Saturday, September 23, 2006

Lost

Sometimes I'll be in a place or situation and my mind will dwell on the notion that I really should be savouring the moment, remembering the details and so enable me to write about it later. A 'blog moment', perhaps. I imagine other blogging types get that feeling too. As I've said before, I don't want Join The Road to become a diary, but as a bunch of descriptions of happenings in (my) life, what is it but a diary?
Back at the beginning of this week, by a strange set of circumstances going on around me, I found myself out on the south downs walking my friend's dog. He having taken his son to school, and his wife having gone to work, could I take the dog for a walk? I readily agreed and then quickly proceeded to get completely lost. Of course the dog, a pure-bred border collie, wouldn't have cared if we were stranded all day. For him it simply meant a longer trek, complete with more sticks to be thrown and more opportunites to get nice and muddy. It was a Sunday morning, blazing sunshine. Keeping to proper footpaths we walked through open fields full of sheep - and watching the way they parted as we passed through, bleeting as they ran - made me feel like I had somehow travelled back in time. It felt like such an iconic image, the sort that you see on TV whenever they need to stamp 'countryside' in your mind, and there I was right in the middle of it, with a proper sheepdog no less!
Adding to the time travel idea was the noise in the sky, specifically the fiery roar of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine as Spitfire fighters flew overhead. Somewhere nearby was a Battle of Britain re-enactment, and a few pilots were out on an early morning sortie to thrill me and probably half of Sussex too, wheeling in the sky and making that unmistakable silhouette in the blue morning sky. It was utterly thrilling. It was sobering too, thinking how my walk in this wonderfully contoured countryside was arguably only possible because of the guys who'd flown those machines so bravely so many years ago.
Can you see how this walk was becoming one of 'those' moments? Just lots of little wonderful events conspiring into one great morning, something so inocuous suddenly becoming so essential. I wasn't really lost at all.

2 comments:

Ester said...

hey charlie! :) I have those things and moments sometimes too. Like you are doing something completely random and meaningless, yet for yourself at that specific moment it seems so big and means so much. I get so overwhelmed with emotions sometimes. "those" moments are the ones that make you treasure life :-)

xxx

Anonymous said...

Charlie, I went to the shop to see you yesterday, I had CAKE just for you but alas, you were not there. So I ate it.

You lost out. "lost" see? I had to make it relevant to your blog, otherwise you might just think I was talking about cake.

Sarah x