Below is the Wednesday morning sky that greeted those intrepid Travellers from the West who, in obedience the Leader´s exhortation to be ready for a 7 am start, had set off at the crack of dawn in their search for that enigmatic Being from the East.
Just to remind you of the reference:
“Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan´s Turret in a Noose of Light.”
The query in last week´s blog was “who was the Hunter of the East?”
I had two identical answers, logical, it has to be said but poetically unappreciative. They both told me that the Hunter of the East went by the name of “Lo”.
(Maybe the Dragon Empress´s ancestral forebears were a tribe of mighty Hunters.) The poetical interpretation and correct answer is “the Sun.”
But now enough of that; the Starter photo was duly taken at 7.00 am sharp and, after one or two alarms and excursions – mainly in the direction of the ladies´ loos - we set off at 7.07 am – not too bad, thanks to all who came.
This walk was , of course, along a very well-known trail which requires very little description from your Blogger, but the first change from the normal routine was that we had with us a new official photographer in the person of Hazel who kept busy trying out her brand new camera.
Here is her first shot of the group:-
and then, after she had mastered the art of the zoom lens, her next three;
Also captured was her shot of a headless snake:
a subject which Paul elaborated on later to artistic effect:
It´s not clear why or how the snake lost its head –maybe it ran foul of the lesser grey canal rat (ratus canaliensis), an endangered species mainly because of its dietary predilection for eating only the heads of its prey –but that is our ration of decay for the time being.
Nearing the Clube Nautico, we found that the flimsy little entrance bridge over the canal has disappeared; the challenge is now not that of avoiding breaking the bridge but that of jumping over the canal without breaking one´s leg. In the Clube, the bar was, as always, closed, but the Clube´s philosopher-in.residencee had clearly been very busy since our last visit with lots of new “quotations/pensées ” for us to study.
The Dragon Empress/Huntress took this shot of a quotation attributed to Mr Lhamo Thondup, a.k.a. the Dalai Lama.
and later she asked your Blogger to find if the quotation is genuine.
Well, the internet is full of “inspirational” quotation sites; there must be a whole industry devoted to digging these up or (perish the thought) to making them up. One such site has “150 of the Dalai Lama´s most inspirational quotes.” It also has “42 of Michelle Obamas´s most inspirational quotes” Not as many as His Worthiness´s, it´s true but then she has not been at it as long as he has. Donald Trump is also in there, naturally; he being a world leader in how to deal with criticism has this gem:
“Criticism is easier to take when you realize that the only people who aren’t criticized are those who don’t take risks.”
So, for what it is worth, the Dalai Lama´s version of carpe diem is there, in English as well as in the original Portuguese.
But is it genuine or not ? Who is to say? Attributed to the good old DL is also:
Ah well, whatever turns you on.
Also spotted were:
and
a reference to Gilbert and Sullivan perhaps, and a touch of Swahili with hakuna matata and pole pole – no problem and take it easy.
For some reason which I can´t now recall , as we walked away from the Clube towards the camp site, Paul, Janet and I pondered on the words “Change and decay in all around I see” which we thought possibly came from Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver´s Travels and A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick – both always worth reading. But in fact the source of the words is that somewhat lugubrious poem, now the hymn “Abide with me”.
But back to the walk: it was here that our group split into two.
If you look at our track, the red line shows where Chris, Antje and Janet took the Low Road, while the rest of us tackled the High Road over the hill, marked in blue. This hill is called the Cerro da Rocha Branca according to the Carta Militar and e were going to try to suss out where on the hill the proposed 700 bed 5-star hotel, sports complex and golf course, recently announced by Silves Camara, was likely to be situated.
There were some changes to be seen as we went.
The rather seedy caravans once seen above the camp site have been replaced by much grander constructions; several paths that once were more like barriers to progress than means of access have been cleared of boulders and brambles – there are certainly signs that somebody is taking an interest in the land. But will this bit of the Camara´s development plans ever come to pass? Don´t hold your breath.
At the top of the hill we paused for a rest while the well-known cryptic crossword clue “two girls, one on each knee” ** was given a new interpretation as Ingrid grabbed the support of two extra knees and Paul´s blood pressure peaked.
After this, three of us left the bench quite quickly, but four, TerryA, Jill, Myriam and Hazel, were slower off the mark and as a result missed an obvious right turn and went the wrong way and were well down the hill until a phone call from Paul corrected them. The yellow line in the track picture shows their misjudgement –the statistics that follow later don´t take account of their extra effort. Perhaps because of the slight delay here, when we reached the planned rendezvous with the Low Road trio, they like Macavity the Mysterious Cat were not there. They had gone ahead without waiting for us, mainly I suspect because Antje wanted to do some scrumping for plums or damsons.
No problem; in the event we were all back at Mira Rio in good time for the 10 am breakfast service. Prompt , very prompt, as usual. They must post a watchman in the tower to look out for our arrival to get the food ready so immediately.
Conversation at breakfast was civilised, Janet very quickly putting an embargo on any Tilley Hat sales talk.
Paul´s statistics
The Leader´s statistics:
Total distance: 8.63 kms; Total time: 2 hrs 41 mins;
Moving time: 2 hrs 02 mins; Average moving speed: 4.2 kph;
Ascent: 289 metres; Unbroken eggs: 19.
This link may give you a bit of "Hakuna Matata."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIdeSo1FD0
Post script:
The results of Antje´s scrumping:_
the fruits of her labours, one might suppose.
2 comments:
Thanks John for another energising walk and a good Friday read. I probably did hear the phrase from Abide with me, but it just shows what a strange thing is the human memory, as I can't recall the last time I sang a hymn of any sort, so it must have been when I was watching one of any number of FA Cup Finals, though whether they sing the verse about 'Change and Decay' is debatable.
I now understand why I associated it with Swift though - just before there is the line ' Swift to it's close ebbs out life's little day'. A tad depressing, though the author was dying of tuberculosis when he wrote it, and succumbed 3 weeks later. Nevertheless, Christians view it as an optimistic song full of hope
https://youtu.be/_B5grIIuEd4.
Not I, perhaps I am a sufferer of 'The excremental vision, as was Swift for his satirical poem 'The Lady's Dressing Room', a line from which also got a mention during this walk.
As a final comment, perhaps during this season we should strive to note occasions where The Bechdel Test ( or more properly the Bechdel- Wallace Test) is passed. (Look that up in your Funk and Wagnells!). Despite the preponderance of the fairer sex on our walks, I suspect it is a rare thing, not even when Pat and Ella are invoked.
That must be one of the longest blog comments ever - about 230 words - and as for obscurity, well it takes the biscuit. "excremental vision" "Lady´s Dressing Room" "Bechdel-Wallace" "Funk and Wagnells" - food for thought for the ensuing week and beyond. Regarding the death from tuberculosis of the hymn´s author, that occurred 20 years after he first wrote the words, as a poem. It was when he was dying, he composed a tune and set his old words to it, thus making the hymn. A Scot, if Wikipedia is to be believed, he was an Anglican priest who served in Ireland. Obscurity piled upon obscurity.
More important, in the interests of blog accuracy, would be to add that, as well as Antje, Janet also scrumped and also made four jars of plum jam. One wonders if any of that jam might one Wednesday morning appear at our breakfast table.
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