walks Archives - Jenny May

Swallows and snow globes

It is okay to recognise that some things are hard and sad and difficult.

The other day, I both stood on my own in a field giggling and also had a bit of a cry. The cry wasn’t in the field but back at home and was because, quite frankly, cancer treatment is flipping hard work, and I think we all know what I really mean by, flipping. Most days I am pretty okay and just get on with it all, but overwhelm can sometimes creep through the cracks.

I am now half way through radiotherapy and the worst so far is feeling very, very tired and generally a bit sick. The latter is probably that my poor little liver might be getting a bit of a poke from the laser beam. (I know, I know, it’s not a laser beam, but it’s more fun to think of it that way. I can pretend I am in a James Bond film and will at any moment cunningly escape with excellent martial arts moves and then nip off to the bar for a swift martini.)

My ability to concentrate, think or focus on anything appears to be dreadful on more days than not. This will be a heady mix of chemo fog, tiredness from radiotherapy and the underlying continuous emotional and physical weight of six months of treatment in one form or another and with more to come – all in a pandemic. Well, if you’re going to do something, you may as well go the whole hog.

This is why I took myself out for a walk. Physically sluggish, emotionally a little messy and mentally unable to concentrate on anything, I had to get outside. My legs may have moved like lead and as if I were walking through treacle, but my heart instantly felt lighter especially when only a few minutes later I saw a swallow perched on a telephone wire in the bright sunshine after a rain shower.

I stood in a snow globe for a while. No, I haven’t completely lost it. A tree* was shedding soft motes of pollen which were being swirled in the breeze, barely perceptible in the sun but a blizzard against the backdrop of stormy clouds; I stopped to watch. The other snow storm at this time of year is the absolute froth of the umbelliferous cow parsley (also known as Queen Anne’s Lace and related to the carrot, don’t you know). Much to the horror of many gardeners I’m sure, I am letting this wildflower grow quite prolifically in our borders.

*I am leaning towards it possibly being a goat/pussy willow but I stand ready to be corrected because my tree identification game is bad!

Almost home and with the clouds gathering overhead, I stood for a while as swallows swooped above me. It was a magical moment of watching and listening to these birds as well as others singing further afield. All around me was the buzz of insects enjoying wild honeysuckle wrapped around the limbs of trees and the air was generating that exciting electric feeling that comes before a storm – and then a horse gave an almighty neigh, and this is what set me off giggling.

I went home and had my little cry. My walk broke the spell of me just pushing everything to the back of my brain where it sat growing and growling for attention. Sometimes you can work so hard at getting on and through things, you can forget to stop and feel what you need to feel. It is okay to recognise that some things are hard and sad and difficult and I am advocating allowing yourself a little cry sometimes if you need it.

Lovely little things

And, let’s also not forget the most important part of the plan, to look for the pockets of joy each day.

Six months after her release, Veronica is being put back in the loft. I am talking about my wig. I actually bought her (and I feel weird saying her, but they all come from the shop complete with names) the last time I had cancer. The only reason I didn’t get rid of her was because, well, how do you get rid of a wig? In the end it turned out to be a good thing that she lay in waiting for three and half years, because I needed her services again. But now that I have tiny hair, she is being packed off once more and if this weather ever improves, I can abandoned the hats on occasion too, which will be nice.

There have been some lovely things over the last week; on a short walk with my mum along a small portion of the Gipping, we saw our first swallows of the year. They took us by surprise zooming overhead and off into the distance near the end of our amble which had been otherwise bereft of noticeable wildlife apart from a pair of ducks. We then proceeded to have herbal teas and cake outside at a garden centre café. After all the lockdown and my own shielding, I still have the strange feeling that I am doing something naughty when I go out now.

On the way to my radiotherapy planning appointment, MOTH and I took a cross country cut through and passed a herd of sheep with happily gambolling lambs. A trio of tiny sheep bouncing about together is exactly what you need to see on the way to hospital and I am distinctly aware of just how lucky I am to live somewhere where these sights are never far away. One day I will find the donkey who, from our house, we can hear braying on clear days when the sound travels so well. I have an idea of where it resides but am not at all sure how one elicits a donkey introduction.

