Father’s Day

Last autumn my father sadly passed away, aged 91.  On this day in June, which celebrates fathers everywhere, my heart goes out to all those friends who have also lost parents, some very recently and some a very long time ago.

For Father’s Day, I’d like to share some of my memories of my fantastic father, around three of his boundless attributes: his creativity, his patience and his energy.

The creative father.

My father had an extraordinary flair for doodling. His line drawings comprised of exuberant swoops, elegant curves and poignant points… each element neatly resolved in the context of the others, to create a pleasingly tasteful, miniature work of art. I grew up surrounded by these transitory doodles, for they adorned scraps of paper, the margins of old magazines and the family’s legendary wipe-clean-formica kitchen table.

On occasion he would render unseen versions of his drawings into a third dimension, using pieces of balsa wood or lumps of chalk to create small organic sculptures. He was a master at creating small models, from sailing boats and strings of cars pulled by electric motors, to functional ranch houses for my toy cowboys, to elegant dolls houses for his grandchildren.

In my forties and being slightly too old for a dolls house, he very kindly made me a beautifully crafted, self supporting flight of stairs complete with a handrail, one tenth scale, which he thoughtfully named Aspirations to inspire his young son.

He also worked on a larger scale, cutting holes in floorboards and walls to make the family’s labyrinthine cellar and creating a cavernous wardrobe from scratch in the master bedroom.

His love of creative swoops and curves also clearly manifested itself in his amazing garden which, though based on the paths that my elder siblings beat through the originally-untamed-undergrowth when they were young, he carefully crafted so that edges and levels resolved into one another in a most harmonious way.

I’ve come to realise that gardens are transitory, dynamic entities. Like the gardeners who create them, they are ever-changing and they actually exist in all their different states at the very same time… at least in our minds… a kind of organic pastiche of all their various forms, overlaid on top of one another.

For example, as you look down through small shrubs and across the different lawns, you can see a beautiful 30 foot cherry tree at the bottom of the garden, grown from a cherry pip by my siblings… the cherries are mouthwatering, like the raspberries, blackcurrants and apples grown in that part of the garden.

I can picture the cherry tree clearly, though it was removed to make way for a greenhouse at least 20 years ago, a structure which itself is now completely hidden from view by mature trees and shrubs.

In the same way, I can still picture my father, back then when he used to work for a living, engrossed in crafting his garden at the weekends, making stuff in his subterranean workshop, or simply creating swirling doodles on the kitchen table. I’m certain that it is this creativity that has driven my own passion for abstract art and quirky homemade furniture.

The patient father.

Twenty-five years ago, when I bought my first house, my father eyed up the garden as a blank canvas on which to grow a masterpiece, but I was too young, naive and impatient to appreciate his vision. Instead I defended the two boring patches of grass and empty patio with a metaphorical pitchfork. He just smiled and acquiesced.

Many months later he offered me some pots for my patio (amongst which I remember there was a tall bamboo and a bright yellow Mexican orange), which brought a little colour & texture to my otherwise bland, adolescent garden. More than a year later again, he casually observed that the plants had started to outgrow their pots and wondered whether I might like to plant them in the garden… and put some new, smaller plants in the original Trojan horse pots.

Over the course of fifteen years and with ongoing paternal guidance, the area of grass in the back garden diminished in size by a half and disappeared entirely in the front.

Over the same period yet another budding Foster-gardener had been patiently tended and allowed to slowly develop towards maturity, like an animated, human version of the deliciously complex wine that he created over the years and that we still look forward to drinking, on special occasions.

Much later I came to realise that gardening is as much a manifestation of patience as it is about an understanding of botany. His boundless patience is obvious from the tranquility of his garden, the sheer scale of the plants, many of which were originally grown from seeds or cuttings, and the gardens of his children, each with their own inimitable style.

As I was writing this I was curious about the effect of just one of the many, many seeds that he patiently grew in my mind… I walked out into my garden to count eight Mexican orange plants of different sizes, some huge, and twenty-five pots or clumps of bamboo, all bar two of which have been grown from that original gift in 1991… which in turn had come from a vast bamboo clump, grown by him from a small cutting that he had been given, maybe twenty years before that.

