From Monday the 6th I'll be back at work after forty seven days of public sector holiday time off and without wanting to sound defeatist prematurely feel quite certain that within a few days my personal stress level will have risen starkly as things which are beyond my control (my personal definition of anxiety) on pretty much most levels start to happen left, right and centre.
This seems to be par for the course where I work ... this may well chime with your own personal circumstances and be a universal trait of all modes of employment I dunno.
Judging by how life was at my workplace last year through on occasion self-inflicted wounds I'm approaching the new academic year with my usual in-born enthusiasm but it's tempered this time around based on the aforementioned knowledge that however well you can attempt to manage your personal situation outside forces can have a terrible habit of barging down the door and repossessing you and without any prior notice either.
Therefore my attitude to this blog has been to try and have some fun with it on the whole and be light-hearted as I don't just want it to become this rantathon which I turn to every now and then to get things that are bothering me badly off my chest as knowing myself as I do I'll just make myself more het up and it won't be as cathartic as ideally I'd want it to be.
Having enough stress at work to get my head around quite a bit of the time I don't want to prolong that soul-searching here.
I want to write about subjects that get my juices flowing and excite me rather than sap me of energy.
Last Tuesday as I was busily snapping away using a newly-bought digital camera taking pictures of the vista that envelops Derwent Water in the northern part of the Lake District I briefly let my mind envisage myself a week on sat on one of the cramped chairs (you have my utmost sympathy kids!) in the hall at the school I work at listening to the head and other senior staff very formally welcome their colleagues back and set out their aims and aspirations for the year ahead etc. and it instantly put me at odds as you might expect with the happy vibe I was experiencing as we bobbed gently from side to side in the wooden cruiser boat that takes tourists around this three-mile long stretch of freshwater.
I could almost feel my shoulders sag and my heart sink and I hurriedly returned myself to living in the moment by pointing out stuff to my little lad that maybe his Nanna sitting in between us had missed around the water's edge like ducks landing close by utterly oblivious to the human presence around them ... they got there first after all and so we are uninvited gatecrashers on their turf so to speak.
A freshly spawned dream of mine now would be to get a transfer to a school in Cumbria but in its fledgling state it's not properly thought out and there's no guarantee that the problems regularly thrown up in the environment I work in don't just happen in another form in what I deem to be a rural paradise on Earth just because there are more trees and wider open spaces to lose yourself in ... life of course can't work like that.
I suppose then that next week as I stand in the hall absentmindedly glancing down at my slightly scuffed and pointed black shoes whilst I'm on lunch duty ferrying the new year 7's to and from the bogs I'll cast my mind back to days like that spent climbing the mighty Skiddaw which is the fourth-highest fell in the Lake District area at around 930 metres or 3000 feet high and come over all wistful and long to be back there.
It really is such a magical place which I know to many of those who might chance upon this blog is preaching to the converted but it's worth saying again to underline it.
Preceding the short break we had up there I'd gotten back into cycling around Salford and Manchester in a bid to sharpen my fitness and get me in as good form as I could for my job an essential part of which is to be on your toes constantly just in case ... as I ascended this supposedly easier and inferior mountain according to the Rough Guide I'd read the night before with its handy and well-trodden path it dawned on me very quickly that there was a long long way to go before I could see myself as even half-fit as under the pretext of enjoying the view to my fellow walkers I'd stop every thirty yards along the loose slate or so to catch my breath and give myself a pep talk about making that bush over there second on the left where that goat is chewing his life away (you can't miss it!) and seeing how I felt after that.
My missus had a valid excuse for not being with me at this point as she was carrying our freshest sprog Phoebe in a baby carrier close to her chest and not even two months had gone by since she'd undergone her second C-Section operation and so it was fair enough that she accompanied my mum and our lad back to the car where the grassy part of the climb finished.
I'd not thought though as I said goodbye to them how much I'd miss them within such a short space of time as Skiddaw is that sort of place and has such an unforgiving gradient that any moral support from people suffering as much as you is lapped up in an instant and can will you on to greater heights if you'll pardon a really horrific pun.
