A fine spring rain is falling, barely more than a drizzle. Nonetheless the
family walking past my window is well shielded against the elements, wellies,
umbrellas, raincoats. It’s only rain! Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps it is
indeed a rain made lethal by pollution. But then a plastic rain-hood hardly
offers adequate defence.
I, you will gather, do not mind getting wet - well, damp. In fact I like it. So long as I’m not cold and if I am walking and if it is not the depths of winter and if there is not a soul-biting easterly wind, I am not cold. There is probably some kind of equation to be deduced about the pleasurability of cold water being proportionate to both body and air temperature. If the sun is blazing down such that it instantly dries you on surfacing, immersion in cold water = good. If the water instantly freezes, immersion = bad. So much is obvious. It’s where on the scale in between that confounds people, including of course me, go out under-dressed and return frozen usually rather rapidly or over-dressed and have the experience marred by carrying the layers of clothing I’ve peeled off (people who do not appear to feel either heat or cold, to be responsive to the external temperature at all, are another post, those apparently contentedly still in boots and furs in a hot June or in Ts and
sandals in a cold December).
Two paragraphs and I haven’t even reached the Common, my other home, my holt,
my lair, whereon (embarrassingly) after 30 years it is still possible to get lost. The trees move, you know. Where d’you think I got the idea from? New paths form…Certainly new paths constantly appear or perhaps I just didn’t notice. The volume of traffic is mercifully not such as to instantly forge a way and in any case why that way? There used to be the Friends of Sheen Common but they seem to have disbanded. Occasional hewing of wood and diverting of water (there are a small pond and a stream) are done by the BCTV and on a sunless day in a really very small area of dense thicket it is possible to be wholly bereft of any clue as to direction. A compass is however excessive, it being necessary only to walk for a short while in any direction to find a bearing. The common is in a triangle between Sheen Common Drive and East Sheen Cemetery, bounded to the south by Richmond Park. Cricket-pitch, culvert, bench, glade, all these offer recognizable landmarks, and of course certain trees. Messing about on the Common, just messing about, wandering is simply heaps better than messing about on the River, in that it requires no special equipment, no preparation and very little in the way of suitable weather, trees offering as they do a veil of protection against climatic excesses.
family walking past my window is well shielded against the elements, wellies,
umbrellas, raincoats. It’s only rain! Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps it is
indeed a rain made lethal by pollution. But then a plastic rain-hood hardly
offers adequate defence.
I, you will gather, do not mind getting wet - well, damp. In fact I like it. So long as I’m not cold and if I am walking and if it is not the depths of winter and if there is not a soul-biting easterly wind, I am not cold. There is probably some kind of equation to be deduced about the pleasurability of cold water being proportionate to both body and air temperature. If the sun is blazing down such that it instantly dries you on surfacing, immersion in cold water = good. If the water instantly freezes, immersion = bad. So much is obvious. It’s where on the scale in between that confounds people, including of course me, go out under-dressed and return frozen usually rather rapidly or over-dressed and have the experience marred by carrying the layers of clothing I’ve peeled off (people who do not appear to feel either heat or cold, to be responsive to the external temperature at all, are another post, those apparently contentedly still in boots and furs in a hot June or in Ts and
sandals in a cold December).
Two paragraphs and I haven’t even reached the Common, my other home, my holt,
my lair, whereon (embarrassingly) after 30 years it is still possible to get lost. The trees move, you know. Where d’you think I got the idea from? New paths form…Certainly new paths constantly appear or perhaps I just didn’t notice. The volume of traffic is mercifully not such as to instantly forge a way and in any case why that way? There used to be the Friends of Sheen Common but they seem to have disbanded. Occasional hewing of wood and diverting of water (there are a small pond and a stream) are done by the BCTV and on a sunless day in a really very small area of dense thicket it is possible to be wholly bereft of any clue as to direction. A compass is however excessive, it being necessary only to walk for a short while in any direction to find a bearing. The common is in a triangle between Sheen Common Drive and East Sheen Cemetery, bounded to the south by Richmond Park. Cricket-pitch, culvert, bench, glade, all these offer recognizable landmarks, and of course certain trees. Messing about on the Common, just messing about, wandering is simply heaps better than messing about on the River, in that it requires no special equipment, no preparation and very little in the way of suitable weather, trees offering as they do a veil of protection against climatic excesses.