The cliché of staring at a blank page comes to mind.
Why should I bother if I had nothing to say at the outset? I can't answer that, except that I enjoy the process, much as others enjoy Morris dancing or composing clerihews.
I suppose there are similarities when one embarks on a walk, when unpredictable events and sights unfold as one progresses. and for which activity nobody, despite many weary attempts over the years, has managed to provide an explanation for the initial motivation and the subsequent satisfaction.
This Thursday's walk was defined the night before and I drove with the two Petes and parked the car on a grass verge with the nose up to the back of a road sign - that distinctive location failed to jog my memory.
We walked down the lane on Tarmac as far as the turning to Sands Bottom, then after a gate it became unsurfaced. Pete No. 1 announced he and I had been there before, and furthermore remembered a geocache we had found in a knot-hole disguised with a metal bolt. We found the location but the cache has been removed or closed down. Pete also clearly remembered the precise parking spot used today, exactly the same as previously.
It was only further down the lane that my memory gradually returned. I have been able to trace the previous visit to the 29th May 2014 from the date logged on the Geocaching website, but unfortunately I didn't post here about it.
I have only a feeble notion of scansion, but here is my attempt at a clerihew.
Pete No. 1
Recalled previous fun.
I pompously demurred,
Which opinion proved absurd.
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| Just a pleasant garden with extensive views to the Fylde coast |
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| Big zoom to Blackpool Tower 16 miles away |
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| Nicky Nook summit. Our route circumnavigated this hill which we used to climb as a family evening outing when I lived in Preston |
Since the opening paras of your post segued (haven't used that verb recently) into a Pete-walk I can't tell whether you imagine you have justified the way you kicked off or not.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you need help from Francine, hero of my novel Second Hand. Here she's in the process of sub-editing a long article:
Editing had taught her that introductory paragraphs often disappeared into what she privately called a white hole. That many articles started obviously, even elegantly, with the second paragraph. Yet those victimised first paragraphs were not superfluous: they were byproducts of the initial sweat and toil which often seeped into the texture of what followed.
Or more succintly... nah, the above is clear enough.
RR -The idea was to have a thread which compared the unexpected and unpredictable happenings after facing a blank page with the unexpected and unpredictable happenings during a walk, The first of those is illustrated by the piece itself and the second by the unexpected revelation of having walked there before. The original reference to a clerihew happened as I wrote with no thought of it having further use, and only served to link and wind up the piece at the end - it wasn’t pre-planned, it turned out to be a gift I had given myself and served also as another illustration of the unexpected arising from the blank page.
ReplyDeleteThe only thought in my mind at the outset was that I wanted to write about our walk on Thursday, but with some original input, avoiding just a boring account of the walk which is better illustrated by the accompanying photos.
In the funny way of these things, I'd never heard (or maybe heard but not understood and thus promptly fotgotten) the word 'clerihew' until I read your blog earlier today. A matter of hours later, I've just heard it again.
ReplyDeleteTwo (rather dullish) examples of the clerihew:
ReplyDeleteThe moustache of Adolph Hitler
Could hardly be littler,
Was a thought that kept recurring
To Field Marshall Goering.
"No," said General Sherman,
"I didn't enjoy the sermon,
Nor did I git any
Kick out of the Litany."
An even worse clerihew emerged in 1955 at RAF Yatesbury where I was being taught electronics and our tutor offered a weekend pass to anyone who could write one of these dubious forms. I submitted the following, he read it aloud, said it was hardly in good taste, then reneged on the pass deal:
If Flying Officer Rees,
Would simply decease,
I could make my study of wireless,
Tireless.
I'll give FO Rees credit. In my original the final line was "More tireless." He advised me to drop the "more".
Gayle - that sort of "coincidence" is something that happens to us all from time to time I think. I have heard or read explanations given by double-degree statisticians which reduce the phenomenon to something unexceptional, but I prefer to retain the mystery and romance in my own mind, not that I subscribe to the paranormal.
ReplyDelete-----------------------
RR - That clerihew was a bit placid coming from you. You could have been more biting without risking the loss of the pass, but you weren't to know that beforehand.
Ah, Morris Dancing - a fine interest! The next time we meet you must let me bore the pants off you with my Morris Dancing stories.
ReplyDeleteA nice little walk by the way, if a little short on tractors. 😉