By Stephie, on Monday 1st November, 2010 at 02:32 am
 Towards Falmouth - and the clouds drift by... Oh me oh my. It’s been almost three weeks. Three very long weeks without a computer. I felt like I’d lost my right arm…
I don’t know where to begin today, except to say hello and that I’ve missed you all very much. My beloved Macbook had a funny turn and needed a new hard-drive. The third one in its relatively short life. Unusual for a Mac, but despite the traumas I still wouldn’t go back to a PC. No, instead I’m going to spend what for me is a small fortune on an upgrade to the latest OS, iWork and iLife, and at a later date another gig of RAM. I just hope this new hard-drive can keep it together until then…
I wonder what you’ve been up to over the last few weeks? I can barely remember what I’ve been doing, though I recollect a lot of ruminating and soul searching. And depression. Depression that isn’t Mac related I have to point out. It’s the other sort that’s been dragging me down. Again. Walking in treacle they say. More like drowning in it if you ask me. I’ve been trying to do things, keep moving, keep getting out of bed, but I look back and I can’t see anything that I’ve actually done, achieved, completed. The house is a tip, the garden is overgrown, the allotment is undug, onions not planted, gloves knitted and unknitted, a quilt unfinished, ignoring the pain in my knees and ankles just to keep running, keep going, keep alive. Look for the beauty I tell myself, stay in the moment. But moments pass, fleeting and misty. But I still look. Hoping.
I think I’ll try and get back into the blogging groove by showing you some of the things I’ve looked at over the last couple of weeks. They’re significant to me, but generally it’s not the looking that’s kept me going, it’s the people; the close and supportive friends, the ones that give you a hug for no reason, other than they seem to know you need one, and the new friends from afar that you feel you know already 
 Out for a run. Looking at the textures.  And contrasts.  Remembering the sheep in the snow.
 Grateful for the escape. And knowing they're loved.  A lot.  Seeing the change.  Watching the squirrels.  Thinking of blood.  And veins.  Hoping for inspiration
 And colour through the grey.
Continue reading Looking. And missing.
By Stephie, on Friday 3rd September, 2010 at 01:18 am
I saw the grand
 The Palladian mansion Holkham Hall and the dilapidated.
 Quayside workshop The idyllic
 A peacful morning in Old Hunstanton and the bleak.
 Flat, flat, flat! And I know where my heart lies.
I spent several hours one afternoon walking along the North Norfolk Coast Path. It’s a long distance path along windswept shores and I picked a section going west between Holkham and Brancaster. It was just about 10 and a half miles. The first stretch was through miles of sand dunes, which can change shape overnight in strong winds. Walking through the dunes you don’t see much except sky and the blue sea thistle. And the odd naked man. As you approach Burnham Overy the dunes fall away behind you and you find yourself walking along the top of the raised sea defences. The land is flat here; there are no majestic cliffs to break the skyline and all you see are salt marshes stretching for miles. This part of the coast is famous for it’s bird watching. Egrets, gulls, swans and curlews were two a penny, but I didn’t see anything more unusual. (Note to self: take a pair of binoculars next time.) In places, you walk along narrow board walks across the marsh with towering grasses on the seaward side and neatly clipped gardens on the other. Walkers were rude. At home everyone says hello, but here I’d step off the path to let people pass and not receive so much as a nod in thanks. So I found myself singing a sarcastic “thank you” at the top of my voice as I stepped back on to the boards. Nothing. Not a murmur. Heads down, eyes fixed they trudged along like a defeated army. These people, I thought, were as grey as the leaden skies.
I find it hard to describe my feelings about this landscape. It was wonderful, elemental, but so bleak and exposed. So, so different from home. There was nowhere to shelter, nowhere to sit and take in the sky without also taking a battering from the winds. It felt desolate, and at times the desolation felt like it would go on forever. I would love to be there at dawn. I can imagine the mist rising from the marshes in a watery light and the silence being broken by the dawn chorus. I’d sit there on the grassy path atop the sea defences, wrapped up in a blanket and a thick woollen scarf, breathing the sharp air. My eyes would be closed and I’d be listening intently to the curlews. I’d ignore any passer by that broke my reverie with a “good morning” and I wouldn’t care if they too thought me as grey as the leaden skies.
A 10.5 mile walk between Holkham and Brancaster
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Holkham Hall
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Hunstanton
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Hope enjoyed the photo albums. Back soon.
Love Stephie x
By Stephie, on Thursday 3rd June, 2010 at 22:05 pm
across a field of bullocks for they are large and white and scary and WILL run after you. Note to self: 2nd bullock from left can run very fast, even skip. Cross this field off your training routes until all signs of bullocks have disappeared. Completely vanished. (Making loud noises and trying to make yourself look bigger does nothing to deter the buggers.)
 Bullocks across my path, whoooooa!
By Stephie, on Sunday 23rd May, 2010 at 11:42 am
I’ve enjoyed myself this last week, though it’s been at the expense of cleaning the house  I don’t care about that though, I mean would you? Just look at the fantastic colours I came across when I was walking around a local reservoir with my friend Janie.
 Perfect! Can you get more bucolic than this?! Argal Reservoir is one of those lakes dotted with fisherman sitting patiently, and people walking their dogs. It’s probably only about 2 miles round so you often get families walking there at weekends. I prefer it when it’s more quiet, ha, ha!
 Scenes like this take my breath away.  Unfurling ferns glow in the shade  and the green, green moss slowly spreads. I’m thinking about making a small quilt using these colours as inspiration. I absolutely love blue and green together and used to use it all the time in my oil paintings (years ago) – emerald and cerulean blue, nothing beats it!
