Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The things you learn...

My Cotswold Way attempt went belly-up after 3 days - my knee decided to cause me excruciating pain and, with much hanging-of-head I had to call my Mum to come and pick me up. My knee is still not better a week later so I do feel vindicated that I wasn't just being a wuss!

I saw some AMAZING views that were well worth the fact that the walk sends you over every hill within sight - seriously - you can look back and see them all, and, though I didn't meet many people, there were same great folks out there. The first was a family on the first afternoon with whom I chatted for a bit, found out some things we had in common, and then, as I was about to head off, said "commune with your God" and "I'm sure he's looking down on you". Now, I'd already decided that this was going to be a major factor of this trek, and I hadn't mentioned any of this, or my faith, to these folks, so it was nice (if not just a little freaky!) to have it confirmed :)

Then spent a lovely few days chilling out in Cov with the sister, B-I-L and niece. Rock Band - Warriors was played (with me on guitar and not drums - there's a reason I always drum, I shall stick to it in future!) Carcassone was enjoyed and we also watched 'The Marigold Hotel' which I loved. But then, with that cast, who couldn't :)

Today I've managed to clear out 4 AVON boxes worth of stuff from my past. This has been stuff that would ordinarily be found in your family loft/garage, but as I no longer have that, it travels around with me. Today I decided enough was enough and it needed slimming down.

So I've been going through stuff from the ages of 4 - 11 and a few other bits and generally being amazed at how evocative the slightest thing could be (the wallpaper covering my initial writing books for example) and how much I had forgotten that seemed so important at the time. I loved the texture of the paper and the purple print of all the worksheets when I was a kid, I could actually recall filling some of them in. I was impressed with my poetry writing back then - boy I was intense! And fond memories of the pictures in the maths books - which I apparently cared more about colouring in than solving the problem. I'm terrified at the amount of stuff from Secondary school that I've forgotten and yet, apparently, enjoyed immensely.

It was good to go through it and remind myself about what made me tick at those ages and which teaching methods worked best for me - although and student would tell you that cut-and-stick is always a winner, my GCSE Chemistry class particularly! I've kept a couple of writing books from when I was little - the honesty make me smile. Apparently I was very annoyed one weekend because feeding the ducks was cut short due to my sister needing the loo. I didn't write that I was angry - but you could tell!

My favourite thing I discovered was a painting that I must have done with my paternal Grandfather. He was an artist but died when I was 6. I remember him clearly, mostly that he taught me how to draw different sorts of trees. I found the painting that I did with him - and you can see his pencil marks under my painting effort :)

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