Ablutions

Whenever I see anything vaguely like a bath in a field (although I think this is a more formally purposed watering hole) I think of my Dad.

Among many things he was a big quizzer and his annual highlight was the PTA treasure hunt that he devised for the school where he (and my Mum) taught, and where I studied (anything and everything that they didn't teach). This was a car-based treasure hunt which involved people following trails of clues around the narrow country lanes of our bit of North Wales, with periodic stopping off points where folk were confronted with obscure and cryptic clues that my Dad had devised, which usually involved finding and/or observing something in the near/far landscape and combining it with their wide knowledge of culture and natural history. It was a generally held view that if you didn't stuff your car with atlases, OS maps, English and Welsh dictionaries and so on, you didn't have a chance. A blessed pre-digital age.

For a few years he took me out with him on his scouting missions. The general pattern was to find a suitable parking spot near a muddy field gate and to rummage around for clue worthy material. This might be the local flora or an abandoned fertiliser bag. Perhaps one of the less obscure ones involved a bath in a middle of a field. I can't remember the exact clue formulation but the phrase "outdoor ablutions" was involved. And so a scene like this never fails to bring outdoor ablutions to mind, and with it memories like these. And we don't have to look far for the inspiration for my affection for arcane language and poking about in fields.

Today's blip is brought to you courtesy a big blue and white umbrella. I made the mistake of continuing with said umbrella down to the dam where Mr Swan made clear he really didn't want umbrellas anywhere near HIS dam.