The annoying thing of late though, is just how cold and miserable the weather has been and how because of it, very few of the vegetables sown have germinated. Looking back at, ‘this time last year’, photos it seems that everything is so very far behind. We were particularly surprised at the lack of courgettes coming up as usually these are the easiest things to grow. We did a second sowing and out of curiosity I had a poke about in the first pots. Well, it turns out there was a very good reason they had not germinated, I had forgotten to put the seeds in! I blame this entirely on the fact that I had been doing some of the sowing in my very distracted time of pre surgery worry.

On that subject I would like to give you some nicer news. I have had my full body scan and it has not shown that the cancer has spread anywhere else in my body. I am of course extremely pleased about this but have to admit to being a little restrained in celebration. The reason I am not doing cartwheels (apart from the reluctance to increase the potential of head injuries and broken bones) is that I have been told this before, and it wasn’t accurate. As this cancer has been a recurrence of the first, I’m not sure I will ever be able to completely believe that there isn’t anything lurking, too small to be picked up on the scans. But I will try. In the meantime we carry on with the plan: radiotherapy which starts in two days and then another, different chemotherapy. And, let’s also not forget the most important part of the plan, to look for the pockets of joy each day.

One last amazing thing: my mum and two of my sisters are being brilliant and taking on a marathon walk to raise funds for Macmillan. I am unabashedly saying click here to donate. I can tell you from first-hand experience that this is a very good cause. I am so very lucky to have the support that I do from so many wonderful people. Not everyone is as lucky as I am but, Macmillan are there to provide care and help for anyone who needs it when dealing with cancer and this is a way you can be part of that support.

To help raise funds, click here

A message of cope

I guess I am hoping that anyone who is feeling lock down fatigue can be kind to themselves and feel proud for coping because that is more than amazing.

Today is a classic British February day – grey. Grey, drizzle, damp, mild then cold, bleak – bleh! And, of course, we are in lockdown. There is much talk of lockdown fatigue and finally I really get it. I have to admit that in lockdown one, I was so busy with the garden and working from home, that aside from the miserableness of not being able to physically see family and the rather over-zealous sudden plethora of on-line meet-ups, I didn’t feel the effects too badly. Certainly there was fear, worry and a kind of dazed incomprehension, but I was busy.

This time I often feel it is not just groundhog day, but groundhog hour, perhaps even minute. Firstly, the weather is not conducive to gardening – unless you like bog snorkelling your way around the borders, that is. Walks are getting trickier too as the Suffolk clay, mixed with huge douses of rain make for incredibly slippery and unmanageable paths (on our last mini walk, my mum and I each accrued a good two inches in height with the mud which accumulated on our boots – which yes, brought us to the grand heights of five foot-three and five respectively). And the grey – eugh – the never ending bleakness that stretches from supposed sunrise to indeterminable sunset.

But this time round I also have the added open-endedness of being signed off sick. I had had hopes of keeping my hand in a bit more than I am managing but I have to admit, that having chemotherapy every week is harder than I had anticipated – it is exhausting. Apart from the fact that chemo day itself can take a good six hours out of the day, there never seems to be time to recuperate from one round before the next is upon me. I had to have a sit down the other day just from putting the washing up away.

I had also had visions of me indulgently focusing on my art and crafting. Of channelling healing through creative practice, but I don’t seem to have the energy or focus for much of that either. It doesn’t help that my eyesight is fuzzy from the chemo and that loss of mental focus is another very normal side effect and, due to hot flushes coming and going at will, I sleep very badly and sporadically, leaving me constantly tired but never able to properly sleep.

This all leaves me, grudgingly at times, having to accept that more and more I need to do – nothing. And that this is okay. And I want to say that it’s okay for everyone else too. Some creatures hibernate over winter, others go into a sense of torpor. When faced with huge negative events, our brains will often naturally shut off from these things which lends us into a strange, almost dissociative state which in itself causes unease and tiredness. At the moment, we are a nation, a world that is – coping, a word perhaps undervalued. To cope: to deal with difficulties in a calm and adequate manner. It has no bells, the whistles would be more like a party blower with a hole in, but it is a quiet strength – getting on with things in the face of a difficult or unpleasant situation. Let’s have some synonyms: manage, survive, get through, carry on, subsist, endure, withstand, bear – these all sound pretty strong to me.