The energetic father.

The garden at my parents house is 100 feet long, with a path that winds ever downward into the valley, like a temporal thread that sews its way through my mind and back to my earliest memories. Even the top of the garden is effectively two storeys below the sitting room and the bottom yet another two vertical storeys further down.

And yet, if my father spotted a cat in the garden, he would run from the sitting room, leap down two flights of stairs and chase the feline miscreant on down the path until it disappeared, chastened, into the undergrowth. He would then casually return to his initial elevated vantage point, having hardly broken a sweat, where he would resume drinking his tea and admiring the beautiful view.

This boundless energy was put to other uses too, such as endlessly returning my pedal car to the top of the garden so that I could delightedly whoop my way down again, or taking us on adventures to explore ancient castles, English counties and foreign countries.

No sedentary beach holidays for us… our holidays involved going places, camping out, climbing mountains, doing stuff. His energy was infectious and it flows on through his children, and clearly through his grandchildren too.

It is all too easy to be sad when someone who is really important to us passes away and this is clearly the case with my father… no more can we tap into his encyclopaedic memory of plants and gardening tips, no more will he be a conversational sparring partner, no more beaming blue-eyed smiles of delight when you turn up unannounced.

But sadness is not something that I associate with my father. Instead it is his quirky creativity, his boundless patience and his sheer energy that come to mind and live on through each of his children, in our slightly unconventional mindsets, and in the crazy ideas and endeavours that he helped us to seed.

And I like to think that he is now able to be everywhere at the same time, spending his days with each of us, and most especially when we’re outside, working in those transitory, dynamic, organic spaces that we call our gardens.

I for one am extremely grateful for having known this remarkable man and for having had such a unique and fantastic father.

To my Dad, Happy Father’s Day.

What’s 375 days between posts?

It’s been a while since I last shared my thoughts through the FosterRuns channel and a lot has happened in the intervening time.  Not only have I not been writing here, but I’ve also been running a lot less, though more about that in a separate post, or two.

One of the important lessons about strategy is that you need to choose what you are not going to do while you close the gap between yourself and your goals.  Allowing things to lapse of their own volition doesn’t count… it needs to be a more deliberate decision.

For example in 2009, at the point that I realised I had effectively lapsed in my mediocre playing of the guitar, I made a deliberate choice between giving up & gifting my guitars to a worthier home, or working hard over time to become a more accomplished guitar player.  Whilst hard work & at times frustrating, the choice of the latter has proved to be a genuine source of joy, especially on those days (like yesterday, almost eight years post-decision), when I feel that I’m actually progressing.  The key to making this decision work was about creating a sustainable habit… in this case a minimum of 5 minutes a day, 52 guitar lessons with the amazing Lucas Cook over the course of the first year (and countless pointers since), two new guitars along the way as rewards for my persistence etc.

I feel as if I am at one of those crossroads, where a choice needs to be taken, though in this case it’s a more complex recipe of choices.  The original aim of FosterRuns, back in August 2007, was to encourage me to run, whilst also encouraging me to write… exercise for the body connected to exercise for the mind in a virtuous circle.  The number of posts on the site now sits at 676, but take away the running and the impetus to write about it disappears.

I quickly figured this out with my earlier blogs, where the writing dried up for lack of a sustainable stimulus.  Even my random musings about work, which I really enjoyed to start with, petered out within five years.

It’s not that I no longer want to run… on the contrary, it’s really important to me to maintain that ability, especially as I love going out for those brilliant occasional runs with friends.  But I now allocate part of that finite ‘time’ resource to other things such as Yoga, which is a more all-encompassing workout.

It’s also not that I don’t want to write… the purpose of this journey was to give me the skills so that I could write.  You need (at the very least) to write, in order to be able to write.  My tally for this last year is a simple article (awaiting publication), one or two songs, quite a few workshops, numerous bespoke explanations for students or clients, a Fellowship application (gained 🙂 ) etc.  I had hoped to be able to say that I had finished my first book, but my internal critic still has a finger on the pause button… I am taking steps to circumvent this though!