I’ve been enjoying looking at colour a lot this week and these anemones were no exception. I bought them at the roadside and they’ve been brightening up my kitchen for almost a week now. I also finally got the key cupboard up on the wall – I repainted it in January!
 Simple pleasures.  Simple colour. We’ve had fantastic warm and sunny weather here for the past few days and I think it’s finally got me motivated enough to go out for a run. I did 6 miles on Friday, but I need to do a lot more regular running if I’m going to enter a half marathon in October. That was IF! If I do it, I’ll probably try and raise money for the mental health charity Mind. In the mean time I need to sort out a training schedule. If I find more hedgerows like this on my routes that shouldn’t be too much of a problem 
 A riot of spring colour! I hope you’re not too disappointed that I haven’t brought you any pictures of things I’ve been making this week; that’s because they’re not finished yet, but hopefully they will be by the end of the day, so come back soon to see! If you want to see a lovely bit of hand quilting right this minute though take a trip over to Jo Avery’s blog to see her spiderweb quilt that she finished this week, it’s l o v e r l y!!
Time for another run now, and then some pottering and more making. So I’ll see you soon my lovelies.
Love Stephie x
By Stephie, on Thursday 11th March, 2010 at 01:20 am
On Sunday I sprained my right ankle. I wasn’t running at the time either. It was Kim’s birthday and we were in town and I just happened to trip up a kerb. I’m always doing things like that, I’m used to it. But I had a bad landing, bruised my foot (black and blue) and pulled the tendons on my ankle and up the side of my leg. I could barely speak with the pain and insisted I sit in the car while Kim and his dad carried on with their wander. I probably shouldn’t have gone for a run on Monday then. And I definitely should have given it a miss on Tuesday. But I didn’t.
Monday was a cold and frosty morning, bright and clear and perfect for running. I put a support on my ankle and decided I’d take it steady. Trouble is I was enjoying myself so much I just kept going and probably went much farther than I should have. I followed a familiar road but then decided to veer off the usual route and crossed the fields to Chacewater, where I then ended up having to run up a very steep hill. By the time I got back home I’d covered about 5 miles. Ooops.
 It was so chilly even the horses had their coats on!  Peeking through the hedge. I spied strangers in the camp, and they'd run an American flag up their mobile flag pole. That's a dangerous thing to do in these parts. Unless you're flying the flag of St Piran you're inviting some vigilante action. And woe betide anyone that hoists an English flag, that's likely to incite a burning You probably don't believe me, but trust me Cornwall is a very proud, wannabe independent place. It has a culture very distinct from the rest of the UK. I love it.  Cross country running - not for girls! Not content with one leg in quite serious pain after the run I probably shouldn't have done, the other leg decided to get in on the action too. Still, no excuses accepted: Tuesday was a running day too. I kept Tuesday’s run to a minimum, just over 2 miles. The return leg home, up a steep bridlepath, was agony on the poorly ankle. I had to walk more than I usually would, which felt like a failure. I decided to take today (Wed) off completely; maybe I’m trying to do too much before my ankle’s healed properly. So with my spare time I took a look at a site I heard about over on Monica’s blog. The website’s called map my run and it’s brilliant! You can literally map your runs, which gives you the distances of routes that you’ve devised; you can create a training journal where you can add routes, and personal details that tell you how many calories you’ve burned. You can keep a record of your heart rate, your weight, how many times you train, what the weather was like; you can even search runs other people have added to the site. It has a lovely feeling of community, which is great when you’re largely running on your own and need some motivation! I even downloaded a half-marathon training programme and I’m dangerously close to signing up for one in October *shudders at the thought, but decided to feel the fear and do it anyway*! It’s odd, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m the only person alive that hasn’t heard of this site. Hey ho!
Anyway, now I have a dilemma. I have a training schedule, but should I continue to rest my painful ankle or just run through the pain barrier? I was planning on a short run tomorrow, but now I’m not so sure. What would you do? Run or not I do have a walk along the north cliffs planned for tomorrow, so some exercise is guaranteed! Right oh my darlings, I’m going now (going to see if I can get an ‘early’ night!); if you have any suggestions for tomorrow, don’t be shy and let me know
By Stephie, on Friday 5th March, 2010 at 11:43 am
Well now, this was a killer, but oh so worth the rewards. My limbs were a bit achey from Tuesday’s foray into road running, but I ignored that inconvenient truth and headed for the rocky cliffs of the north Cornwall coast in the UK. The wind was blowing an arctic gale that morning but I felt determined to brave the elements and push myself a bit. I donned my sensible running clothes (see last 2 posts!), hat and ipod and off I went.
 The first part of this 3m run is up a fairly steep cliff  I made it 1.5m to Porthtowan, but I have to admit some of the very steep parts of the cliff path became a real slog and I had to walk up those! I cursed my aching limbs. At this point I did a (planned) u-turn and ran back.  I keep forgetting to stretch after a run, so I decided to go down to Chapel Porth beach and do some stretching there, before getting in the car and heading back home (3m or so). That cliff is the first (and last) part of the run, you can see how steep it is!  But I was distracted by something that had been washed up on the beach.  It had a surreal beauty that I found completely fascinating.  I poked and prodded it  I smelt it  I inspected it  I marvelled at the structure of it  I stared in awe at the scale of it  I wished I could take something home of it.  This beautiful fin whale, 2nd largest mammal on earth, washed up on my local shore, was a wonder I would never expect to surpass on any other run. I took a day off from running yesterday, not intentional I just kind of run out of time, but I went for a good walk, which compensated a bit. My plans for today are another road run, around 3 miles or so. Taking it easy at the moment, edging myself back into it before any serious training regimes are thought about…
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I'm running a 28 mile marathon in memory of Josie this February. Come and find out why.
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