To avoid any further feelings of conflict I am starting to learn that acceptance is a key part of being able to positively cope with what is. Accepting that all I am capable of at times is rest, is making resting more effective. It is hard when I want to be doing, but I found that I was neither doing or resting when I was fighting my need to just stop. I was, instead, being physically still with my brain being annoyed – not helpful. I think a key thing to remember is that accepting a situation as it is at the time, is not giving in to the idea that that is how it will be forever, it is for the time only and that change will come.

I guess I am hoping that anyone who is feeling lock down fatigue, tiredness, confusion – the good old malaise, can be kind to themselves by accepting that, that is what is happening for them at this moment but that the moment won’t last for all time and that things will change. And to also feel very proud of themselves for coping because to cope is in my mind more than amazing, it is strong and it is withstanding, it is moving steadily and it is okay.

*I have no relevant images to go with this post as I have had a very hard week from the chemo and have done pretty much nothing of note. So instead, just a few nice ones from better times, times that I know will come again.

Jenny Antoinette

I feel something like…Mary Antoinette with her eighteenth century pouffe (although without the parrot, fruit bowl, animals, toy ships or other novelty items) but with a great pomp of a towering edifice on top of my head.

MOTH and I took a gentle, state-sanctioned, walk the other day. It was a glorious morning, ice and frost had sugared everything to white and the sky was that wonderful bright blue that seems so particular to winter. As we passed under trees that were in the sun, we were rained on by tiny frozen pellets as the ice melted enough from the branches to fall in crystal droplets, but not enough to turn to liquid.

It was obviously a day that had caught a lot of people’s attention and although I generally avoid social media most of the time, beautiful photos of walks popped up everywhere. It felt as if, for a day at least, there was a shared excitement of the beauty of nature rippling through a collective consciousness. Whether it was because we are once again being asked to stay home as much as possible or just the inevitable grasp at a nice day after bleak greyness and damp I don’t know, but so many people felt the magnificence in the day and went out to experience it. This, I feel, can only be a good thing, especially when we have all just undergone a universal global moment of, ‘what on earth’ with the happenings on the other side of the pond alongside our own home-grown recklessness. (That is as close as I will come to political ranting here, I promise.)

I had to take a quick break from writing to run downstairs and feed the birds. It was a hurried and early off today for my pre-chemo blood tests and I didn’t have time before going out. Goodness, do I feel the guilt if I forget to feed them or even just put their food out late. The sparrows barrel in and u-turn in a huff if they see the feeders empty, the starlings strut about the tray obstreperously pecking at the emptiness, the blue tits perch forlornly looking to where food is not – they certainly know how to show their feelings and frankly they do exaggerate, there are always fat balls and nut butter out as well.

I was very pleased to spot a new bird in the garden recently, a redwing. As well as it being a great year for fungi, there has been an abundance of berries this winter; hawthorn, pyracantha, holly and cotoneaster, particularly and the birds have been gorging. According to the RSPB, the redwing is the UKs smallest true thrush, looking very similar but with a blush of red under the wing. They visit in the winter months and they love berries. There is a possibility I may be mistaken and it is a fieldfare, but I am holding out that I am right if only because it would be nice to be. I’m pretty sure though that I have seen the bold stripy chest of the redwing through my binoculars, the using of which always makes me feel like I am the proverbial nosy neighbour, which I am, it’s just I’m only interested in the birds.

On another short walk, my mum and I came across a small and very neat nest perched among some scrub and brambles about a foot off the ground. It has been suggested that the nest was that of the chiff chaff – perhaps one of the most onomatopoeic of the birds. We also enjoyed the sight of a tree doing yoga or rather, what we think was a huge and old piece of ivy that had entwined the tree to make it look as if it were contorting itself into the tree yoga pose. It seems in lockdown, even nature is taking up hobbies.

