On pacing myself

So in response to my last post where I mentioned I was a little tired of all the running around I do, a number of correspondents got in touch to say that this was all entirely my fault. I accept this a hundred percent, I am mostly busy because I make myself busy, and there are some conscious decisions that I could make (if I were brave enough) that would slow me down. The major one of course, and the route taken by at least one of these people, would be to turn my back on the stress of the rat race and go do something entirely different. Work, for better or worse, is mostly the root cause of all the running around. Not only because of the time it takes up during the day, but also because of all the opportunities it subsequently gives me to fill up my time with. Natch.

I had the opportunity before or course, and whilst I didn’t spurn it, perhaps I didn’t make the most of it. I had a lovely time though and will always remember quite how nice it was living a simpler existence, albeit still in London. Long summer days, still quiet mornings, a sense of calm despite small children.

Fundamentally I like to be busy, but I think the point I was trying to make was that it would be nice if sometimes, just sometimes, that wasn’t the default state. Bob made an interesting point on life continuing to speed by, but that people slow down, and I suspect his many years of experience ;-) are hitting the nail on the head here. I am getting older and there is no denying it. I am still trying to run around as if I were 21, but that the inescapable truth of it is that I’m a few years past that now and basically more tired. To be clear, I am not past it, whatever ‘it’ is, far from it, but perhaps I need to recognise that I have limits, and that those limits are coming in a bit. And that rather than increase the amount of things I do, I need to drop a few of them. That is the difficult part as I have a great many interests, none of which I really want to give up but some of which I may need to change.

So really this is another post about ageing, adapting to it, and how it annoys me that I even have to. But I have started in a small way, and I’m feeling sort of positive about it. This is because I was forced to buy a new camera bag, which is always a happy event. Camera bags are a topic for endless discussion because there is no such thing as a perfect camera bag. There are however many imperfect camera bags, another one of which is now in my cupboard! This one has wheels…..

Yes wheels. This is what I mean about ageing and it annoying me. I mean what camera bag has wheels? To be clear there is no hint of tartan, I have not yet reached that stage, but it certainly isn’t as manly and youthful as the backpack that it replaces. The sad truth is that neither am I, and after my recent trip to Arizona I realised I could not cope with the weight of my bag for an extended period of time. It contained a fair amount of stuff it has to be said, due to my pig-headed inability to choose between pure birding and pure bird photography and insisting on doing both. Hence a large lens, a large scope, two cameras, a few other lenses, a tripod for the scope, a monopod for the lens, chargers – you get the picture. The weight? 23kgs and there was barely a thing in it that I didn't use. There is no compromise possible in my mind on trips like this where I have multiple aims, but after lugging it around for a week I realised I can’t do it again, or rather I would prefer not to.  Hence the new old man’s bag. I have high hopes for it, and it doesn’t actually hold as much stuff so not only does it roll gloriously across airports and along pavements, but it will be lighter too. This is a bag for easy trips, worry ye not though as for hardcore bird photography trips I have a smaller bag that my poor wizened frame can still bear.

Ready to roll

Whilst on the topic of ageing, last night Mrs L and I met up with our university buddies at our traditional meeting spot, which is an old-school public house in London. A classic old boozer actually, utterly timeless, whilst those who frequent it gradually become more decrepit. Last night the starting topic of conversation was gout, which is entirely appropriate for our demographic. In a way this is entirely fitting, we have been going to this pub for years and gout is thus the natural conclusion. Not my gout I hasten to add, you would have definitely heard about it by now! We recalled how we had been sat perhaps at the very same table talking about buying houses and mortgage rates. Over the years the subjects have varied, through engagements and marriages, jobs, toddlers, children, school places, catchment areas. And now in a depressing yet totally expected progression we’re onto our ailments. Actually a couple of us are still talking about engagements and marriages, but they’ve held out long enough that they might get to do the ‘in sickness and in health’ part simultaneously! And I suppose if we all remain in London for the foreseeable future, it’s probably the place we’ll end up in talking about death too. Nobody said that last night but I wonder if we were thinking it? Or maybe it was just me, bags with wheels prompting morbid thoughts well before their time.

