Oh my Obelisk!

The first race of the year! It should have been easy, but that Christmas period spent under the weather lingered long in my leg muscles. Our lunch runs kept on resulting in very stiff calves, but there’s worse things in the world. So on a sunny Sunday morning the usual racing duo Hugh and me drove to Dawlish to participate in the “Oh my Obelisk!” race. I’d only travelled through Dawlish by train, and had been struck by how scenic it lies there on the seaside with golden beaches and pretty red sandstone. This would be my chance to see it from closer by! And from above, as well; the race was named after an obelisk some rich chap had had built on top of a 250 m hill further inland, as a beacon for ships. A cheap and dark sort of lighthouse, in a way. So the race would start where the sea battered the coastal defences, go uphill for roughly 5.5 miles, allow you an amazing view on where you came from, and then take you back 5.5 miles downhill.

Runners doing a warming up in the cold wind, and with the sea in the background

It was a beautiful winter day; we have been lucky with the weather at our races for months! So just before the start everybody was running around and jumping up and down and doing a little dance, as we were all dressed for a race, and not for standing still waiting for the signal to sound. The wind was cold! But as soon as we set off the cold was forgotten. After about a second the same held for Hugh; he disappeared behind the horizon after no time. But I ran comfortably; deep in thought I plodded along the country roads and dirt tracks. Time went by rather fast, and when at some point the path got very steep I figured we had approached the Obelisk. And Lo! We had. It was good to see it; now I only had to run back down again. Downhill isn’t my strongest point, though, so I was quite tired in the legs, but well, an 11 miler with quite some vertical distance to cover too after an illness, that can make you tired in the legs without having to be ashamed about it. Especially if you've spent half the previous day in a gin distillery...

Finally; the obelisk!

The view from near the obelisk; in the background the river Exe can be seen flowing into the sea

On the way down I exchanged some gossip with fellow runners on which races we had done, and which ones we recommended each other; a race can be quite a social occasion. But then Dawlish came into sight again. The finish! I was met by a slightly grumpy Hugh who claimed to have already been waiting for over 15 minutes (it would turn out to have been 11) and who wasn’t entirely satisfied with his performance. I was quite happy with mine, though I realised that probably spelled bad news for my ranking. If I’m happy I haven’t exhausted myself, and have therefore been outrun by many. And it would turn out to be true! I had dramatically broken the positive trend with my poor achievement at Drogo, and only in Cockington done slightly better than that, but in Torrington I had broken my own personal worst record, and on Monday I would find out I had managed that again. I came in 159th of 239; poo! But for me it matters more that I have fun than whether I rank high. And a comparison of my speed versus my ranking in various races suggests that races like this one just attract a tougher crowd… not everybody wants to run 5.5 mile uphill, and down through the mud, in mid-January!

My race to the bottom!

Birthday gin

What better to celebrate a birthday with than some education. Pete had his birthday, and chose to mark that event by imbibing some knowledge on Plymouth Gin. So on a crisp Saturday just after noon we gathered at the distillery for a tour.

The distillery. Source: Creative Commmons

We first got a historic overview of the beverage and the building it is produced in. The building started as a Dominican monastery in 1431; the distillery is still known as the Black Friars distillery. About a century later, Henry VIII made sure the building, as many of its kind, became available for other use; some rich merchant seems to have bought it, and converted it into a grand house. In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers might have spent their last night in the building before sailing across the Atlantic. In 1793 it became the Gin Distillery, and it still is up to this day.

Gin arrived in England in the 17th century together with William of Orange; he evidently left a lasting legacy. The actual Plymouth Gin was boosted once again by royal influence; somewhere in the 19th century the Royal Navy decided to use the beverage as its default officer’s drink on board of war ships. And recently, the whole brand was bought by the Swedish state alcohol monopolist V&S, which then in turn was bought by Pernod Ricard. This allows the distillery to use the global distribution network of this quite sizeable company, but Plymouth Gin is a product with Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), so it can’t be produced outside the (very limited) demarcations of the ancient town, and within these limits it’s hard to get planning permission for an annex meant for fondling large amounts of flammable liquid. Plymouth Gin is therefore likely to forever stay a small brand.

Inside the distillery itself one is not allowed to take pictures, but from the hallway an attempt can be made

After the history we got a view of the process. We were lead into the room where the actual distilling takes place; the process has stayed essentially unaltered over the centuries. The kettle used has been in place since 1855, if I remember correctly. And thanks to the soft Dartmoor water there has been no build-up of lime scale in it, not even over all that time. And it seems the first and last gin of every batch produced (they distill from 6.00 to ~14.30) is of inferior quality; the line between inferior and superior is drawn based on the nose of the distiller alone. How nicely old-fashioned! The inferior product is sold on to the industry. The waste (all that gives the gin its flavour: juniper berries, lemon and orange peel, cardamom, coriander seeds, and orris root, though the latter is more a fixative than a flavouring) is sold on as biofuel. The superior gin ends up being bottled. And enjoyed by the likes of me.