As a prelude to repainting my house, I spent last Sunday washing the gutters and soffit boards… this post is similarly preparing the ground for a next step, in this case a decision about whether or not this blog forms part of my forward strategy.  Keep your eyes peeled for a few more posts in the near future before I finally take that decision. 🙂

LeadNow

LeadNow photo

I was on an interesting three day course this weekend so there is no running to report on.  The course leader, Todd Eden, was an excellent facilitator and just happened to have worked on one of the Britvic brands that I helped launch in the Raisley days.

The LeadNow course is designed for graduates both in this country and in the third world and despite teaching similar material myself on the Terbell postgrad programme, I found it fascinating and extremely thought-provoking!  Definitely a programme to recommend!

Many thanks indeed go to the LeadNow team and to my Brighton Business School student Giulia for inviting me along!

Research mode

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I’m in research mode today, reading reports on strategy & change management in large and unionised organisations to help inform a potential project.  My mind needs space and time to digest the information, so I thought I would try an experiment.

Last year I met the guys from Armadillo Merino, who shared the merits of the merino wonder-material… aside from its lightness, wicking ability and natural odour resistance, what really appealed to me was the idea that I could compost it when it was finally of no use to me as clothing.

As an experiment I bought three t-shirts from Armadillo, giving one to my brother Nigel (kayaker), one to Kurt (runner), the owner of the brilliant running shop Run, and kept the third for myself (lazy oaf?).

Since then, aside from wearing formal shirts for work, I have worn either the Armadillo t-shirt, or another similar merino one, pretty much non-stop.  It really is an amazing material!  Reports from Nigel at Christmas were that, despite already being a merino fan with a large number of garments, he too had worn it a lot because it was so lightweight and comfortable.

Sitting, working barefoot in the sun this morning I became aware that my t-shirt was just starting to pong… I hasten to draw your attention to the ‘starting to’ preface to ‘pong’, lest you think that I’m a slob.

The proto-pong was no real surprise as I had been wearing the shirt on and off since Sunday morning.  Hence, in a break between articles, I quickly hand-washed it, loosely wrung it out and, being in an experimental mood, put it back on. Wet.

It’s certainly more comfortable when it’s dry, but it was no so uncomfortable in its wet state that I felt the need to take it off.

After about 15 minutes the sun went in, which meant that the temperature dropped, my socks and shoes went back on and my fleece too.  I was aware that the shirt was wet, but it wasn’t cold and I was able to carry on working.

In all it took about 45 minutes for the body to become dry with the remnants taking another 15 minutes or so.  Not bad!

While Armadillo’s core target market is service personnel (army, police etc) I can’t help feeling that this is actually a backpackers dream garment too!  And if I still ran an agency I would definitely specify merino for riggers, event managers etc.  Hey, but that’s a whole different experiment!

Skating on thin ice

Last time I went skating was courtesy of Martin F in Sweden, where the ice was probably half a metre thick… except at the edge where we later went skinny dipping!

On Thursday evening my very good friend Jo invited me to a lovely event run by Venue Masters London which included skating on the newly opened Somerset House ice rink.

We had a totally glorious time figuring out how to skate again and racing round in circles!

Thank you to Jo and to the Venue Masters London team and other guests for making it such a memorable evening!

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Project Man strikes again

Another weekend passes with no run… there’s definitely a habit forming here!

Once again it was Project Man who got in the way!

Peace on the upper deck was shattered on Sunday morning when Project Man started sizing up the next stage in this autumn’s garden intervention.

I think it'll be something like this...Giving me accessFirst cutSecond cut

Having cut out a slot eight inches wide by about five feet long, I then cut down the middle of the membrane underneath and stapled it to the joist either side.  I then dug down one spade-depth into the compacted clay to create a deep trench.