My twist on the Midas touch

What's that saying? Everything he touches turns to gold? I've got something very similar going on, but it's not quite as good. Everything I touch breaks. When I say similar, I suppose I mean the opposite really. Rather than making a fortune at every opportunity, instead I'm hemorrhaging money on needing to repair almost everything I come into contact with. It started this summer when I dropped my camera for the umpteenth time and it finally died a short while later in Poland. I'd previously dropped it on Southend Pier, at Dungeness, in the Emirates, frequently in Wanstead - actually it might be easier to list where I haven't dropped it. Anyhow, that was a monster repair bill and a stack of hassle. 

Then the almost brand new washing machine died. Naturally I had not bothered to send in the warranty stuff, and after a failed repair it become more economic to just get a new one. Cue another unexpected bill. So annoying, it was literally about six months old, whereas the previous one had lasted ten years. 

The following week in Hong Kong, the diaphragm on my trusty wide angle zoom froze up. Excellent. The following month, in Florida, I forgot to zip up half of my backpack, and as I swung it onto my shoulders my second camera and a couple of lenses sailed through the air in a graceful arc, bouncing off a parked car and then onto the tarmac. The lenses seem more or less OK, indeed one of them had very recently dropped off the front of the camera at a wedding in Scotland and bounced spectacularly across the dance floor - one senses though that its luck might be running out. The camera however has given up the ghost in protest and will now only fire one shot before freezing up. It's my full frame travel body, and whilst used mostly as a back-up it gives me plenty of options that I now no longer have. I've yet to take either of them to be sorted out, I can't face it.

Then last week I discovered that the hands on my watch had become misaligned, so at six o'clock one hand points at six whereas the other doesn't point at twelve. Nothing major, but very irritating once you notice it and so I sent it off to be assessed at the beginning of this week. I might get away with this one as it appears to be under warranty, but it's still a hassle. No problem though, my shiny new phone I mentioned in the last post tells the time....

Ah. Yesterday I went out for the East London Birders Drinks, and whilst attempting to take a drunken photo managed to drop it on the floor. To be fair I drop it quite a lot, but this time I noticed a few purple spots had appeared on the screen. Ah well, not much of a problem, on with the festivities, more wine please! I woke up this morning to a pounding headache and this.

Whilst the headache gradually subsided, the phone got progressively worse as the morning went on, and when I realised it was to all intents and purposes now useless I conceded defeat and trundled off to a place that specialises in relieving idiots of hard-earned cash, the appropriately named iSmash. There I parted with another vast and wholly unnecessary sum of money, and a few hours later received it back in pre-Hornchurch condition.

They say bad things come in threes, but this is the sixth time this year that I've managed to destroy something expensive to the point of no return. Maybe they meant multiples of three? Anyway, Christmas is cancelled.

Birding Diaries and the strangeness of memory

I don't know about you but I keep a birding diary. It's not a boring list of birds (though they have their place and the occasional list does feature), rather it's a journal of where I've been birding, what it was like, how I got there, who I was with, what was good, what wasn't, stupid stuff that happened. Scintillating stuff. It's mostly restricted to travels as I do sometimes go abroad, however trips to Shetland make it in, as do long-distance twitches that are equally about the experience as the bird - for instance the North Uist Harlequin Duck. Every night whilst away, despite the fact I'm usually totally knackered from a long day, I make the time to write it up in my own inimitable style, and it serves as a reminder of the fun times and the great places I've been do. When I die it will be published to critical acclaim. Er...

About halfway through 2014 the diary ran out. I reached the end of it with a trip to Norway or somewhere, and then completely failed to buy a new one. Meanwhile my life continued apace, and whilst in this limbo I wrote down lists of birds, itineraries and so on, on boarding cards, odd bits of paper like airline menus and hotel notepaper, and in one instance on a bus ticket. I dutifully kept all these scraps in a drawer and whilst adding to them recently decided the time had come to get a new notebook. However the manic obsessive in me could not let the intervening 15 months go unrecorded, and as I can't guess how much I might write, I can't simply flick to the fiftieth page and start with Hong Kong. Did I mention I went to Hong Kong? Anyway, I've started writing up 2014 and I have to say that for an old codger my memory is bloody superb. And I mean ridiculously good. I might not be able to remember any password for any website, nor where I put the extended guarantee for our recently deceased washing machine, but boy do I have an eye for detail when on the road. The human brain is a marvel. Mine has very clearly deprioritised boring nonsense like remembering to renew our home insurance policy, but it can tell me which bench I slept on in the middle of Vikki bay in Finland and how I found it, as well as the first name of the mosquito that ensured I got almost no rest. Helmi.

