Dreamy Saturdays

Some days you just feel like staring at the sky hey? Your whole being seems to peer upward, as if to transport you to the great wide open. You know the ones. When the sky is blue, when the sun is high, when the jets that race across the sky leave you wondering not just where those people are headed, but where your next adventure will take you, when reality seems a distant memory and what if's start taking over. When price is no longer significant enough to consider with thought (hmmm my wife may argue that represents me most of the time!!). When your spirits are soaring, and you can actually imagine the view from up there, bugger it, not even from a plane, gimme a red cape and an 'S' to pin on the chest and i'd be there. When the simple reality is that your only limitation is your own imagination, and you're coaxing it, willing it on, further into wonder, deeper into mystery, wide enough to include all you know and have heard of (even once). Generally for me they're sunny summer's days. Generally they involve exercise of some description (great for getting the happy 'endorphin type' drugs coursing through the veins). More often than not they involve adventure to some new pasture in which we can frolic with glee. And always now, they're shared with my beautiful belle, which is cool on cool really.

So life is good. This weekend God decided to give the Brits something to be happy about (without wanting to be prophetic, perhaps He's preparing them for the simple reality that Wayne Rooney will not be playing in the world cup. It's almost sickening how much the press are talking about this one guy who broke his foot. And if the buggers lose i bet his name will come up again... Have even had reporters this week ringing to try and get a comment from us at work about his injury... honestly they need something better to think about... nuff said)

So a brill weekend we had indeed, hopped on our faithful steeds and headed for Newark, which as the crumbling remains of an old castle indicate... is yet another site of old feuds between royals and parliamentarians. Similar story to the Nottingham Castle really. Fascinating to read about though... Humanity certainly has a colourful and violent past... hmmm and present.

Makes you wonder if in a few hundred years the tourists wont be flocking to iraq to see the results there of the current hostilities. Anyway I digress.

Speaking of digressions, I have another one, and another interesting comment about british culture... well what you see on the streets and in the parks anyway. Brits are very couple-ish. which is nice... but the phrase "get a room" clearly hasn't made it here yet. I've heard it said that shopping was the Brits number one national sport, but if that's true then PDA is certainly a close second. (that's Public Displays of Affection for those street-linguistically-challenged readers). It's almost obscene. Now I wouldn't consider myself a passionless, tight pant-'nice' shirt-brogue shoe wearing spoon (apologies if that is your favourite dress style...) but c'mon, we're not talking the pleasantries of a peck on the cheek, a loving touch, walking hand in hand, even a lingering kiss on the lips here. We're talking 'giving it to her/him' full on street PASHING. As crude a word as that is... it's not a bad descriptor of what you can't help but notice in the middle of town, at bus stops, at every park you go to etc etc etc. It honestly seems there is no escaping it, you turn the opposite direction and you see more!!! Perhaps i could blame modern TV for oversexualising everything, but the same shows play in NZ and you don't get it there... i dunno. But it is an observation you can't help but make.

So what was the point of this blog? Oh... Saturday. We biked 45ish kms to scenic Newark. On the way we got lost and had a great example of the two options that are so often open to people in life... We asked a passing runner (who clearly knew where he was, and who had his young son cycling beside him as he ran)... if he could help us... Sir, can you help us please? (no response), (a little louder) Excuse me sir, can you please give us some direction here? (again, no response), (a third attempt after checking closer to ensure he didn't have headphones on...) excuse me sir, with a violent twist of long flowing mullet he glared in my direction, kept running and said: "look mate can't you see i'm busy!" And that was that. Was just about spitting tacks but no way was I going to give him an earful in front of his son... was just annoyed that anyone would be such a complete prat in front of a child... but i guess thats how they learn... gotta show them how it's done eh? So the next guy we approached almost with trepidation, and got almost the opposite response... "yeah sure there's a turn just up here on the right, i'm headed that way myself" and off we went" Such a simple choice to be nice to someone, takes more effort to avoid (especially when they're persistant with requests for help such as myself). Crazy crazy stuff. I'd be horrified if I came across something similar in NZ.

Oops I digressed again. What was the point? Nice bike trip. Dreamy day. Markets in Newark were kinda cool to walk around, had dinner in a nice wee pub and watched England demolish Jamaica in a world cup warm-up match. Mez got sunburnt (for a change), and is now frantically rubbing moisturiser in to delay the inevitable peel. It's an interesting country England. Am very much looking forward to Mez getting a Job so we can get a car to do a bit more tripping about the country - there is so much beautiful stuff to see. I'm game to see a castle that hasn't been destroyed... We went back to Wollaton Park today for another ride and saw the deer who now have wee foals/Deerlets/Pups/whatever you call their kids. The Geese and the ducks with their Goslings and Ducklings respectively. About a thousand crows... which are almost the equivalent of seagulls over here... kinda hang out at parks and try and get at your food etc. I think I like crows more than seagulls though, they're quieter.

On the whole, life is good, Spring brings rain (bucketloads of it) but there is new growth too, which is ever an enticing thing to watch, be reminded of, be provoked to thought by. And so, spring happens on the inside too, cleaning out old, not so flash ideas, replacing them hopefully with better ones... inner growth i guess. Which is always important.

Our plans are being threshed out again and again as we try and decide on timeframes for our wee travel jaunt and what goals are the must do's, could do's, probably won't do's etc etc Life is interesting... life is beautiful

Hope yours is too.