It is a very odd feeling to wear a hat over a wig. I feel something like one of the changing guards with their large Bearskin hats or perhaps a little like Mary Antoinette with her eighteenth century pouffe (although without the parrot, fruit bowl, animals, toy ships or other novelty items) but with a great pomp of a towering edifice on top of my head. I know this is not actually what it looks like, in fact, I don’t think anyone would know there was anything out of the ordinary if it wasn’t mentioned, but it certainly feels as if there is rather a lot going on up there.

I don’t wear my wig every day, it is very tight and can get itchy and there is a strange feeling of being disingenuous; looking as if I have hair, when I do not. But, I have to admit it does give me a greater sense of ‘normality’ for a while when I do wear it, not having the glaring, ‘I have cancer,’ look going on. And it is definitely warm, which at the moment is a bonus. Perhaps to garner the mood I should embrace the look and add a redwing representation to my wig/hat combo.

The simple pleasure of a pine cone

This week the weather quite clearly has no idea what it is doing. Or, if it does, it is working to some indecipherable plan that we are not privy to. I had to put a jumper and socks on today, for which I was actually more than happy. The few days we had midweek week where the temperatures tipped into the thirties, were far too much for me; I barely functioned. Perhaps it’s because I spend a good ninety-five percent of my life feeling cold and wearing at least three more layers than everyone else (I have been known to wear seven layers in winter) that when I finally get warm, my body has no clue what to do. After the scorching heat and dragging the electric fans out of the cupboard and discarding the duvet, the last two days have been more bearable, even if a little confusing.

We were promised thunderstorms this week; they did not come – which I was annoyed about. We have had some rain, intermittent sun and
cloud but goodness, a lot of blustery wind. But that didn’t stop me taking a post work stroll on which I experienced hot sun, high winds and rain in regular revolutions.

On my walk I had two incidences where I was very aware of how I am becoming more and more accustomed to simplicity and the pleasure and freedom it brings. The first was when on leaving the house I pocketed only my keys and my phone (and a tissue, but there is always at least one of those resident in any of my pockets). A while back, when we were in much stricter lockdown and supposedly not leaving the house but for the essential shop, I tweeted about noticing that bags seemed such redundant irrelevances. They sit there waiting to be filled and carted about and for some reason they struck me as rather absurd at that point. And I am someone who has far too many bags of all shapes and sizes – just in case! But today there was a feeling of lightness and liberty in the grab-and-go of so few items. (I wonder if this is how men have always felt. Perhaps if decent pockets in women’s clothing had been de rigour from the start we wouldn’t have become so accustomed to dragging bags around with us at all times.)

The second moment was as I neared home. I was mildly grumping at this point as the last public footpath, that takes me across a field to my home, has once more not been looked after by the land owner and is again impassable; so I had to take the road route. But, by doing so I passed some large pine trees under which many cones had been scattered on the ground, most crushed by passing cars but one excellent, fat specimen called to me. As I picked it up to bring home I realised I experienced the same feeling as I have done in the past when buying a new item of clothing or the such. I read a book recently which talked about how we get used to new things so quickly that they lose their ‘spark’ in very little time which is what compels us to then buy again and again and again. It’s why some very rich people have multiple cars of huge value and still never feel satisfied. They are merely looking for the next hit of new. That being the case, perhaps a pine cone really can have the same excitement-producing reception in the brain that a new pair of boots can.

In some ways we have all had to live a little more simply recently and at the beginning I had hopes that this would have a positive impact. But, like so many people, I have been appalled and quite upset at the sheer magnitude of people and the destruction and littering they have left behind at some of our destination spots. I dared to dream that out of this strange time we are living through, there might have risen a more compassionate, thoughtful and caring collective consciousness. But it would seem that now, perhaps more than ever, we appear to be a species divided between those that think beyond their immediate bubble and those that don’t. I find it hard to not fall into the thinking that, I am right and they are wrong, nothing is that clear-cut of course, but I simply can’t understand the continued devastation on large and small scales across the globe of the beautiful world we are lucky to inhabit. Nor the drive some seem to possess to split us into divided groups of people based solely on geography, aesthetic, lifestyle choices and all the things that make us so wonderfully rich and diverse and of these differences that we should be celebrating and sharing.