Lower shuttering ready to go inUpper shuttering assembled in situ

Although the bamboo that is going to live in the slot is a clumper (as opposed to a runner like me!), I still ideally wanted it to remain in the chosen location so I created shutters for the side of the trough using the decking remnants taken up the other weekend.  Since one of the challenges is keeping pots on this HOT South-facing deck watered in the summer, the trough has no base… the bamboo should thus be able to find some moisture (although potentially a way out) and I shouldn’t need to worry about drainage.

I lined the sides of the trough with a membrane to reduce the likelihood of the bamboo finding an easy way through and filled the bottom with gravel.

Then came the physical bit: amongst the various pots of bamboo that I have grown was a large one that had been living uncomfortably set into the ground… the hard base of the pot meant that it dried out in summer just as quickly as the pots on the deck.

I should have split it last year, if not the year before, so the pot was jammed full of roots and it took me more than half an hour to split it into eight mini-clump that would serve my needs.

Split bamboo ready for insertion

Having figured out an order to the clumps, I then planted them into the trough using the compost harvested the other week… I really hope that there are no stinging nettles in this batch!

Bamboo plantedPebbles on

Experience with bamboo over the years has shown me that using pebbles as a top-dressing has two advantages.  It keeps the moisture in, which is really helpful in such a hot location, but it also serves to stop the bamboo forming into tight clumps, which keeps it visually attractive.

These pebbles are not as large as I would have ideally liked, but they are appropriate for the size of the slot… and were all that the garden centre had in stock in any case!

Clear of the tools and assorted paraphernalia (and absent one glove, which has either been planted or is now waiting under the deck for rescue), peace finally returned to the finished deck, allowing Project Man to relax for another week!

Maybe I’m better off running next weekend… at least that doesn’t (usually) take all day!

The finished article... with the panel from last week... and with the lights on

Exhausting non-run

As I sit here writing on a now wet and windy Sunday afternoon, I am pretty much totally exhausted… despite the fact that I didn’t muster a run!

Yesterday I cut and scarified the grass, cut the grass on the green and washed the cars.  With a little energy still left, I thought that I would progress the garden project that I started the other weekend.  The first step was to empty the compost heap… the contents fitted neatly into one large canvass garden rubbish collector.  Oh, and six large sacks that I could hardly move.

Kim then helped me to lift the structure out of the way and we dragged the (now giant) Acer into the gap that was left.  In between rain showers we lifted the structure into the space left by the Acer and I put the non-composted material back in it, leaving the six sacks of compost ready for a later part of the exercise.

Deck with prototype panel

Buoyed up by the speed with which we had completed this, I decided to make a start on the fence panel.  I removed the prototype panel (an off-cut of bamboo screen that I had rigged up between two posts) and jointed the uprights into the decking joists for extra strength.  I then decided how big the panel should be and laid it out flat on the deck to check where the centre rail needed to sit.  I drilled and screwed the corners and repeated the exercise to create a second identical frame.

Checking the frame for size

I laid bamboo screen across the bottom frame and stapled it into position, then put the second frame on top, drilling and screwing the two frames together.  The resultant panel was then lifted into position and bolted to the uprights.

The complete panelThe panel in place

By the time I had cleared my tools away I was fit for nothing at all!

This morning Kim cut shrubs back and generally tidied the area up whilst I tidied the area behind the panel and moved pots of bamboo around.  This part of the project is now complete but the exertion once again left me comatose for more than an hour this afternoon!

Trimming in progressFinit!Behind the scenes

It’s been a really fun weekend, but no chance for a run now… I’m far too exhausted!

Playing in the traffic

Those of you who know me know that I don’t answer my phone if I’m in the car, but there I was talking on my phone in the fast lane of the M25 on my way home from Cambridge on Friday evening with my client in the car.  Probably worse still, I was walking around in the traffic while I talked.

To be fair the traffic was all stationary, excepting the occasional motorcycle weaving through the parked cars and lorries, courtesy of some idiot who had decided to test the response time of the Police and Bomb Squad about a mile ahead of us.

