Spring Greens

I haven't visited Landgoed Oostduin Arendsdorp, in the Benoordenhoud district of the city, since my sister and I got lost there a couple of years ago, looking for a park with lots of roses. Why there and why the roses? Well, my brother had gone for a wander alone when he visited the year before, and came across a massive, open park, filled with thousands upon thousands of rose bushes, and was, according to his photos, a sight to behold. He said it was east, so looking at Google maps we found a rosarium in the park at Clingendael, so that was where we headed one sunny Summer's day.  

We arrived at the Oostduin (East Dune) estate, and thinking it was actually the entrance to Clingendael, went in, got lost, eventually got out, found Clingendael a little further on, and its disappointingly tiny show of roses that did not deserve the Rosarium appellation, and made it home, thoroughly exhausted, and equally annoyed with our brother for supplying such atrocious directions.  

He meant North. It wasn't until I'd spent more months taking my constitutionals around the city, learning about the parks and pretty streets, that I finally came across Westbroek Park and it's ACRES of rose-beds. Yup. To the North.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I shall be partaking of a visit to the Japanese Garden at Clingendael (open only a few weeks of the year) for a birthday treat, so today I thought a little visit to its neighbour park might be a pleasant jaunt on this breezy day. I really didn't remember the park at all from my last foray into its grounds, and it was rather lovely to have the time to acquaint myself with it's pathways, waterways, and beautifully kept grounds. It looks like there was quite a show of bluebells earlier on, although most are past now, the rhododendrons are running late this Spring and are still in bud, but there was some wild garlic growing in the shade that was out and showing perfect form.  

This is a lovely park; well-kept grass almost to lawn standard, the archetypical Dutch brooks, and majestic old trees of many species; by far the most diverse of the parks and woods I've been in here - I can't wait to see what colours Autumn brings here. And by then I should know my way around!

Confused, Challenged And Confounded Am I

You go and rock your big arms in that cute off-the-shoulder 50's-style tea dress. Who the hell am I to judge? My upper arms are probably bigger than yours, and you should be encouraged, not mocked if you want to be cool and fresh on a Summer's day without feeling you should cover them up and therefore be too hot for the sake of those speshul snoweflaykes out there who feel like they're being insulted by having to look at, to be made aware of :: gasp :: fat arms.

But please don't judge me because I won't show my arms. I've never shown my arms. Ever. (Except when I went swimming, and the last time that happened was twenty-five years ago.) I hate my arms. I hate them even more now that I've lost enough weight to make my skin loose. I cover them up because I don't want to see them. I wear tops that skim my tummy, because I don't want to see it. I wear long skirts because I don't want to see my legs, especially now as one calf is still larger than the other, thanks to an unresolved haematoma from an accident years back.  

I am frequently at a loss at my attitude, because the very idea of Fat Activism seems such an amazing and empowering one. And the belief that Health At Any Size is possible is so very important for everyone to understand, not just the over- or under-weight. Yet I still look at my reflection in a mirror and think I am wrong. I see my weight blinking out at me from my scales, and think I am wrong. Even now, after losing so many pounds already, I think I should cover myself up and be as unobtrusive as possible, or other people will see me and think I am wrong, and tell me so, whether by laughing at, insulting, or being prejudiced against me. Or poking me in the stomach at Marks and Spenser's when I'm looking for sausages.

I touched on the burgeoning recognition of modern Fat Acceptance a few years ago, not truly understanding the concept, and not understanding how it might touch on my life, thinking that it was all a little too over-the-top, and just a little late to help me. I still think it is too late to help me in many ways. I find myself torn between wanting to love who I am and the mould I was poured in to, and longing to be a 'normal' size. I applaud the voluptuously-proportioned for wearing whatever makes them feel wonderful, and clap every time I see, for example, a repudiation of the 'Are You Beach Ready' campaigns showing the type of body advertisers think we should all be aspiring to have, but I won't wear the clothes I love the look of because I'm too embarrassed by my own shape to wear them.  

I feel like a traitor to my own cause. A hypocrite. Confused. Guilty. Jealous. Ugh. Should I be accepting myself as I am - overweight but healthy (because yes, I am both overweight and healthy, and I have worked damn hard to get to this point - at the last check my blood sugar level, cholesterol, and BP were all normal, and I have a strong heart and healthy lungs), especially as I have been stuck hovering around the a loss of a hundred pounds for the past six months? Is this my real me? Healthy, active, and obese? Am I wrong, deluding myself, to want to be a smaller size?

Because by wanting, yearning to be thinner, am I then just playing into the hands of a multi-million pound industry that works hard to make women feel insecure (and men too, who am I kidding - the pressures on guys to look a certain way is becoming just as ridiculous as it is for women) and therefore less worthy than they should because they're not a size two with collar bones you could cut yourself on? Am I letting myself be brain-washed by the continuing effects of a life-time of teasing and cat-calls?

We are all products of our childhood, upbringing, influences, loves, hates. If we're lucky, we can gain an understanding as to how the different experiences of our lives, both positive and negative, have affected us and made us who we are and how we react to things. But understanding why we are what we are, how we come to think our thoughts, feel our emotions is only a tiny part of being able to process them to create a more balanced whole, and I suspect very few people actually get to a place where they truly comprehend their entire being.  I'm certainly nowhere near.

I don't know. Am I wrong not to want to fight against the body oppressors of my life, but instead try to fit in? Am I dropping the baton of fat power by being proud of losing this weight? I love to support diversity in its myriad forms, yet I'm fighting tooth and nail to become one of the crowd, someone who wouldn't have felt alone at school, someone who wouldn't feel alone now.

