories of things there. I think fo one thing and other things crowd in until it's a jumbled, fear-filled conglomeration of stressors surrounded by this strange mist.

Not entirely sure what to do about that.

I feel like I lost my sanity there, and my health, and never got them back but have at least regained some footing. I feel like if I go back there I'll lose myself entirely, as if I lose everything before but my existence, and that will go too if I put myself back in that situation. Even if I don't return to living there. It is such an insular place. But it is strange, because for the first year it was a happy place.

Yes, of course I know what went wrong, but that's over. It annoys me and frustrates me that the ghosts can have such an effect, but part of me says that it's not just the ghosts, that something else bad would have happened just because my personality is not suited to such isolation.

I still feel trapped, pinned, caged. I am imprisoned in an unsettled existence - I don't even have anything I think of as "home". If I am away somewhere, I use "home" to refer to wherever I am sleeping that night. I use home still to refer to my parent's house, I get "homesick" for places where I have never lived, I get homesick for places I have never even been. I need to finish my PhD in order to rectify this, in order to get a job, settle somewhere, be able to find somewhere to call home. Perhaps that's where a lot of the stress comes in: I almost resent it and fear it because it is such an important thing, it has such bearing on the rest of my life and my future. My motivation has gone from wanting to finish it because I want to do it, to wanting to finish it because I don't want to do it any more, but need it to get on with the rest of my life.

I hate that.

Running hot. Can always tell. Flush with a slight sweat, veins stand out on my hands and arms and my hands turn deep red. Face turns pink. Severe, stabbing pains in lower ribs at the moment. Back very painful.

What can I do to relieve this restlessness?

The empath no longer sits in her corner but paces restlessly, pausing often to stare out of the window. Hugin and Munin watch and wait, and occasionally engage in low conversation that she cannot properly hear. Sometimes she even pushes them to the sides in order to see more clearly, but she is not sure what it is out there that she wants.

Tuesday, July 18, 2000

21:29

Saw my new doctor today. He reminds me of Tom Baker. I kept expecting him to offer me a jelly baby from a little paper bag. He has a vaguely disturbing grin. I think I like him, but I'm too wary of medical people now to be sure just yet.

Head hurts right now. Feel like my face is starting to go paralysed again. Hope not. Don't like that at all. Probably a combination of PMT and the hot weather. Have cried off going swimming, to El's relief. Will either go on Friday when Andy having rest day, to make up, or go tomorrow after gym session if I can get to the gym early enough.

It has been a strange time. All of a sudden my brother has an external conection point as well, and he's getting to grips with the interface. It seems strange. Before it has always been that I had an up front view of what was going on, I could feel the compliance, could feel instructions coming in and the system doing it, but this is different. It feels more direct. I feel the effects, not the commands, and the intensity of the effects is surprising. It is far more intimate than even the C-K link ever was. It feels less like I am wilfully contributing to what is being done, in the sense that it feels less likely that whatever is happening is something for which I am partially responsible. It's not that I ever was... this feeling is so hard to explain without it seeming like I am denying the validity of what happened before. I'm not. But it feels like it is more difficult for the Rationalist to scoff at this because it is subjectively more externally directed. I react, rather than act. The time on Sunday afternoon when he found some sort of release cue for the protective cover and got right into the connection was a case in point. The effect was immediate and undeniable but I had no idea what he had done and had to ask.

There is no question about the effects of this, whereas sometimes the old link made me wonder whether I was playing along.

Even so it also feels less forced, in some ways, almost as a direct result of that intimacy. He says that he worries about that intimacy, about the physical model for the connection being too metaphorically sexual. I don't feel that, but then I don't have a particularly high sex drive and sex is just another form of expression of intimacy for me. Emotional intimacy, coupled with physical affection, is far more important. Maybe the fact I am fairly wary of sex these days means that this aspect is not so disconcerting for me. He also says he worries about the possibility that I will need the pain relief more and more. I don't think that will happen either because of the wiring that squashes my needs in favour of the perceived needs of others. I'm not the sort to demand that, although I admit the idea of getting the remote facility working and proficient to the degree it could be used for that does have a certain appeal. On the other hand, if it requires focus from him, then I wouldn't use it, wouldn't ask or hint (can I ask? Has that changed?) unless things were desperate. I can feel that link even now, although it is faint. I think I might get a dot tattooed on my solar plexus so he doesn't keep missing.

