and looks back, not through the looking glass

I got a jolt recently.  Channel 4 is trailing the Rio Paralympics. Olympics time? Already? How can that be? Surely it's no time at all since London 2012?

It seems like yesterday.
It seems a lifetime away.

The summer of 2012.

My first blog.
My first tweet.

A latecomer to social media, (I only joined Facebook last year) my first blog was private, a way to share my holiday with family and a very limited number of friends. And I had a brand new shiny iPad, an early birthday present, to write it on; my old laptop was too heavy to take away with me.

The Olympics are important to the story because they seem to epitomise a time of innocence. Is that silly? Everyone was happy; there was that amazing opening ceremony,  so many wonderful performances, so many happy tears.

The fairy dust  even seemed to follow me across the world, there was a welcoming party when we arrived in Brisbane.  Ah no, that would be for  Queensland's returning heroine Sally Pearson who came in on the same flight.

We had a lovely holiday and saw some amazing sights.

 And then?

Well in the Autumn, prompted by the imminent arrival of......

DogStarke aka @southfieldchat

.........I started this public blog.

But something else had changed. Sometime between the euphoria of the Olympics and the end of my holiday, my mother had got sick. By Spring, she was gone.

The end if not of innocence but of being a child. Not completely because my father is still here, but the death of a parent shifts the generational perspective.

2012

        2013

               2014

                      2015

                             2016

                                   So much has happened.

                                                        MrS retired,  DogS arrived,

                                                                                   we lost our mothers,

                                                                             we travelled

                                    we sold a house, MasterS moved out,

                we sold a flat, we bought a house, we rented a flat,

       I had a landmark birthday, I resigned from my job,

 we made a permanent move.

And so to the present. We have a new home, a new business,  we are making new friends. I spend a fair bit of time using social media. I've taken up new things - yoga, and revisited some for the for time in thirty years - drama. I still have that iPad but write mostly on my Macbook. In May we'll vote for our next Scottish Government, in June on our future in Europe. August will bring the XXXI Olympiad, or  Rio 2016.


73 blog posts
6,204 tweets  

Not quite Spring 2016

It seems a lifetime away
It seems like yesterday

                       
Still travelling

Marina X






                             

                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                             

and is pretty keen on wild swimming

Despite my name none of my ancestors were seafarers. They all lived inland, working the land and later the mines, weaving silk and baking bread. But the sea has always had a massive grip on me, I loved childhood trips to the seaside, playing "I can see the sea!" games from the back of the car. Never mind the weather once we got there I'd been in my bathers and down to the sea. I think I learned to swim in the sea but I can't remember actually learning, I could just swim. Mind you I was a particularly buoyant child. There I'd be bobbing about in the waves while Mama, Papa and GlamourPuss shivered up on the sand. The latter most likely fully dressed and possibly in scarf and gloves too. Don't get me wrong, we had nice summers but my dips started with our first outing of the year at Easter, no matter how early it fell. In the summer Papa Starke would join me, and in the heat wave years, GlamourPuss could be persuaded but woe betide getting her hair wet. Our one full family trip abroad was revelatory. The sea was warm with no waves! It was the Adriatic where even Mama Starke was persuaded to get her bikini wet. It was nice but...

It didn't have the breakers I'd played in at Rest Bay in Porthcawl or my favourite Rhossili on the Gower. I loved the out of control feeling I got from the waves deeper out. I was much more adventurous in the sea than on land. Swimming was the one sport at school where my build and ability met. Friends of the GlamourPuss had a caravan at the seaside and a boat and water skis. Can you imagine my ten year old indignity and jealousy at being left out of her holidays with them, why didn't they invite me too?? It was almost as bad as not going to see The Osmonds, when I was the massively bigger fan and so much more likely to marry Donny.

I moved to Scotland and for a while didn't really realise that..I lived..beside the sea. And then I did. But back then the local beach wasn't so appealing for a dip and I rarely had the chance to travel out to the gorgeous beaches of East Lothian. When I did, even on the hottest day, the chill of the North Sea came as a bit of a surprise. I stayed and got older and much, much wimpier. Years passed and I barely dipped a toe in.

The urge never went away though. I still felt the same excitement at any glimpse of the "proper" sea. I made my first trips to the Med. It was sparkly and blue but like the Adriatic a bit tame.


Another first, this time inter continental travel. If I'd known that our flight to Curaçao included a touch down at St Maarten (in a 747, look for the videos) I might have had qualms. It was great though and gave me my first view of the Caribbean. Now that was proper sea, but warm with fishes. Every morning we got up early and had a good long swim before breakfast. One day with Mr Starke busy conferencing I decided to swim out past the very small headland into the next bay. For the first time in years I felt the power of the sea. And realised how small I was and probably invisible to boats and jet skis. I'd lost my childhood bravado and turned back, but I returned later with Mr Starke and we did it together. Arriving on the neighbouring beach felt like a proper expedition.

Curaçao

Last summer, Australia. I squeezed myself into a wetsuit and tried snorkelling for the first time. Not holding my breath was a challenge at first but once I got then hang of it, wonderful.

