Rollercoaster
"It's like being at the start of a rollercoaster ride. We're just inching our way up that first steep incline and then once we go over the top we have to cling on and not look down. I'm grinning stupidly and thinking to myself "this is interesting" because I haven't got a clue what's happening, while everyone else looks terrified."
Lucy's analogy summed it up pretty well I thought. Two months ago, just after the last ride was completed she joined the college as my replacement, full of enthusiasm and new energy. Everywhere around the place you can can almost taste the tension as you look into peoples' eyes at the dawn of a new academic year. People around us who've been promoted recently look especially nervous - "should I have kept my head below the parapet?" you can almost hear them asking themselves. I see colleagues I've known for so many years, their faces full of resignation in the knowledge that the brief summer respite has passed, and many of us non-teaching staff have barely had a holiday at all. I want to hug them all and tell them they'll survive (although there's a pandemic on), but I know what they're all about to endure and how tired they'll be by Christmas, which will arrive before they blink. Our college prides itself on being graded as outstanding by Her Majesty's government inspectors each time they visit, but it doesn't half depend upon every inch of good intentions from its seemingly inextinguishable workforce; all of them insanely jealous of their friends beyond the walls who can take quiet, budget friendly September holidays when the crowds have gone and the kids are back at school. Plenty of them have ridden the rollercoaster more times than me - how they keep on going with such apparent cheer and vigour I've really no idea.
We've scarcely batted an eyelid since the last time we were all up here twelve months ago, buckled into those inescapable cars with sweaty hands over screwed up eyes, not daring to look at the view in front of us. For me I knew it was the last ride, but it didn't make it any less bewildering. The last few months have been especially tiring, so much so that I began to think I was unwell by the end of the summer term. In the evenings, plagued by fearsome headaches I could barely stay awake and the notion of going out with the camera was unthinkable. I even went to the doctor, but it seems I've become a hypochondriac because everything was "normal" as the doctors like to describe one's health. A week after the end of term we were walking here in the Brecon Beacons of South Wales, the first time we'd been away for almost a year. It was only later when it occured to me that I felt absolutely fine. Better than fine after more than thirty miles of walking in fresh mountainside air. The last rollercoaster ride had obviously taken its toll, but with a little bit of self administered social prescription, the damage was easily repaired. Maybe that's what happens when you know you've almost made it to the end. You're just holding on and thinking about the quiet journey home.
On Tuesday, our much loved long serving colleague Ruth climbed out of the rollercoaster and disappeared off into a happy retirement. It was an emotional farewell - we were together for twenty-one rollercoaster rides, longer than any other working relationship in my life. So far she's enjoying late mornings and coffee she tells us. In three short weeks from now she'll be waiting for me at the opposite end of the escape tunnel holding a set of plain clothes and false identity papers as I make the final bid for freedom - maybe a discreet wig as well. By that stage the rollercoaster will be halfway down the first hair raising descent, somewhere between Fan y Big and Cribyn in the landscape before you, with the monstrous slope to the summit of Pen y Fan lying further along the ride.
I think this will be the final shot I post from that ridge walk. There are other stories to tell, and I know some of you who've been keeping up can barely wait to hear the tale of the naked man who ruined my sister's attempts at wild swimming later in the week. Since this adventure Ali and I spent a couple of nights in the wilds of Dartmoor in the van - there are pictures to come from there as well.
I hope you're all enjoying the beginning of the weekend and the brief interruption of your own rollercoaster rides. Keep holding on and don't look down - you'll be just fine.
Rollercoaster
"It's like being at the start of a rollercoaster ride. We're just inching our way up that first steep incline and then once we go over the top we have to cling on and not look down. I'm grinning stupidly and thinking to myself "this is interesting" because I haven't got a clue what's happening, while everyone else looks terrified."
Lucy's analogy summed it up pretty well I thought. Two months ago, just after the last ride was completed she joined the college as my replacement, full of enthusiasm and new energy. Everywhere around the place you can can almost taste the tension as you look into peoples' eyes at the dawn of a new academic year. People around us who've been promoted recently look especially nervous - "should I have kept my head below the parapet?" you can almost hear them asking themselves. I see colleagues I've known for so many years, their faces full of resignation in the knowledge that the brief summer respite has passed, and many of us non-teaching staff have barely had a holiday at all. I want to hug them all and tell them they'll survive (although there's a pandemic on), but I know what they're all about to endure and how tired they'll be by Christmas, which will arrive before they blink. Our college prides itself on being graded as outstanding by Her Majesty's government inspectors each time they visit, but it doesn't half depend upon every inch of good intentions from its seemingly inextinguishable workforce; all of them insanely jealous of their friends beyond the walls who can take quiet, budget friendly September holidays when the crowds have gone and the kids are back at school. Plenty of them have ridden the rollercoaster more times than me - how they keep on going with such apparent cheer and vigour I've really no idea.
We've scarcely batted an eyelid since the last time we were all up here twelve months ago, buckled into those inescapable cars with sweaty hands over screwed up eyes, not daring to look at the view in front of us. For me I knew it was the last ride, but it didn't make it any less bewildering. The last few months have been especially tiring, so much so that I began to think I was unwell by the end of the summer term. In the evenings, plagued by fearsome headaches I could barely stay awake and the notion of going out with the camera was unthinkable. I even went to the doctor, but it seems I've become a hypochondriac because everything was "normal" as the doctors like to describe one's health. A week after the end of term we were walking here in the Brecon Beacons of South Wales, the first time we'd been away for almost a year. It was only later when it occured to me that I felt absolutely fine. Better than fine after more than thirty miles of walking in fresh mountainside air. The last rollercoaster ride had obviously taken its toll, but with a little bit of self administered social prescription, the damage was easily repaired. Maybe that's what happens when you know you've almost made it to the end. You're just holding on and thinking about the quiet journey home.
On Tuesday, our much loved long serving colleague Ruth climbed out of the rollercoaster and disappeared off into a happy retirement. It was an emotional farewell - we were together for twenty-one rollercoaster rides, longer than any other working relationship in my life. So far she's enjoying late mornings and coffee she tells us. In three short weeks from now she'll be waiting for me at the opposite end of the escape tunnel holding a set of plain clothes and false identity papers as I make the final bid for freedom - maybe a discreet wig as well. By that stage the rollercoaster will be halfway down the first hair raising descent, somewhere between Fan y Big and Cribyn in the landscape before you, with the monstrous slope to the summit of Pen y Fan lying further along the ride.
I think this will be the final shot I post from that ridge walk. There are other stories to tell, and I know some of you who've been keeping up can barely wait to hear the tale of the naked man who ruined my sister's attempts at wild swimming later in the week. Since this adventure Ali and I spent a couple of nights in the wilds of Dartmoor in the van - there are pictures to come from there as well.
I hope you're all enjoying the beginning of the weekend and the brief interruption of your own rollercoaster rides. Keep holding on and don't look down - you'll be just fine.