Another definition of stress and loneliness for me is that it happens when there's no outlet for your feelings about something or someone to be expressed and they just end up tucked away in a cul-de-sac in the dustier parts of your mind ... this feeling was taking hold in me more and more as I scrambled by now my way up this very difficult climb which wasn't helped when on questioning a woman coming down past me was told that I wasn't even half way yet.
Thanks luv but I suppose I did ask.
As the twinges in my calves became more frequent and the beads of sweat that seemed in permanent residence on my forehead dripped off me like early morning condensation I thought how strange it was that I was actually feeling quite cold by now and really and truly putting my waterproof jacket on might be a really good idea ... surely though I'll just get hotter and hotter which in combination with us having skipped lunch until we got back meant I'd have to give up quite soon from becoming very giddy because of energy starvation.
I'm not quite sure how fitness works and maybe it was purely an adrenalin rush that was furiously pulsing through me but as time went on I felt better and better and more and more eager to reduce my breaktimes and press on as with each new vantage point reached and ticked off the view to both sides of me on this narrowing ascent was becoming increasingly spectacular and I was getting closer to fulfilling my goal of being able to say as I sat on the verandah of the static caravan belonging to my parents with its clear view of Skiddaw in the middle distance that hey I'd conquered that there hill and knew how the reverse view looked.
Unbeknownst to me at the time I would be shortly blearily eyeing the sign that tells anyone who is yet to give up that not too far away is the "Skiddaw Summit" ... to say that my heart did the moonwalk at this news is to mock the late Michael Jackson as I was joining in with his entire repertoire of funkier tunes at that point ... to celebrate this fact and with not another soul around except for the odd distracted goat that had seen it all before anyhow (each had assumed a Larson-cartoon caricature by me now perhaps half-deliriously) I at last left my personal mark on Skiddaw by having a well-earned pee (not as easy as it might seem bearing in mind that that high up the wind is so fierce I felt like one of the Ghostbusters and was vainly trying not to cross my stream - hopefully you'll have seen the film to get this).
Nature's reward for your effort to this stage is to level off the path quite appreciably and this passage that lasts for a good mile or so did help me assuage my frustrations of a little earlier when I felt I encountered for the first time the sneering and snotty demeanour that some of your fellow hardy people can show as you go past them as if in my England cricket cap and purple Converse trainers I'd foolishly deluded myself into thinking I could reach the top without need for all the climbing paraphernalia that was by the looks of it weighing them down.
As I felt better being within sight now of my goal I was a bit peeved to find that as well as being very generous only a few moments before Mother Nature could also be cruel and to demonstrate this had ramped up the last leg quite considerably as if she's testing your willpower like a dog that's not had a walk all day will almost rip the hand off its owner once a lead is attached to its collar.
Talking of dogs there were quite a few in attendance on the climb and my admiration for our canine friends increased a hundred-fold consequently as whilst they might possess two more legs their hearts are a lot smaller and they have less free will (they go where their masters go leading me to wonder if Gromit-like any dog whose owner had a property at the foot of the mountain had ever left a little note on the fridge giving thanks for all the chews but all things considered a move to Holland was the best thing for them as the cry of "Walkies" had lost its pull long ago) ... it's all relative I know.
Somehow and I'm not exaggerating there for dramatic effect I got to what was within spitting distance of the small monument that indicates that your arduous haul to here is almost at an end but with the wind blasting my cheeks this way and that I decided to take at a rough guess about a thousand photos instead ... this killed some time waiting for a couple who were sitting in the pile of stones that served as a shelter against the buffeting gust.
The relief on finally being able to slump down on those rocks however much they tore into my bum (they're not really made for comfort) was immeasurable really and I really savoured the moment by reflecting on those points when I'd thought sod this for a game of soldiers and instead felt glad I'd let them pass me by.
Anyway the views are what you can probably imagine them to be ... you do literally feel that it's like being on top of the world.
Pictures speak a thousand words as they say and via Facebook I'll soon be posting the ones I took and so please look out for those if you are at all curious as to what being on top of the world looks like.
As for the descent well that's another post and so for now I'll sign off by urging you to get up to Skiddaw, stare at it in awe from the base and then say to yourself ... "I wonder what it's like up there by that goat etc." ... go for it folks is all that is left to say!!
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