Despite no bathroom facilities and no dinner, it was at least sunny and warm, whilst the occasional inexplicable 100m movement forwards kept us all hopeful and on our toes during the six and a half hour delay.  A typical British ‘Dunkirk spirit’ prevailed amongst the drivers around us and there was actually a real sense of camaraderie.

Crucially, my eventual nine and a half hour journey home was nowhere near as dire as it could have been thanks in large order to my client, Giles, being really good fun to be with.

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I spent the first part of Saturday writing a workshop and planning for next week and then Kim and I went off to a very special barbecue.  It was a celebration of 49-edness amongst my school friends… a series of 50th birthday parties starts in November.

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A lay-in and more planning this morning left me with no particular desire to run (especially after hearing that Pete ran sixty-odd miles on Thursday and Friday), so I’ve given myself a special dispensation… a weekend off!

May your week ahead be sunny and idiot-free!

A sad anniversary

I decided not to run this morning, choosing instead a reflective day cleaning the cars, mowing the grass, tidying the garage and so on.

Three years ago, on a Wednesday afternoon towards the end of April, one of my closest friends died in tragic circumstances.  He took his own life, leaving those around him to only guess at his motives.

Since then he’s never far from my mind and though my usual ritual is to toast him with a glass of beer whenever I’m cooking, at this time of year I feel closest to him by giving my car a decent Spring clean.

In fact, those of you who think that I keep my car in good condition (and many do) probably never saw his small collection… immaculate in every detail, polished to perfection, even his classic 20-something year old Jaguar.

Whether or not you knew him, I hope that you will forgive me for repeating here the eulogy that I spoke at his funeral.  It’s a way of keeping the happy memories alive.  A simple reminder to cherish friends and family and make the most of every moment, since life can be over all too soon.

Eulogy to a dear friend

As family and friends, colleagues and clients, I suspect that we have each seen different sides of Richard, and each carry a different version of this remarkable man around with us.  I sincerely hope that, if you knew him, you might feel inclined to compare and contrast your memories of him, in the same way that you might have swapped Top Trumps cards as children.

Having known him quite literally all of my life, I thought that you might like to hear some short tales from his more formative years.  You may like to close your eyes, in order to better imagine the Kodak coloured seventies… two young boys standing on the main road, before it was busy, naming the make and model of every car that came towards them.

Here was a man who shared his parents love for cats, showing me how to gently handle them from an early age.  He would teach the kittens to run at the back door, encouraging them to jump higher and higher up his Mum’s pristine net curtains.  As they got older, and heavier, he would then feign ignorance as to the circumstances surrounding the ripped curtains, demonstrating how mischievously irreverent he could be.

From an early age he was an amazing chess player, chosen to play for our primary school team.  In all the innumerable times he and I played chess as children, he beat me every time.  Except once.  We would sit at a child-sized table & chairs in the storeroom beneath his house.  Two inevitable moves from his one and only thrashing at my hands, he deftly upset the table with his knees, sending board and pieces flying and demonstrating both a highly competitive nature and a natural flair for thinking outside the box.

He seemed to gain a sense of the intrinsic value of money at a really early age, saving hard-earned cash from a part-time job to buy a really smart racing bike to replace his cherished Raleigh Chopper.  Even before this stage he showed how discerning he was in his choices and how very careful he was to retain the value in things by looking after them; keeping them spotlessly clean and well maintained, adding well considered accessories.  Here was a boy who knew exactly what he wanted, was prepared to work very hard to get it and would then work equally hard to keep it looking like new.

This process was repeated when he graduated to a moped, a treasured, unregulated Suzuki, and again when he purchased his gleaming Honda, some number of weeks ahead of his 17th birthday when he would be legally able to ride it.  His parents used regularly to go out dancing and he and I would sit in the garage, cleaning the bike and listening to its Yoshimura exhaust.  Knowing his son really well, his Dad would leave his car in the garage, blocking the exit, to ensure both son and bike stayed put while they were out.

