thought.photos

occasional snapshots of thought

Posts by David Watson

The sun shines on the righteous

Posted on 28th May 2018

When I was at secondary school, back in the 1970’s, we were always seated in alphabetical order, A to Z, front of classroom to back. Being a “W”, I was always at the back of the class, seated between Adrian Wareham and Ian Wilkinson. There were no concessions to kids with poor vision in those days and I think the system was designed for the convenience of teachers when taking the register. In our second year, we were stationed about a mile from the main school building in what was referred to as “The Annex”. In fact, this building was an old Victorian school; brick-built with an enclosed playground. The Annex was a bit of a backwater, slightly more relaxed than the main school…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal

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Decompression in the Northern Fells

Posted on 24th April 2018

So, this is the start of another fell-walking season. It’s been a long, snowy, wet and cold winter and despite this being April, we haven’t seen that much of the sun yet. In fact, it’s only a few weeks ago that we had drifting snow blocking our local Hampshire lanes. The rate of change in the higher education sector continues apace. Notwithstanding the political barrage universities are experiencing; rising student expectations and greater demands from management mean that the life of an academic is becoming more and more pressured. Term two teaching is now over and I’m headed up to the Lakes for some well-earned decompression. I’m beginning to wonder whether fell-walking has become more of a coping mechanism than a hobby. At the…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal

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The Art of Getting Wet

Posted on 3rd March 2018

In the summer of 1936, a Chinese artist made a visit to the Lake District and recorded what he found there in prose, poetry and painting. Chiang Yee was an academic who, at the time of his visit to the Lakes, taught Chinese at the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. He had come to London in 1933 and studied for an MSc in Economics at the London School of Economics. His Lakeland journal was published by Country Life in 1937, entitled, The Silent Traveller, A Chinese Artist in Lakeland. It’s a short book, running to just 67 pages, but it is rather wonderful and contains twelve plates depicting Lakeland scenes painted in the Chinese style and a preface by Herbert Read. The…

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Categories: Books, Landscape

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Meadowsweet and Summer Weather

Posted on 18th August 2017

The summer break can’t come soon enough as each successive year in higher education becomes more pressured. Long gone are the days when some academics would disappear at the end of teaching and not return until the start on the new autumn term. For many of us, that’s a good thing but like all pendulums, this one has now swung too far in the other direction. It’s very difficult now to find the dedicated time we once had for curriculum development and the creation of new teaching/learning materials. Just at a time when our institutions are being judged on their teaching excellence and we are being challenged to be even more excellent teachers, our opportunities to make this actually happen are being reduced. But…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal, Teaching Practice

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An Election and the sublime North-West

Posted on 10th August 2017

When Theresa May called the snap election for June the 8th, she obviously didn’t realise that I had a trip to the Lakes booked on that day. Bookings for Youth Hostels need to be made well in advance in order to guarantee the best rooms and I’d made this June booking way back in December. This would be my first trip away from home during a general election. Naturally, I didn’t manage to get myself organised in time for a postal vote and so this would also be the first time I hadn’t voted in any election, general or otherwise. Major fail. On the other hand, I live in a very safe Tory seat, so my vote has never counted for anything. Despite this,…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal

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Scatterlings and Outliers

Posted on 9th July 2017

After a day of useful presentations and interesting conversations in Manchester, I returned to the Lakes with a new phone for the second leg of the May tour. The first leg had been pretty successful with 15 Wainwrights in 3 days, not a bad average. But I still hadn’t reached 100 and the weather forecast didn’t give much hope, describing conditions as “changeable”, which in Lake District speak means “raining most of the time with a few dry spells”. Under the circumstances it seemed like a good idea to plan for bagging a few outliers and low-hanging fruit. As it happened, the Friday didn’t look too bad, so I decided to take on another of Stuart Marshall’s walks in an attempt to finish off…

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Categories: Fell Walking

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Horseshoes and Rounds

Posted on 20th June 2017

For the past few years, a group of like-minded educators have gathered to discus the specific issues involved with the teaching of web design. The group was formed by my good friend Richard Eskins at Manchester Metropolitan University and this year’s Web Teaching Today event was hosted by Richard at MMU. I took the opportunity to bookend the get-together with two trips to the Lakes with the prospect of bagging my 100th Wainwright. My key task on this trip was to complete the Far Eastern Fells and I began the visit by tackling the most easterly (and lonely) of all the Wainwrights. I was following a walk designed by Stuart Marshall, from his book Walking the Wainwrights. The premise of this book is that…

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Categories: Fell Walking

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Peat Hags and Skylarks

Posted on 30th April 2017

This post could easily have been titled, “Picking up where I left off”, because on the morning of 10th April, I parked the car in exactly the same spot I’d parked on my last visit to the Lake District, back in October. St. Peter’s Church at Howtown is at the start of numerous walks in the north-eastern fells and I was very glad to be back there after a winter hiatus. I hadn’t planned a visit to the Lakes in April but it just so happened that I’d booked some leave over Easter and that coincided with my mum’s second knee replacement operation. So, I was in Southport to take her into hospital and to take her home later in the week. In between…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Life/Personal

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Keeping my hand in

Posted on 22nd January 2017

The last time I did any serious walking was back in October and the next planned visit to the Lakes is in May so I took the opportunity afforded by some good January weather to make a trip to the Brecon Beacons in order to keep myself in reasonable fell-walking condition (keeping my hand in). For whatever reason, I’d never visited the Brecon Beacons before despite them being just two and a half hours from home by car. I know some parts of Wales reasonably well; many childhood holidays were spent in North Wales and I spent 3 years at university in Mid Wales but other than a trip to the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival in 1992 and a short break on the Pembrokeshire…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Landscape

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Self analysis in the Central Fells

Posted on 22nd October 2016

Stephen Hough, the concert pianist, was this week’s castaway on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4. During the programme he said something that really resonated with me. I’m paraphrasing but he said something to the effect of “life is about negotiating that space between the extremes where everything matters and where nothing matters and happiness lies at the point of balance between the two”. I recognised this as an important illustration of the way my own mind works and have long been conscious of the fact that I have a tendency to an imbalance in favour of everything matters. In some respects, this is a good thing. I believe it makes me a better teacher, improving empathy and organisation. But in other ways…

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Categories: Fell Walking, Landscape, Life/Personal

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