It doesn’t help that there are so many ways now to see so much of this negative behaviour. Sometimes I have to go on a news and social media break just to give my (admittedly very sensitive) heart and brain a break from it all. I want to believe there is more good than bad. It is always worth seeking out happiness and care and opening our eyes to the little things that can bring comfort and hope, and to find the joy in the simple things.

To this end, my pine cone and I will be quite happy at home. It will sit in my bowl of found natural treasures, all of which make me smile – yes, even the skulls. And if you need a break from the treadmill of bad news, you can join me on a very blustery walk in the video below. The wind shaking the trees and rustling the long grasses speaks louder than I can, but I don’t mind being drowned out by nature.

Grazing Bales

Sunday, late afternoon; I’ve just been out for a short post-work walk and am wondering why I don’t do so more often. I always feel at my best mentally and emotionally when I am outside and in nature.

Today, the weather and scenery were stunning. Having just had several days of rain, (which I was most happy to see arrive after the driest May on record had the land scorched to dust) the sun has returned. Yesterday was all big blue expansive skies that seem to be bigger than they ought to, today the blue has been punctuated with white cloud and a slight breeze.

The route I took is quite short and one I have done many times before. If I don’t dawdle (which of course, I always do, stopping to look, smell, feel and listen to all the wonders around me) I can leave the house and be back again in half an hour – if I rush. But why rush? I’ll never understand people who charge their way through a walk. Why aren’t they stopping to trail their hands in the long grass, to peek into ditches, do they not close their eyes and breathe the fresh air pretending for a brief moment that nothing else exists? I can’t imagine going for a walk and not holding stones or picking up feathers or peering as close as I can at insects and lamenting, as ever, my lack of bird call knowledge when I hear the twittering around me. Although, today, I was quite happy that I was able to identify a chiff chaff.

Not all land owners and farmers are great at encouraging people to walk the public footpaths by keeping them clear and easily identifiable – there are a few round here like that. But, others are very good at it, and my walk begins around fields on a path that is kept mown; wide enough for one, or two if you are very close. I was led initially by several tiny brown flittering butterflies who appeared to skip about only a few inches ahead of my toes. One finally settled long enough on a butter cup for me to take a quick (terrible) picture and I think they were small heaths. The area I was currently walking round has been left to go to wild land and long grasses and the beautiful feathery fronds jigged in the breeze with their soft green and purple hues. Beautiful. But, as with as many places there is talk of it being built on which saddens me greatly. I can see brambles beginning to flower in the hedgerows, bringing promises of delicious fruits to come. I will be out picking and eating later in the year.

A little further along my walk I spot a large black shape on a nettle leaf. Looking closer it is a caterpillar, dark and bristly; looking extremely gothic. As I peer further into the nettle patch, I see that there are in fact many of them, all on nettle leaves, and so once more I take to my books and the internet to find out what they are: the caterpillars of the Peacock butterfly.

The reason I had stopped and began perusing the nettles was because I was getting myself back together after being highly startled by a pair of pheasants. I think though that they may have been more startled by me. I gave my apologies, especially as it was a male and female I had rudely interrupted. They flew off in the clumsy, flapping barking that they do without giving me the courtesy of an apology for scaring the life out of me.

Against all the blue, green and yellow of this early summer day, large shining black plastic greeted me next – the covering for bales of straw. My best friend and I have long loved the sight of bales in fields, particularly as we feel they always seem as if they are grazing. Many a time we have sent each other pictures of such with the caption: grazing bales. I may have tweeted a video at her this time.

My head and heart by this point wanted to continue to walk for hours. Unfortunately my body, with its various ails, does not comply and so reluctantly I begin to head home. I can manage an hour of gentle walking but by the end will still be in pain, so I am learning to take things easier than I would like – learning but not liking – I get very grumpy about this.

But I am blessed, I know, to be able to go out at all and also to be close enough to be out in nature so quickly. I know not everyone can and so I recorded just a short part of my walk, which you can watch below. Watching nature and imagining yourself in it can be beneficial too. When I was going through cancer treatment, I would sometimes close my eyes and take myself off for a walk in my mind. I would imagine every detail from putting on my shoes and picking up my keys, to what I would see and feel out there; and I’m sure it helped me. Perhaps, if you can’t get out, for whatever reason, I can give you this little bit of nature.