So far I've written up Helsinki, Berneray, Tenerife and Morocco from 2014, I've done the Little Bustard twitch, and I'm now onto the UAE in January of this year. I'm not saying I have a photographic memory, and indeed my various exam results would back that up, but it is extremely visual. Ten months later I can picture the immigration line at Dubai airport, trace my steps to the rental car area, and clearly recreate the chaotic scenes of people waiting for cars, and how the cars came in and out. I can remember our first roadside stop for water and victuals, and the first birding stop at a place called Qarn Nazwa. Here I can picture almost the exact route I took on foot, I remember the huge and shiny camper van, the local on the quad bike. The Purple Sunbird in the tree near the broken concrete, the first Red-tailed Wheatear, the flock of Bulbuls round the back, near the dumped crate and food rubbish. I remember then the tall fence on hillside and the Bee-eater on it, and how hot and arid it was. I remember Mick stalking a Shrike, and Richard wandering around not photographing a Shrike. I remember the road kind of ending at a turning circle, and a fence we walked around. I remember that when we left we turned right. East. 

All of this is in my head. I have not referred once to the trip report I wrote on my blog. Some of it is the same, some of I didn't mention. Perhaps the act of writing it down has caused it to stick, as various teachers and parents once opined. I have no idea if other peoples' brains are wired the same way, mine is the only one I have access to, and that not even all of the time! But what I find interesting is that the visual aspect of, say, travelling down a road, is as strong if not stronger than a bird I saw. After we got lost and went through a small piece of Oman, I remember how the road ended at a roundabout in a valley, that right was somewhere we didn't want to go, but that we went left instead to retrace our route. Maybe the birds are as strong, as shortly after that turning we stopped the car due to our first black and white Wheatear on our right hand side, perched on a small abandoned building. It was very wary, nearly impossible to get close enough to negate the haze. As a test, and just by way of an example of what I mean, I opened Google maps to find this spot, and I am not exaggerating when I say that it took me under five seconds, starting from London, to scroll to this exact location in the UAE and zoom in on the building the bird was perched on. I remember it as it was at an angle to the road. That's how my memory works. I just did it with the bench, about seven seconds. The timing isn't really important, though it illustrates how clear it must be in my mind. I find it odd I can do it at all.

Finding the time to pick up these memories is the difficult bit. I'm way ahead of my pen here, thinking about Madeira whilst writing Abu Dhabi. Recalling the pine cone I picked up halfway up towards the Laurel forests and finding a Canary, simultaneously whilst picturing the flyby White-tailed Lapwing (right to left btw) just off the camel racing track at Al Wabtha, that in turn invoked memories of that ridiculous morning at Rainham. I couldn't even tell you what year that was, but I can see the scene on the viewing platform as the crowd soaked it in, as the final people dashed around the loop in near darkness, as an artist sat and patiently sketched or painted his own memory. I don't do painting, but it's all in there, stored as electrical impulses that for now remain relatively easy to retrieve.

Better write it down before that all changes!

A matter of light, a matter of opinion.

A few more photos, words are overrated. Keen to see if I could do any better than yesterday I went back to Southend, there to meet up with Mick, Richard and a few Med Gulls. Mick, as you will know if you have ever clicked his web page (over to the right somewhere, in the photo-bloggers section), is mildly fanatical about Gulls and photographing them. I can't think of anybody who does it better, and that includes any pro you care to name. I on the other hand have a great deal to learn about this art form, so spending a bit of time with him is always worthwhile, and I hoped to get some killer shots. The light however had different ideas, and I barely pulled the trigger, ahem. In between not taking blindingly amazing shots of Gulls, we nattered about camera settings and how today was a complete waste of time, about forthcoming trips such as Morocco and Iceland, and theorized on why some so-called bird photographers that plaster their 'work' all over the net are able to consistently take such shockingly poor photos. And why lots of other people acclaim them as amazing when in fact they are shit. A mixture of the usual nonsense in other words, highly cathartic, good to get various things off my chest rather than just tweet or blog about it. Oh.

