Issue #73 The Misc Adventures Digest
Weather, elections, walking and weeping.
It is wet, windy and wild as I write - just another typical summer’s day in 2024. We are doing our best to snatch the good days as they arrive, fleeting windows of opportunity, reminders of why we look forward to longer brighter days so much. They are gone before we have time to soak them in fully - sometimes we miss them altogether as we struggle to conquer tasks at home. Each good weather day is bookended by several bad ones either side, such is the pattern it would seem.
Sometimes we get lucky. It was Emma’s birthday last week - the forecasted bad weather never materialised so we swam and walked by rivers, hunted for wildflowers and sat outside, basking in a birthday gift from the universe.
It has been a turbulent few weeks.
An election result allows us to feel slightly more optimistic at the state of the country we are bound to, but it is hard to feel too hopeful for change that affects us personally - what can people like us expect? No matter the government, poor people will always be poor. There is no mechanism to enable those who have slipped below a certain threshold to claw themselves out of the hole they are in. It is a sad fact of our society that without intergenerational wealth, you are unlikely to achieve any traditional measure of success, forever stuck in a doom loop of debt with opportunities to improve yourself always just out of reach.
We talked about the election with Benji and he asked which party was the kindest because that was who he would vote for and I think that’s something we should really be asking ourselves.
I was disappointed (but not surprised) by the lack of airtime given to policies regarding Nature and environment in the run up to the election - the health of natural systems always treated as a ‘nice to have’ rather than the very thing we depend on for our survival as a species. I wonder if one day we will collectively wake up to Nature being the main event rather than a mere sideshow to everything else…
Still, there is chance that generally things might feel slightly less shit, and I guess that’s something to be thankful for.
This weekend, despite a dodgy weather forecast we headed to Borrowdale and back to one of the very first hikes we did with Benji just after he was born, Walla Crag. It was our first family holiday, and despite it being a resounding disaster thanks to our car breaking down twice and having to get it towed home to Sussex, I always look back on it fondly. I remember the feeling of pride as I marched up into the hills with our new born baby strapped to my chest - this is what we had said we would do, that having a baby would be a catalyst for living adventurously rather than allowing ourselves to be restricted and stifled. This is how we wanted it to be for us, and for him.
Back in Borrowdale this weekend, the hike to the summit was surprisingly easy - it had felt so wild back then, challenging even. The added significance and responsibility of carrying a newborn had elevated the experience beyond the sum of its parts.
Benji easily made it to the summit, his 26th Wainwright. I wanted the hike to feel special, a marker of how far he has come as a little adventurer in his own right. I should have learned by now that with kids involved, any attempt at manufacturing meaningful moments is futile; their sense of occasion is completely lacking. Instead we bickered and argued about something or other and stomped back down in bad moods.
I thought back to those first few months of parenting, full of hope and promise, which in hindsight were really so blissfully easy compared to the emotionally fraught challenge of guiding a young boy through the sometimes painful process of growing up. It is hard to watch as he battles with competing interests and conflicting emotions, he asks questions I do not have the answers to and I am forced to think about things I am not ready to think about. There are moments of joy too, but even those are tinged with melancholy, too much to bear. When I was young I had assumed that the grown ups around me knew what they were doing, but now I realise they were probably all just making it up just as I am now. This weekend it all gets too much and I weep at the passing of time and the slipping away of precious moments I have failed to grasp.
In other news we are in deep dealing with vehicle issues that are taking up far too much energy. You may remember we reluctantly sold our beloved Mitsubishi L300 Starwagon a few months ago? We should have listened to our hearts. We sold Starwagon for a good price and endeavoured to buy something newer and more economical to run. Something less aesthetically pleasing, sensible even. And so we did and are sorely regretting our decision - our new van has been a disaster since day one. Instead of building out a cosy camper conversion, I have been solving electrical faults, fixing running issues and finding oil leaks. Now both the power steering pump and rack have failed which is a job beyond which I can tackle at home.
What should we do? Sell the van at a loss and start again? Or sell things we own to fund getting the work done? This problem hurts, not only because we can’t afford either option, but also because we were knowingly sold a lemon and I can’t understand how someone could do that.
Perhaps there is a lesson here about staying true to who you are, which is lesson I think we already learned a long time ago but sometimes forget to implement.
It is not all bad - I have been creating a new online home for my woodworking projects here in the Lake District and am working hard on pulling in commissions and making connections. I’m happy with how it all looks. You can check it out here, if you like:
https://www.andrewgroves.co.uk
Well, that’s all for this week - I feel like I’m slipping on my commitment to myself to write every week which I’m not overly happy about. I’m not sure whether to try harder or to just accept that that’s how it is and take a more flexible approach and write when I feel like it. Time will tell.
We hope the sun makes an appearance wherever you are this weekend.
Warm wishes,
Andrew, Emma and Benji x
This is so tough to read because I feel it myself. Trying to live a better life than the false facade of the modern world, but the result, practically speaking, is financial struggle and hardship. I don't have any answers, but I'm hoping for better times for you!
A beautiful and emotional read. The problems of now will become the problems of past. While we all fail to implement some of the lessons we know full well from time to time, I'm sure you'll also make many strong decisions moving forward. And, as you rightly say, time will tell.