We got to fondle all ingredients, and got a taste of (diluted) gin; I was most happy with that! Just add water; everything else is pollution. But I seem to be the only one; no Brit will drink his gin without at least tonic. So as far as I was concerned we had done the gin tasting there and then. We even got a tiny, tiny glass of Sloe Gin.

After that cascade of knowledge (and straight gin) were we sent into the distillery pub for our free beverage. Another one? Just leave me in the tasting room with all these unappreciated glasses of straight gin… but it doesn’t work that way. Pete, Sabrina and Hugh went for the standard G&T, while I just had my complimentary gin straight. Why not drink buckets of gin before 2PM? It’s Pete’s birthday, after all!

Don't take your car caving

Internet knows much, but not all. It seems that the only fatal caving accident in the Southwest in the last 10 years involved a chap lowering himself into a mine shaft. He was a responsible guy; he was aware of the potential dangers of bad air in such spaces, so he had brought a gas meter. If such a device detects undesirably low levels of oxygen, or high levels of detrimental gases such as carbon monoxide, it kicks up quite a racket with beeping and ominously flashing lights.

It seems that this chap had lowered himself a bit too fast - between the moment of the alarm going off and the moment he had stopped his descent he had already reached the bad air with his head. And he did try to turn around on the rope, and climb out of it, but a change-over is a bit fidgety, and he didn't make it. Most sad.

I can't find an account of this accident anywhere. My knowledge of it may be flawed. But it does illustrate a point: bad air does occur underground, and one should be careful with it. The cave rescue team has a few gas meters, and we should know how they work. We had two new ones, and we used part of a Thursday training evening to practice with them.

The last time we practiced with them someone held one near the exhaust of Rick’s Land Rover. Rick then started the engine. Without any delay the alarm went off. This time I paid a bit more attention to why exactly; the highest reading I saw was 421 ppm CO… for reference: a USA working place can have 50 ppm max. So don’t bring your car down a cave. It’s not good for you.

One of our rescuers smokes. He put his own breath to the test; he took a deep nicotine breath, and took his time breathing out onto the gas meter. Yes the alarm did go off. It seemed to be worse than Rick’s car… some people pay money for strange sensations.

Next week we’ll bring one down the next trip venue. It’s only a small adit, and if we are with enough people we may exhaust the oxygen in there. We will be able to monitor that most precisely! And whether I got the story of the unlucky guy precisely right or not; the story serves its purpose on reminding one a gas meter is only of use when used in the proper way…

Continued reading

While I was ill I read several books. And that kicked my reading hunger into overdrive, and in the days I was fit enough to work but not fit enough to do things such as run or go caving I just kept reading. And even after I had recovered completely I kept reading.

I had a non-fiction book on my to do list, but still being a bit fragile I decided to not strain myself too much, and keep on the fiction tour for now. I started out with a classic I had never come round to: Franz Kafka’s “the Trial”. And as I was still trying to make space in my cupboards I also read two books I just happened to have for no apparent reason. I wanted to find out if they were worthy of a place in my cupboard. Actually, I tried three; one ended up on the “to be discarded” pile after only two pages. The other ones got approval. The one that didn’t make it was “Palace” by Claude Simon, and the more appreciated ones were “drie Rode Rozen” by Abel Herzberg, and “de Gele Regen” by Julio Llamazares.

The book by Herzberg (“three red roses”) deals with a Holocaust survivor faced with the question why God allowed this to happen. He finds a metaphoric ally in Job, though this does not help him understand; can God be excused for putting Job through all that for what looks like simply a bet? Just because you’re God, can you just kill someone’s family in a whim? Can you just allow 6 million individuals from some population group be killed off as pests? Of course there are no answers.

“De Gele regen” (the yellow rain) deals with a small village in the Spanish Pyrenees. When population declines and urbanisation beckons it slowly gets abandoned. The story is told by the old man who is the last inhabitant. He sees everybody else leave, but can’t cope with leaving this house, this village, this effort made by generations of his ancestors, which he would have liked to see pass into the hands of the generation after him. A last act of defiance before he too dies and nature takes the village back.

The Trial is the only book I figure everyone reading this blog has heard of. Often read it, I presume. I only knew beforehand it dealt with a bloke who’s arrested without him knowing why, and then the endless quest for any progress in that situation.

