The light is doing that typically Essex dance between crystalline sunshine and fast-moving shadow.  There's a seagull calling.  It was raining a while ago, and the leaves of all the trees are damp, and there's a scent of wet earth.  I can feel this calling to me as I type this, and it's intoxicating.  

Yesterday, as we walked home, we stood by a fence we'd never looked over before (aside from fences which are obviously meant to shield people's homes, we are assiduous in peeping over to see what's on the other side).  Under the shade of a beautiful old conifer (which I could not identify, to my shame), there was an old, rambling terraced garden.  With old stone ornaments and a wood pigeon sitting in a young fruit tree and the scent of damp earth and growing things and the dappled light of sunset through leaves.  Essex is full of these tiny wonderlands, and I've found dozens of them when out for walks with the Man.  It's what I love best about walking with him.  Trips to the supermarket have often become rambles through Narnia. We've walked through all weathers, and encountered beautiful little patches of the 'wild' all over Colchester.  

Off to get dressed and take Lizzy out of her shed. 

Have a beautiful Saturday, wherever you are, and whatever the weather. 

On all fronts:
You know you've found a grain of the truth when a thought you've had can't be undone by any other thought, no matter how uncomfortable it may be, no matter how much time has gone by since you first thought it.
It's a long journey there, and then, in an instant, everything can change, if you let it. If you're wise. But that's a long journey too.  

Remember I posted about something I saw on TV a while ago?  Where the man runs into his ex- and it takes the ground away from under his feet, even though he's in a happy marriage?
I want a name for that event.

I was reminded of it when I watched Sex and the City part deux on my laptop over my morning coffee (I need noise in the background when I check my email).  Carrie has the love of her life waiting for her in New York, but turns around in an Abu Dhabi spice souk and nearly faints when she sees Aidan (who throughout the series really irritated the crap out of me but for some reason has turned really dishy in his one and a half scenes). They meet for dinner and kiss and she wonders whhhhyyyyyyyy.

If there isn't a name already for this, there ought to be.  I am going to invent one. 

Douglas Adams, and an update on Lizzy

“Well, I mean, yes idealism, yes the dignity of pure research, yes the pursuit of truth in all its forms, but there comes a point I'm afraid where you begin to suspect that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs. And if it comes to a choice between spending yet another ten million years finding that out, and on the other hand just taking the money and running, then I for one could do with the exercise.”


- Douglas Adams 


:) 


In other news: I've ridden Lizzy (does that sound slightly pornographic?) for hours between my last update and just now.  We've been to: the store to buy food, the University and back, and a field we love to visit just half an hour (by foot) away from our house.  Yesterday evening, tired from my day of cycling (by day I mean an hour. But it felt like years, going up the hill), I slithered into my pyjamas and crawled into bed at 7:30 pm.  The Man decided that the best cure for exercise-induced exhaustion was more exercise.  Oddly enough, I agreed with him!  We cycled slowly (to avoid slugs on the path) to said field. You approach it via a footpath that has river on one side and blocks of flats on the other.  You go through a small underpass, rejoin the footpath, and then there's a small tunnel.  You go through the tunnel, and on the other side is a field. The path just stops. Over the tunnel there's the road, on which cars are zooming at about a hundred miles an hour. The field has cows in it, and the river runs through it, and the sun sets on the horizon.  We sat on the slope overlooking the field, and watched the water and the cows and the sunset. Without meaning to create a simplistic division, we were in a completely different world from the one zooming to or from work just over our heads. I drew up my knees, and sat and stared, and the Man put his arm around my shoulders, and stared too. Then we raced home, ate our dinner, and I fell asleep 5 minutes after the last bite. Good stuff. 

Two words which ought not to exist:
Loved (as in the past-tense)
Should (as in the imperative)

Predictably, after a very physical day yesterday, of walking in the sun and the rain, and cycling through the park, and kissing the Man and cooking a beautiful dinner, I've woken up feeling.  And it's not all comfortable.  But when you open up the doors, you should expect everything to come out that has been hidden.
They say exercise 'lifts your mood', and it does.  But I believe its healing effects go much deeper than a simple 'lift'. It opens you up, and cleans you out. 
I found this during my long evenings spent at karate.  Just after the euphoria and just before the calm, steady state I feel after sustained exercise, there's a period of restlessness and then catharsis. After a particularly heavy karate class, I remember going home and sitting in my mother's bathtub, ostensibly showering off before going out dancing, but really just sitting under the water and howling. For no reason and every reason.    
That doesn't always feel good, but at the moment it definitely feels necessary. So, alright. 
I've woken up feeling restless about my 'situation', apropos 'Here V. There, University V. Family-Home', and I've spent the better part of my coffee-time being teary-faced.
Fine.

Introducing Lizzy

So today, the Man has finally convinced me to buy a bike.  

He cycles everywhere, for everything, and therefore has quadriceps in places where other people don't have places. 

I use either a bus or a cab, and therefore have places in places where one should not have places. 

The bike is his way of getting me moving and my way of falling onto the roadside gasping, narrowly missing oncoming traffic. 

Regular updates here.  I plan to view this as an adventure - in, you know, the sense of being handed the Red Pill and being unable to choose anything but taking it. Might as well do so gamely. 

In case this is important to you - my new contraption is white and very sleek, has gears and great brakes (enough to make me sail over the handlebars, I've been warned. THIS HAD BETTER NOT HAPPEN.) I used it to transport myself from cycle shop to house via park and now have jelly in places where I used to have places.