To start with we merely pushed the car back a little to give us more space with the bike.  As time went by, we would push it back up the drive, with great effort, to allow a small gap to get the bike out so that he could ride it around the block: returning both it and the car before his parents got home.  His Dad came into the garage to chat to us one evening and commented that the bike was really hot.  Cool as a cucumber, he explained that we had just been running it in situ to listen to the pipe:  Keeping a straight face was a skill that would set him in good stead as a lawyer.

To save energy, one evening he started the car, reversing it up the drive and on to the road.  Waving for me to occupy the passenger seat and much to my consternation, he then drove off along the road towards a rise, at the top of which is a T-junction.  Unsure quite what to do at this point, he pumped the gas, swung the wheel left and, having cut across the pavement, braked to a sudden halt in the middle of the road. 

I should point out, that in these early years, there were very few cars in the street and no traffic, but my heart was beating like a steam train and we sat there, petrified, for some moments.  Then he returned, more slowly, back to the house and dropped me off, still shaking, before rolling into the garage, misjudging the brakes and slamming noisily into his treasured bike.  Fortunately no damage was done.

He famously passed his motorcycle test just 11 days after his 17th birthday and got his car licence after only a few short lessons.

He went to secondary school and whilst there, started saying some really strange things.  You may have heard him say any of the following, though they will have made very little sense: byemate, seeya, Boit denissan semiflourick galootube, dehennaway, incredible eh Adrian, bvort.  These were words and sounds that were common parlance to him and those closest to him.

I went to secondary school in Falmer and he would arrive to collect me on his bike, generally riding off with the flourish of a well-executed wheelie.  He did this on one notable occasion and caught me not holding on: I rolled back fully to kick him hard under the armpits, as I stared backwards and upside-down at the front wheel of a friend following us on his Yamaha. 

This aside, he was the smoothest of riders and later, the silky smoothest of drivers too, with cars and bikes remaining as a passion throughout his life.

These are personal memories, but I suspect that your own experiences might chime with some of mine:  His honour and sense of fair play, especially for the under-kitten; His mischievous dry humour and gentle irreverence; His highly competitive nature, sense of value, love of detail, care and nurture of those things and people most precious to him; His passionate love of his wife, cars, motorcycles.  And oh, how much he truly adored his children.

I have spent countless hours with him in various garages, and on driveways, surrounded by motorbikes & cars and I personally shall always feel closest to him there, amongst the buckets and sponges and polishing cloths.  That place that we shared so much time and ultimately, where he felt most comfortable.

I am truly honoured to have counted him amongst my very few close friends and I hope that his children will forever feel proud to have had such a truly remarkable man as their father.

OMG!

Back in the time of the prosperous, when Kim and I both had London jobs and London flats and escaped to Sussex at the weekends, we each had a personal trainer too.  In fact I would go to the gym in London Bridge at least twice or three times a week and it would be fair to say that I was pretty fit.

Then I had a fairly nasty head-on skiing accident, which resulted in a broken collar bone and a major break in the gym routine, followed by a halo jump in income, which as any parachuter knows means high altitude, low opening!  Both Kim and I chose to start afresh, sell out of London and follow our genuine long-term interests rather than to work back up to the top of an industry we no longer felt passion for.

Which is why, since (before) the outset of this blog in August 2007, you will have seen very little written in these pages about any exercise other than running.

So it came as a bit of a shock to the body to go to a Circuit Training class last night!  One hour with (bluddy) Jane at the Triangle Centre pushed a fine selection of muscle groups to their absolute limit…and clearly beyond since I actually HAD to stop to rest from time to time.

It was an excellent class, broken up into a series of simple paired exercises using no more than a floor mat and a skipping rope.  Oh, and the slowly increasing weight of our own limbs.

It was so excellent, in fact, that it’s fully booked for the foreseeable future!  RATS!

However, the Endorphin drug has been re-tasted and Kim is now on a mission to find us another local activity, with a similarly diverse and good natured group of people, that can leave us feeling similarly pumped-up on a more regular basis.

Watch this space, but in the meantime, OMG!, I feel GOOD!