Personal Blogs

As others have surely discovered already, just because you are not longer testing positive for Covid does not mean its effects cannot still be felt. Major stomach cramps had me ill and indisposed for four days soon after coming off Covid. Then I got that cold, the one everyone is getting - the nasty bastard. The cold the like of which you haven't had since you were a child: full of snot, goes to the chest, lots of coughing and a few days spent mostly asleep or, in the past at least, watching daytime TV; I took to a Netflix box set (Better Call Saul) and Tik-Tok (reading was slow).

Anyway, that was then and now is now. Now is catch up time for projects and work. There's also the perennial itch to be studying something but I rather think getting through the 44 books I have identified on my shelves that I am yet to read is where I start first. This is most history of the First World War - often books that were last published in the 1960s or earlier that I have been told about. This and my constant journeying to a multitude of local woods, all of which can be found on the excellent Find A Wood tracker on The Woodland Trust website. I now have around eight woods that I try to visit once a month, especially over the last few weeks not wishing to miss every part of the transition from winter to wood anemones and wild garlic, wild daffodils and bluebells, various orchids and now as the canopy closes over the verdant greens of oak, beech and birch while woodland glades and commons have emerging bracken and heather. 

Despite feeling full of the joys of spring these last three days I am still showing positive for Covid. To recover from ten days in bed watching Netflix boxsets and binging on TikTok I have taken to long woodland walks seeking out the best that East Sussex can offer.

I have revisited several Woodland Trust woods, while adding other privately owned woods, and woods owned and managed by the likes of the RSPB, Natural England and county councils.

I have found some gems: great swathes of wood anemone, carpets of emerging bluebells and dense banks covered in wild garlic. I've even perfected my wild garlic recipe:

Blanch a large handful of wild garlic. Chop finely.

Blend with olive oil, salt, pepper and juice from half a lemon (or less)

Roast a handful of pine nuts. Put through a spice grinder.

Unless vegan, add parmesan and enjoy with pasta.

Of all the things I have done over the years, the one thing that has been a constant is teaching club swimmers. Today Mid Sussex Marlins hosted over 150 young swimmers in a Level 4 Swim England event (the times are recognised on the national register). 

These days I just teach - my first love. I enjoy the challenge of identifying and fixing many faults with a stroke in an 8-12 year old and so set them up for a swimming career. We are a competitive club so their efforts and mine come to fruition in a gala. For many of the swimmers today is their first gala, and possibly their first event at the Triangle, Burgess Hill which is far bigger, brighter and noisier than our teaching pools which include The Dolphin, Haywards Heath.

Although there to a Timing Official, I was also a familiar face for my swimmers to speak to. One felt sick, another was confused about whether they were allowed to dive and so on. An eight year old can become quite overwhelmed by it. Two somehow missed their race and another got confused by the starting process and wanted to change he mind about diving in (she didn't want to) as the race was about to get underway. I was relieved that they were given a second chance in empty slots a little later.

I have blogged about swim teaching in Swim Coach Blog  I keep meaning to refresh all my lessons plans, especially now that I have got through each of the competitive strokes, dives and turns this term.

There is no connection between Richard Aldington and the Woodland Trust other than my current interest in novelists who wrote about the First World War and British woodland.

I find myself embedded in books a century old and when taking a break wandering through woods where trees are generally 25-200 years old. There must be a connection. Wood pulp into paper.

Teacher's matter.

Silvia Macrae Brown runs the life drawing class at Charleston on the first Tuesday of each month. I go along when I can, Covid permitting. I've taken the day off from work in the past to go along. It is just one day. 

It matters to have someone with a plan, especially if it is designed to stretch us. This isn't one of those classes where anatomical exactness created over a single pose over many hours is wanted, rather we have multiple poses, movement, drawing with our non-dominant hand, or with our eyes closed.

Today was different. There is an exhibition of Duncan Grant's work 'Duncan Grant: 1920' showing at the moment.

So the plan was to work the way artists at Charleston worked 100 years ago - a life model was a rare treat so what doodles and sketches they made were reimagined into later works, painted onto tiles, cupboards and wall panels.

Now it was my turn. 

I've always embraced instructions whether from a coach or teacher - however awkward I may feel the challenge of the new can create insight. Today was such a day.

An idea that had been fermenting in the first idea for something to contemplate in the afternoon was brought forward. The model would hold a pose and rotate 45% every minute - that of put her on a rotating plinth. I prefer the short pose. I find 30 seconds is enough. The race is to 'grab' the essence of the pose for future reference. Silvia is a sculptor who often references her own approach to seeking to find the essence of a pose.

Having too much time to think while the model was delayed I put down some ideas for a story set in a life drawing class (model dies during a long pose), and also tried downloading a drawing App to my iPad (too old, not the write operating system), then my phone. A few experiments with a stylus and I gave this up as a lost cause (for today). My son uses swears by an iPad Pro - but I don't have that luxury.