Yes that is a shark but a tiny harmless one

 

Autumn 2012 we welcomed our new arrival, Dogstarke and she has proved herself to be a salty seadog and loves swimming too, but she likes to have company, so I've done a fair bit of paddling. I expected to do some proper swims on our holiday to Ile de Re this summer but all the best beaches had signs a bit like this

 

 

 

 

 

And it would have been mean to go in on my own, so we stuck with (tri)cycling

I felt cheated though. I really wanted to swim in the sea again. And then we had a heat wave. Cue more paddling at our city beach. It was a bit murky to risk full immersion I thought. Masterstarke did and came out strangely tanned -was it a critical mass of FakeBake precipitating out? A better bet on a gorgeous sunny day was Kingsbarns in Fife. There the water was clear and very, very cold. Full immersion but only a few splashes and I was out. This seemed ridiculous, I've got more blubber now than in my chubbiest youth, why couldn't I stay in longer? WasI just becoming a terrible wimp? Does 400 miles make that much difference to the temperature?

Last weekend I got my answer. It's not so much the latitude as the longitude that counts. We were enjoying ourselves at Portavadie on Loch Fyne. I had a paddle with Dogstarke and wanted more. It was gorgeous, a little pebbly on approach yes but really, "lovely once you're in", I even liked the feeling of the seaweed between my toes. My only disappointment? I failed to persuade Mr Starke to join me. I couldn't really complain, he was skimming stones for Dogstarke.

Loch Fyne at Portavadie

 

So it seems that the west coast, washed by the Gulf Stream is warmer. Perfect for swimming? And the midgies can't get you offshore.

I'm off to Skye soon, hopefully I'll be able to test my theory there.

 

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But will put up with a leaky roof from time to time.

This summer Mr Stark and I spent some time in Australia. Mostly we stayed in perfectly nice but unremarkable corporate type hotels but for Mr Starke's two actual holi-days we skipped away to a couple of quite different places.

First off to Lady Elliott Island Eco Resort, a tiny coral atoll at the south end of the Great Barrier Reef. Of course being an island we couldn't skip there, our early bird taxi took us out to Redcliffe airstrip where we made sure to avoid the sky divers' queue and boarded a 12 seater for our trip out to the island. Any cloud induced glumps lifted as they did and then disappeared completely as our pilot took us down to get a closer look at migrating whales and a first glimpse of our destination.

Not a terribly Eco way to travel but the only way to get there.

Now tight rubber isn't usually my thing particularly set off with fetching little ankle bootees but the fishes have probably seen worse and to be honest weren't likely to care. Me? I've never seen anything like them.

We signed up for a sunset cruise, Mr Starke wasn't that enthusiastic but there were snacks and fizz. And then there were whales...

Whales. Huge humpbacked whales. None of my photos do them justice. They were elegant and truly awesome. They knew we were there and could have flipped our boat but they just kept on doing their thing. I've rarely felt so small. Never in daylight. They swam around us and then away, the sun sank below the horizon and the birds flew home to roost. We returned for dinner and bed.

And so to the leaky roof. Our day on the island had been sunny and bright but night brought rain. Heavy,heavy rain. Imagine the scene, I'm lying in bed listening to the rain rattling on the iron roof, thinking my espadrilles left outside to dry would get wetter, but at least it would be fresh wetness. And then my goodness how suggestible am I? I'm listening to the rain and thinking my arm is feeling wet. My arm is feeling wet. Rain is dripping through the ceiling. It's only dripping through a tiny spot though and the bed is fairly big so I move to a drier bit and snuggle down again. Next morning all is dry even my espadrilles.

Don't assume the leaky roof means a rackety resort. Next day the staff were hugely apologetic but I didn't mind anyway. It's not a fancy place, there aren't butlers at your beck and call. The staff are friendly and helpful, meals are hearty but not fine dining and the rooms are comfortable and clean (mostly watertight!); there is one phone and one Internet access point but the modern world is not why you go. The luxury is in the surroundings, whether you snorkel, dive or simply laze around you're surrounded by nature, sometimes wet, sometimes noisy and messy (I'm thinking of the bird breeding season) but to be cherished and celebrated.

 

 

And what of our second stay? Well that one was nearer to conventional luxury. Spicers is a small up market brand and Spicers Balfour in Brisbane's trendy New Farm was certainly well appointed, with the requisite clean sheets, fluffy towels, cold and piping hot drinking waters on tap and all the technology you might ask for. But nice though these things undoubtedly are, they weren't the best thing about our stay. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed them but what made our stay memorable was the attitude of all the staff. Eager to help but not in your face and always,always friendly. There was no stuffiness and no disdain just a feeling of being in a very comfy and stylish home. My only regret was that we couldn't stay longer and just enjoy a little more of our surroundings.

Connecting, with people, with nature. That's the value of travel.

Now all I need is for Australia to move a little closer to Scotland and I'll be back in a flash.

 

(Mrs Starke does not like long haul flying but that's another story)

 

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