Thursday 21 March 2013

High Tide05:56 (2.00m)
Low Tide11:40 (1.20m)
High Tide17:44 (2.10m)
Sea temperature: 4.2
Sea conditions: perfect
Weather: perfect
Joined by: Sara and The Poet, The Housesitters, a man and his dog, The Commander (who saluted).
The sun had come out and brought with it some happy walkers, making the most of it, as we were. It's a one off and the forecast is terrible. Sara and I tried to pin down what it is that makes humans and animals respond so deeply and unreservedly to this change in weather as we let the sun warm our bodies and souls, and the dogs ran about, tails up. It's been a long and dark winter and whilst it's not over yet (according to one forecast we have heavy snow coming our way) there was a smile playing on everyone's lips as we stared out to sea. This hasn't been the case for some time and we missed DK, who is under the weather himself today.


Grayson Perry - we didn't get to the end of this conversation as we needed to get in to the water before we froze, so no doubt we will find out more but The Poet told us he'd bought a pornographic tapestry... then he said it was a Grayson Perry. One of my students recently completed her own Grayson Perry tapestry, having bought the canvas and thread from his recent exhibition, as part of a collaborative work, so I'm not sure if that's what he means, somehow I can't quite see The Poet doing cross stitch, but we shall see.
Skylarks - I'd heard them on my way to the beach this morning and the sound always reminds me of childhood summers, when my Father would take me down to our neighbour's grazing fields to check the sheep. He told me that it was one of my first words (along with my interpretation of Landrover - lawawa) and the sound is one of my earliest memories. This didn't really help me to try to replicate it when Sara asked what the sound was like though! They seem to be able to fly to impossible heights and to hover there, whilst singing. The Poet said he felt they kept themselves in the air with their song. We discussed humming bird flight too and The Pirate has never seen them, this brought to mind another memory of my Father and I told them how he would try to photograph them in South America, stalling their beating wings, but never really succeeded. I found this for The Pirate though, I guess it was what he was aiming for.
The Pirate's love of kingfishers reminded us of the one which used to live on the river, and we mourned it's disappearance as it hasn't been seen for a while. Dear Wally, who died last year, had introduced us to it when we moved back to the village and we used to see it regularly by the sluice. When Wally fell ill we saw it less and less and I haven't seen it since he died and I explained that Mertz had a feeling that the two were connected, the bird being his totem or ally. The Pirate was shocked and said something along the lines of "I'd expect that kind of airy fairy tree hugging stuff from you, not from him!" So just for you Pirate I looked up the references and will speak to The Shaman about it when I see her next week. Kingfisher's wisdom includes: 
  • Connection to peaceful seas
  • Clear vision through emotional waters
  • Ability to focus and dive into emotional waters to catch one's dreams 

Geometry - I'm reaching the end of the syllabus with my maths student and today was an opportunity to work with construction on the beach as the weather was fine (I've left the fun stuff till last). We are concentrating on tessellation today and the tide was not low enough to do much - see above - but we had a go.


Let's tessellate
Discussions about reaching the end of the syllabus led to Sara and I discussing 'what next'. Next year is not clear to me yet, but I got an email this morning with my ideal job attached, shame I'm not qualified...

Maybe a collaborative job if we roll it all into one?


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