I think, for once, I'm worried less than he is, but there are other aspects that worry me far more. Like the effects on the important people in his life. Do wish he'd spoken to her first. Just to explain what he was going to do, that's all.

El still doing stuff that I don't like, but it's difficult to work out what it is she is actually doing. She keeps talking about skin. Today she mentioned sunburn. Doesn't feel like sunburn.

Haven't had a nightmare in a coupe of nights. Can't even remember last night's dreams, although Andy was in them after a week or so of absence. Sleep still not great.

Hugin and Mugin seem to be getting along ok. Things are different. Hugin keeps pointing this out, but the Rationalist seems to have quietened down for a while and Instinct is no longer quite so bullied and downtrodden. On the one hand this is good, on the other I can't help fearing for the time when things go rotten again.

The empath looks up and realises that the ravens are sitting on a window ledge she doesn't ever recall having seen before. The sun is shining through a distant haze and the sky smells of Autumn.

Sometimes being reminded that there is an outside can get you far further than 30 feet.

Monday, July 17, 2000

11:58

Dear Blog,

Well, I had a lovely time in Dorset. It took us a bit longer to get away than we had planned, but that was okay. Corfe Castle was great, although it is more impressive from the car park than it is from the inside. It was amazing seeing all the walls leaning over at angles and the shear between the two halves of the gate is incredible. It was blown up by parliamentary engineers, you know. We had to check to make sure the cows on the next ridge didn't have any artillery, because we thought that was the only way anyone on the neighbouring hills could really do much damage. I had a nice chat with the lady in the hut, and we discussed the necessity of signs saying "Please do not climb on the stones."

After Corfe we went to Studland and walked on the beach. We found several hag stones and a piece of flint with a fossil in it, so that was quite exciting, although I don't really like sandy beaches. I left my swim kit in the car so I couldn't go swimming. On the way back to the camp site we stopped to look for a stone circle that was marked on the map but not listed in Burl's book. It was right up against the road, and about 50 feet in diameter, with 10 stones remaining. It was very difficult to see, because it was in moderately dense woodland where the ground was very ridged, the bits in between the ridges being bog. If you didn't know it was a circle you wouldn't see that. The stones no longer form a complete circle. Even so, despite being in the middle of boggy woodland and incomplete, we still found 31p stuffed into the stones! I don't know. Some people.

The campsite was nice, and I would thoroughly recommend it, although I suggest you take insect repellent because both frood and I are covered in bites and can't stop scratching. We accidentally spilled some spicy noodles and chickpeas on the molehill we had flattened as a platform for the stove, and when we came back after doing the washing up the mole had come up and eaten them! I had no idea moles liked spicy food. Maybe he mistook the noodles for worms.

The next morning we went for a walk around St Aldhelm's Head, which was very brisk and a little bit scary in places because the path is sometimes only 6 inches from the cliffs. There were some very steep steps, and when we do the South-West Coastal Path (which we'll likely do in chunks as it would take 7 weeks to do the whole thing!) we'll do it west to east, I think, because I would not have liked to do that section east-west with full kit, especially in the rain. Actually, I wouldn't have liked to do it in full kit in the rain in either direction. We saw the Norman Chapel where coastguard people still get married (they were preparing for a wedding when we visited) and put the 31p we'd taken from the stone circle into the Coast Watch donations box, along with some extra, because I always donate money to lifeboats, coast watch and the mountain rescue. The abandoned quarry and MoD camp at Winspit was good too, with rectangular caves deep into the cliff face where they had quarried out the rock.

After that we went up to Dorchester to see Maiden Castle, which is absolutely fab. Huge, immense, massive, terribly, terribly impressive, although to get the best idea of just how impressive you really need to walk around the middle of the three banks.

Then it was the long way round to Bristol, to see Tam and Andy, meet their new cat, get drunk and go to the Ashton Park festival. I had a very dull shiatsu session at the festival and spent all day wandering around with a helium balloon dolphin attached to my rucksack as an emergency locator beacon because I have a tendency to get lost.

All in all it was a good little break, and now frood and I are wondering if we are going to find any more time to get away before the next planned excursion in August.