Ah, it is all good fun really, and indeed my new moniker of "Internet Birder" has even provoked some blog posts from a couple of people who are always worth a read, and who tend to make you think. For example the words Pompous and Ass were used, which at points in the last couple of weeks I almost certainly have been (see example above, written for illustrative purposes). This of course isn't unusual, I would not be me without the occasional outburst, venting spleen. Highly correlated to periods of bank-based employment it appears. Unbecoming though, and as Gav points out, in this internet age it will live on without you if people can be bothered to look for it. Interestingly though, the comment the prompted this, the curious insult of Internet Birder (no, I have little idea either - if anything I write less about birding than many birders), has now been deleted by its author and I cannot find it. That tells its own story if you ask me. I am not going to elaborate, and like most things on the internet, it will all just drift away until people will read this post in isolation in a few years and wonder what on earth I am going on about. Very little really. Storms and teacups, the usual shite. I really must learn to keep my big mouth shut is the key take-away here, hard though that is. Tolerance, tolerance, tolerance.

Anyway, the light was awful. Technical specs can be found later on my other, nicer, blog. But suffice to say that flight shots were largely out of the question, and even portraits ended up looking flat. But it was still enjoyable, and trying to coax images out in dire conditions is always good for a laugh. I.e. you look at the back of your camera and just laugh. Oh for white clouds rather than grey, but other than this slight issue today, I can't think of many other things I'd have liked to have done this weekend. Funny how you get a bee in your bonnet about some things - an itch to be in a specific place doing a specific thing. This weekend that was Southend-on-Sea. Next weekend it could be something completely different. Even though I exist on the internet only, I lead a relatively varied birding life. A bit of this, a bit of that. And of course the key thing to remember is that my view of what birding is about trumps anyone else's. And as long as that's clear we'll get along just fine.

Basic needs

I studied French and Management Studies at university. The French bit was fairly obvious - Zola, Maupassant, Cezanne, asking if you have any pets, Chagall, Magritte, that kind of thing. I can still vaguely recall some of the texts I read, some of the paintings I studied. I've still got quite a few of the books, as well as various coffee-table books of the paintings. What I gleaned from them I can barely remember, but I did find my dissertation in which I managed to insert a Darth Vader quote right under the noses of the examiners. On the Management Studies bit I am less clear. There was something about EU Competition Law, and the amusingly titled Abuse of a Dominant Position, which even as a 19 year old was quite amusing. We also did some kind of case study on The Pier, a shabby chic home décor chain which clearly didn't listen to us as they closed down in 2008. Whatever else I did in those three years I am completely unable to say, but I came away with a piece of paper denoting achievement and glory. None of it, to my knowledge, has proved of any use whatsoever, beyond being able to show people the piece of paper when asked.

So I was very pleased to have my memory jogged by the BBC News website recently, when it published an article about Maslow. For those of you that don't know, Maslow was a man who studied human motivation, and devised the eponymously-named Maslow's Triangle, or Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I remembered it instantly, though the context remains lost in the past. Presumably it was some kind of wishy-washy Human Resources module. The theory is that you start at the bottom with very basic needs, food and warmth for instance, and gradually move up the triangle until you reach the peak, which is complete fulfilment and happiness, and, presumably, uninhibited productivity for your employer. I'm nearly there.

However to one side of the article was a fresh interpretation of Maslow's most famous work, which I have nabbed and posted below. It made me giggle, not quite as much as photo-shopping Tropicbirds it has to be said, but sufficiently to motivate me to write about it. It's sublimely brilliant, hat's off to whoever first came up with it - there are endless variations on the net. Pure simplicity, but so true. I'm as guilty as the next person, as my recent visit to Ireland proved. Food - sliced bread that was left over from a gull photography session. Water - one bottle lasted three days. Shelter - Nissan Qashqai. Warmth - Nissan Qashqai heater and a sleeping bag. All of the above are completely superfluous to surviving in the digital age, but wifi? Critical. I need to check Twitter. I need to look at RBA. I need to see if anyone has emailed me. I need an internet connection. Food, water, not bothered. Warmth? Whatever, what's the password? Shelter? Will it work through the walls if I'm sat in the Nissan?