In many ways wish I could take a step back and see this from further away. It would suggest then that I wasn't quite so embroiled in the emotions and experiences that make me so eager to conform. A little distance between myself and this confusion might give a better perspective and a clearer view of the whole, instead of feeling like I've backed myself up into a corner of self-loathing, with just my own fears and concerns in front of me.

I have no conclusion. I still need to process what it is exactly that I'm fighting for, and fighting against, because at the moment it seems like I'm for and against both myself, and the world.

And Like A Skylit Water Stood The Bluebells In The Azured Wood

(Title quote from In My Own Shire by A E Housman)

I have absolutely no qualms whatsoever in bombarding you with bluebells. Or at least bombarding you with pictures of bluebells, although I'd propose getting up close and personal with a few would do you the power of good, should your immune system not overload and cause you to explode into sneezes. My mother would hate to be here. In fact she'd probably not be able to see anything due to streaming eyes, so I wish bluebells on you only if they won't turn you in to a soggy sack of tears and snot. 

You're welcome.

But I'm not the only one who is fond of the bluebell...

...There is a silent eloquence
In every wild bluebell
That fills my softened heart with bliss
That words could never tell.
... from The Bluebell by Anne Brontë

This little demi-stanza seems so apt for these woods. Even though it's just next door to a busy highway, all it takes is five minutes walk inside the walls to lose the sounds of modern-day life, and get wrapped up in birdsong and leaves whispering in the breeze. I love it here! I loved it in the Winter, in its proud, stark beauty, I love it now with Spring treating it with colour and love, and I'm looking forward to see what a lush Summer, and golden Autumn will bring. 

Abandon Hoop, All Ye That Enter Here

"Nic has given herself more bruises, bumps and scrapes in one hour attempting to learn how to use a weighted hula hoop than in all 3 years of getting healthier-related hurts. (And yes, that includes the weighted wrist weights/punching one's face Wii-boxing debacle!)

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Hope so - Death By Hula Hoop would look really naff on a tombstone..."

Many years ago BE (before exercise), when my home town still had an Argos, (a UK catalogue retailer), I was convinced that buying a Davina McCall soft foam, jointed exercise hula hoop was the way forward in whittling down my waist. And it would have been, too, had I not fallen for the biggest con in the book: that one size fits all.

So. Not. True.  

I had no idea that a basic 'hoop diameter - hip girth = optimum rotation' formula existed. Well, it doesn't per se, as I just made that up, but there will be someone with a head for figures both mathematical and corporeal who can make sense of the fact that if you have a small hoop, and a large body, the chances of making more than one rotation before the thing falls to bruise your heels are small to none, and no amount of gyrating will keep it up around your hips, or waist, or wherever it's likely to fit. There's just not enough inner hoop space. Or whatever it's called.

I really must get round to learning the technical language of hooping.

So that blue and yellow Davina hoop spent the next mumble-mumble years separated into its six sections, trussed up in a cotton bag, no doubt admonishing me for my waste and neglect in its own broken-down, hoopy way before I finally came to terms with the truth; that going by my own weight/height/frame ratio I'd have to be about a size fourteen to really benefit from its use.

We took an emotional trip to the second-hand shop on the corner, hoop and I, but I know it's in a better place now, being loved by someone who won't ignore it and leave it languishing between empty suitcases and old decorating paraphernalia.

And in the spirit of of our modern throwaway society, I replaced something that still works, with something that is bigger and shinier.

Oh, okay, I'm being a little hard on myself here, but I have to admit feeling a little ashamed having spent money I didn't really have on something I barely used, then giving it away to a charity shop. But 'tis true, I did find a bigger and shinier model on eBay, a weighted hoop of a much larger diameter, complete with half rubber balls on the inside to, and I quote, "massage the waist".

I'm not usually one to fall for the massage your fat away rubbish, so I feel the need to point out that the reason I bought this hoop was purely a monetary one: it was cheap, and the postage was free! (I believe the phrase you're looking for begins with "You can take the girl out of Scotland...")

But bumps and scrapes? Oh yes, in painfully plentiful supply. I think the first ten minutes gave me a good sample of the many ways and means in which an innocent hoop can inflict injury. I won't give you a list, but let me say that the rest of this first learning experience was made with your new hooper standing in a circle of sofa cushions, tube bandages protecting her ankle bones, and all loose clothing thoroughly and closely bound.

And it still wasn't enough. The Hoop. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Please Wait - Bluebells Loading 80%

The custodians of the park weren't wrong when they told me, back in January, that it was known for its displays of snowdrops and bluebells. The snowdrops were beautiful at Winter's end, and the bluebells that are here to usher in the final burst of Spring are only a week or so away from full bloom. Their colour is already flooding the park, and the light there today was so soft and bright that I couldn't stop taking photos. Of course, I got home to find that my phone camera had done a good job, but I couldn't quite capture the ethereal nature of the sunbeams streaming through the branches.

One day, one day I'll have a photo-taking machine that is so fabulous that I wouldn't dare let it bear the brunt of my picture-taking woes! Until then, I'll try not to lament the abandoned long shots and close-ups, and instead do some research into ways in which I can make the most of what I have!

But when the subject is as wonderful as this, I think there's some truth in saying that no matter how amateur the picture-taker is, the beauty of the subject will find a way to shine through!

Blossom, And Tree-Stumps, And Bees! Oh My!

Beachy Clean

It was absolutely WILD outside! Blowing a gale, but there was nary a cloud in the sky, so I decided a little jaunt up to Scheveningen and a stomp along the beach was in order. It certainly blew away the cobwebs, and Spring-cleaned the old soul!

It has to be said that there is one down side to losing a hundred pounds: it's much harder to walk against (or even with) gale-force winds than it used to be... It is, however, much easier to run out of the way of a tricksy incoming tide! And there's not a trace left of any cobweb; they've well and truly been blown away!