Pen and ink will have to suffice. I use a regular Lamy fountain pen and black ink. I used to swear by an artist's felt-tip but have come to prefer ink on paper for its smudge-ability and inconsistency; I enjoy the fight. Just as I enjoy keeping one step ahead of the blunt pencil by having at least 20 sharpened (with a Stanley Knife, never a pencil sharpener).

I keep all drawings. 

This is a dictate handed down by my later mother who did her MA in Fine Art at Durham University in the 1950s; she studied under Quentin Bell. I will just show a few here to illustrate the progress. Plenty of my efforts fail - I correct minor errors and leave them on a page, with a disaster I abandon the sheet and quickly get back to doing another, and another, and another until it starts to look and feel right. I doubt I discard two sheets of paper in any day long session - usually I draw over, or mark out something that doesn't work. I rarely if ever use a rubber, unless it is being used as a tool in the creation of a particular 'look'. 

This is what is meant about getting your hand in ... like a gymnast or dancer practising moves before a session.

After another go like this and taking note of the instruction to be capturing the essence of the pose I went for something smaller. (Imagine trying to draw a horse, bird or cat that will not be so accommodating! I have tried drawing people in real life, but gave up, unless they were static: on the beach, or watching TV).

From these the idea was to take a pose and work it up as a single art piece, as bathroom tiles, wall paper or some such as the Charleston artists did (not the reproduction tea towels and place mats you might buy in the shop).

From here, whether or not the model was posing (which felt impolite and potentially a waste of a rare resource) we were invited to take a pose and work it up as a pattern, shape or draft for an artwork. I had a few goes with a single, double and various other repetitions and combinations.

And a single pose with colour - something I've rarely ventured into using!

This was a breakthrough moment for me. I've only ever thought of a life class to be a period of work that delivers its only outputs at that moment, on the day. That any reworking of something would be a lesser thing - akin to copying from a photograph. How wrong I am. Of course artists are forever gathering up ideas on pads of paper or working with models and items in the studio to work up into a distinct and separate work. 

For lack of ink and seeing a set of blue sheets of paper to use up I went for white charcoal and produced a series of five multiple sketches on single sheets, followed by a few single images. I was beginning to feel confident with what I was able to express with a few simple lines. The skill is to let the hand/arm draw what the eyes are seeing and the brain is feeling. Experience, practice and growing knowledge of where the bones and muscles are helps. 

We were then invited to return to a favourite pose and work on this. The model kindly took a number of poses as requested including the 'crossed arms above the head' which I favoured.

We ended the session with a seated pose. Enjoying using the white charcoal pencil I had only grey or green darker papers to choose from. A single pose for 35 minutes I did four sketches in each trying to do little more than get the entire figure on the page without making it too small. I then added the colour based on the model sitting under a bright orange/red heater in the barn where we are working.

My new found interest in trees goes back many decades ... as a boy it was climbing in them and making dens from fallen wood. Today I want to plant them, see them grow through the seasons and identify them on dog walks. I had might as well be learning a new language; I am learning a new language.

Slowly but surely I am becoming familiar with leaf shape and size, trunk colour and texture and the tree's silhouette. Some I like to think I know: oak and chestnut, for example, only to discover there are two types of each. Ditto maple. As for the generic term 'fir tree' ... here of course there are many different varieties (few native to england).

This learning journey came about due to another staycation and a desire to do more that 'take in the view' so I joined the Woodland Trust and have ticket off most of their woods in Sussex (east and west) since September - despite a few weeks hiatus with a horrible cold. I know have a handful of my favourite woods not too far from Lewes. I have visited several three or more times: William's Wood, Warninglid; Moat Wood, East Hoathly; Lake Wood, Uckfield; Kiln Wood, Blackboys and Brede High Wood north of Hastings & Rye. 

Late summer has turned into autumn with winter nudging in from the north. I am getting used to the changing scenery and smells, though sadly in this part of the world two things remain constant: traffic noise and planes coming into or leaving London airports, mostly Gatwick but I suspect some of from Heathrow. I wonder sometimes if I ought to put in earphones.

I have reached that stage in the learning process where I have read a few books and started my own observations. This kind of thing, as well as taking photographs, and measuring the girth of tree trunks ought to be starting to help. I use Waze to get there, AllTrails around the woods, PictureThis for the fauna and flora and The Woodland Trust Management Plan for that wood for the detail. Early days, as I said, these plans indicate that there are many trees, and as much variety in the undergrowth on on the forest floor - but am I yet disentangle this. 

Teaching trees and woodland management might be the next step. I take an interest in the activities of Lewes Urban Arboretum.

Have you had it? I'm on day 8 and feel like I've got a few more days at least to get over this. Not Covid, not 'flu and it won't kill me, but this thick cold of sneezing and coughing is waring me out. I'm asthmatic so I monitor my Peak Flow. From my highs of 720 it has dropped to 500 and is just recovering to 620. Teens competitive swimming helped me develop big lungs, otherwise I might have been seeking help.

I am feeling like a race horse inadvertently jammed into the starting gate ... I want to be out there doing things especially with COP26 and being an active Green Party Member and elected Town Councillor. 