The need to be connected at all times beggars belief. I was having dinner in the rather nice little village of Skerries just outside Dublin. All alone, I spent the time watching the other diners. At a table of four just in front of me, the young lady in the party spent the entire meal, and I mean the entire meal, on Facebook. She chatted a bit, responded to the conversation as it ebbed and flowed, but her right hand always held the phone, scrolling back and forth, seeing whatever pathetic updates and links have come through from a pile of people she barely knows. I suppose I'm hardly the ideal person to be criticising this ridiculous over-use of the internet, but that never stops me on other topics, so I got to wondering what it is like to be completely off piste? Is there even anywhere? I reckon most places I go, all of them now have wifi. It's the first thing people ask for, so it's the first thing that people install. It's a selling point. How many hotels have a crappy little telly and tea and coffee making facilities? They all do. My last hotel had a trouser press, how quaint! Nobody cares, they just want wifi. My hotel on the tip of Tobago had wifi, Kilbaha (population, 9) had wifi, various places in Morocco had wifi, the Shetland ferry in the middle of the North Sea has wifi,. Where can I go that doesn't have wifi? I want to see if I can survive more than a day.

Seeking Marbles

This week I am more convinced than ever that I am suffering from some kind of brain-wasting disease. My short term memory is becoming increasingly dodgy, specifically when it comes to putting things down and then not being able to find them again. This used to happen every now and again, but the frequency of late is becoming a worry. I’ve lost count of the number of things that I have put down somewhere and then been unable to find. Yesterday it was some new keys. I had them in my hand, put them somewhere, and then got distracted. A while later I remembered I had been holding some keys. Could I find them? Well yes, I could, but it took five minutes of exasperated searching, and cursing my stupidity that I managed to lose some keys that I’d only had for about three hours.

Yesterday it was my bins. Put them down somewhere, then needed them and had absolutely no recollection of where they were. None at all. I eventually traced them to the bedroom, but that involved checking each room in the house at least three times first, and going up and down the stairs several times, all the while wondering what on earth was wrong with me.

Some things just disappear completely. My phone charger that I picked up as I was going to take it to work. Popped it down somewhere between the study and my coat pocket, and it’s never been seen again. Physical objects do not just evaporate, although I do have three children....Similarly my spare phone battery – gone. To be fair that one may have dropped out of my pocket on the tube, but nonetheless it’s a bad sign. I never lose things. Ever. I’ve now got my phone and wallet attached to my belt via chains, ostensibly so as not to get pick-pocketed during the Olympics, but I think the more deep-seated reason is that I don’t trust myself to be able to hang on to them for much longer. I’ve always been one of those people that has distinct places for things, and if they’re not in that specific place then they count as lost. The classic example is of pockets – keys in the right, phone on the left. Always. If for some reason my keys end up in my left pocket I simply can’t find them, and go nuts looking for them round the house until I absent-mindedly pat my pockets...

I thought my recent memory issues were restricted to the placement of things, of stuff, as I can still just about remember most passwords and PINs, particularly those that I’ve had for a long time. A new password is typically forgotten by the following day, unless it’s just a repeat of an oft-used one. But that’s fine, there isn’t a human being alive that could possibly remember all the passwords needed these days, and so I view it as normal. But even some long-term bits of information appear to be going.  On the phone to the bank on Tuesday I managed my sort code, and then drew a complete blank on the account number and had to fish out my card to find it. Today I tried to call my parents from a landline, a number I have dialled for years and years, even if my mother does think I never call her. I managed the area code, and then was struck by self doubt as to the order of the remaining numbers. I had to look it up on my mobile. What on earth is happening?

I used to laugh it off, but I think I’m beginning to understand the frustration that my Grandma used to show at not being able to remember what she went upstairs for by the time she got there. And it’s definitely getting worse. I’ve misplaced so many things recently that today I even went as far as taking an online test for Early Onset Alzheimers, a series of routines that attempt to work out your cognitive powers. I passed it well above the supposed level for someone of my age, which is almost well under 40. This is good news, albeit via a fifteen minute computer test rather than an expert medical professional. So instead I’m wondering if it’s an alcohol problem?

I’ve not touched a drop all week, not even a sniff. This is highly unusual, but is explained by Mrs L being away, and I’ve not yet reached the stage where I drink by myself – that’s one short step away from living under a bridge. So maybe tonight I need to crack open a decent bottle of red and see if I can’t find that bloody phone charger.