Franz Kafka

When I started I was surprised at how surreal it all is. It reminded me of “the Unconsoled” by Ishiguro. And when you progress through the book you start to get an idea of what this trial stands for. Along the line you also start to wonder if you get a glimpse of why Kafka himself struggled so much with life. Joseph K. seems to stand all alone in the world, and hardly sees any role other than a strictly utilitarian one for his fellow men. And to the modern eye, he is quite a snooty upper class misogynistic twat. I’m glad I finally got to read it; it was well worth it! Food for thought.

And now onwards, with Hamlet…

Crumbly granite

Look at a map or satellite image of the Southwest of England, and one of the first things that catches the eye are the big granite intrusions. And on a map they may appear as large empty areas, such as Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor, but they are that because in essence they are granite intrusions. The energy that came along with these enormous blobs of molten rocks is a large part of the reason there are so many mineable deposits in the area. The southwest is really dominated by geology!

The geological map of the Southwest

Granite is an intrusive, or plutonic rock; it is formed when molten rock buoys to near the surface, and then cools down and becomes solid. That takes a while; that's why granite tends to have had time to form big crystals. Quite unlike basalts, for instance, which are volcanic rocks, and reach the surface in molten form and solidify there. That goes much faster, and hence the completely different, and much more homogenous, look.

Granite. Source: Creative Commons

As granite is formed below the surface, it tends to not be very chemically stable at the surface. And on the time scales of buildings that is not much of an issue, but on the time scale of, say, Dartmoor, it is. These granites have been lying there for roughly 300 million years, and time has not passed by unnoticed. Large parts of the granite have weathered into china clay. Many clay pits still litter the countryside.

One of the big China Clay pits in the Southwest. Notice the infrastructure-poor mass of Dartmoor on top, and the arable lands below, and the clay pit in between. It lies on the contact of the granite and the surrounding rock, where weathering would be most severe.

There are mines, too, in the granite. And where you dig a tunnel into the granite you accelerate the weathering process. So a mine in granite may become crumbly, and prone to collapse.

There is something to say for that these mines are to be avoided. Dying in a collapsing mine does nothing for the wellbeing of one’s loved ones. Doesn’t help the project one works in, either. But then again; such a mine will not exist for much longer. If one has the chance to see one that opportunity must surely be seized! The chances of anything going wrong while someone is inside is slim.

Pics by John

What is wise? Well. The answer is easy. But what does one do? I went in. It was a beautiful place. We might want to go back to explore the bit we couldn’t do this time, but one day within our lifetime we'll have to leave it to its inevitable demise.

Fashion colours of 2012

This is my caving suit. It's green, with yellow sleeves and black cuffs. Beautiful, isn't it?

Caving, a pensioners' sport

Finally! After almost three weeks of being all dainty and intellectual I did something silly and muddy again. It seemed to take half an hour for the water to not be black anymore after having percolated through my hair when I had a shower afterwards! And I was bruised and slightly stiff in the muscles. A good day.

Baker's entrance chamber. Pic by John

“We’re here to see that caving can be still done at 60!” And we knew that. One of those present at the underground birthday party was 64 himself. And we have the tireless Hugh and Trish. And the cave rescue team has the unsurpassable Mike, who’s in his seventies. But still, one of our more active cavers, Bernard, turning 60 was a splendid reason for a party. Not just any party; a party mainly consisting of a veritable caving spree down Baker’s pit.

Birthday boy Bernard in the archaeological part of Baker's

We went in with a rather large group. It didn’t take long for several sub-groups to form; some more keen on trying climbs and squeezes, those in it for a relaxing ramble, those focussing on taking pictures... Baker’s caters for all!

I am starting to get rather familiar with Baker’s, but in a way that makes it even better. I liked going up the upper series again; I’d only been there once before, and it stays challenging. And in the latter part of the trip I saw places I hadn’t been before. And some of that had rather nice formations.

By the time we came out hours had passed. We were starving! But luckily, we were at a birthday party, and there was food galore. And drinks! It was quite funny to see our table, entirely populated by those having been underground, being swiped clean of any food, while folks at a neighbouring table couldn’t even half finish theirs. They had stayed at the surface...

About half of the birthday desserts! Notice the little train on the white cake...

After dinner it was time for Bernard to blow out the candles on the train-festooned cake. And give his small speech. And for any lingering appetite to be taken care of by the four cakes. And then some of the workaholics started to look at their watches. Time to go home; the next day would be another working day! But then we were called to another room by Bernard’s daughters. They had something else for us in mind: birthday games... I hadn’t participated in the kind since primary school, and that was for a reason. We all participated in the first one, but after that the first people started to make their moves. In spite of the games? Hastened by them? Who knows. Either way; I hope the die-hards partied until deep in the night. And we all look forward to Bernard’s 70th birthday; the suggested venue is Afton!