The world wont't wait. We're sliding down a steep mountainside with a cliff edge ahead of us - there is a tipping point and we are gambling with where this might be. 

I'm less worried for the British Isles - we are wet, and green. We have hills. I am deeply worried for 100s of millions of people living in marginal parts of the world who as the world sinks/dies, will be penned in by national immigration controls. Is this inevitable?

Or can Elon Musk offer them Mars?

Who will live long enough to know? None of us. Whose still around from the 14th century coming out of the plague? 

A week in Malta - ostensibly a 60th surprise. 

We had a flat in Sliema and spent a good deal of the time on foot back and forth along the coast to St. Georges's and St.Angelo's Fort on the other side of Valetta. The nights were too hot and humid, though we had air conditioning and the days were hot and dry. 

The history has us enthralled, though we did not venture out to the Neolithic Temples (rocks in a field) were were told. My wife's great aunt and a cousin (once removed) took us out to other parts of the island which is smaller that the Isle of Wight and crossed north to south in under 30 minutes and east to west in less than 45. From Ottoman sieges and the Order of St.John, the British History here and independence ... 

Having family on the island gave us a different insight, behind the closed doors off the old streets of Valetta we entered an extraordinary town home six stories or more high and far wider and deeper than the street would suggest. Rather than having air conditioning these older houses rely on shutters and drapes.

Scriptwriting beckons - again. I wrote my first in 1984 called 'The French Test' about a young female French teacher on secondment to an all male school in the north east of England. There have been many others since: science fiction, history series ... and for a couple of years I had an agent. But a short film for Channel 4 and an option on a script was all that materialised.

The Jed Mecurio Master Class from the BBC has inspired me once again. Its a series of 28 videos of him talking - its hard to call it teaching or a class, more a podcast with a face. But there you go. For me teaching requires activity and interaction with the tutor, teaching team and fellow students - like the creative writing course from the Open University via FutureLearn which is brilliant.

That and about to turn 60 is an opportunity to reflect. I find myself asking the same question I asked when I was 13: what am I going to do when I grow up. I used to roll a set of dice and say 'if I get a double 6 I'll be an actor' - I believed it sometimes, just as when I said, 'Sally loves me if I get a double 6' - she didn't, and neither did I.

All this and 'Normal People' has me returning to multiple efforts to write about teen love, but also a story that has been festering for a very long time called 'The Girl in the Garden' in which a  runaway from a nearby Children's Home hides away in the extensive wooded grounds of a all male boarding school. Does she end up dead and buried in a garden that wins the 'gardening cup' that year? I still haven't decided. I rather think 'they' should meet again ... 

On verra

Stomping along with Lingvist and French > 125 hours learning over 4 years (or is that 5) my vocabulary up from 370 words to 4,800+ My pronunciation fluent, my written French improving. 

My later father-in-law was an inspiration. I did not know him as a student - I didn't study Philosophy at Oxford. I got to know the family through his children a few years after graduating - and then married his eldest daughter.

His death on 22nd June has had us reflecting on life now that 'we' are now the oldest in the family. It is our turn. I see life now as nothing more prosaic then the conveyor-belt from 'The Generation Game' with a series of events and people passing you by. At some point there is nothing left, you lean in to see what's coming next and in turn you are gathered up and dropped over the edge.

If I life as long as Zbyszek (also known as ZAP) then I have close to 26 years to go - 27 years if I live as long as my maternal grandfather, 3 years my paternal grandfather, 12 years my later father ... we'll see.

ZAP remained busy despite being blind and wearing a hearing aid - he had his son as carer, Alexa and a rotation of young Polish helpers with whom he spent the last years and months corresponding with former students from Oxford and the School for Leaders, Warsaw or posting content on his website pelczynski.org. His books and papers are going to a couple of academic libraries. 

We humans have not changed, so all this tech coming along is not going to change that. The approaches that work are those that play to our nature. I am fed up of seeing EdTech people treating EdTech as something you grab from the shelf in the proverbial sweet shop.

The answer is in the learning, not the tools - by understanding the students, knowledge of the curriculum and working within your means. Shoehorning approaches into a class, or pushing inappropriately complex solutions on a teacher is wrong, They/we do not have time to master one platform after another, or another ... nor do we want an outsider parachuting in with their answer which too often is a fancy interactive thing that took days to produce, that students can do in minutes. What is the point in that? Has that investment in time and staff costs been well spent? Never.

Would a surgeon in a hospital stand back when a junior administrator with not medical qualifications comes in with a tech tool they say is the answer to everything. It is rarely the answer to anything and causes more problems than solutions.

Pulling together what might be a 60 to 100 page document evidencing my learning to teach experiences of the last year this blog, has, as alwys, been invaluable. I want something on 'engagement' I find it here via the tags or search. I have multiple notes from a variety of sources: books, papers and video. I can then reflect on what is said and quote it. 

11 years in the making. I ought to duplicate it offsite but don't - not much. Why repeat myself unless there is a risk of losing this.