Epping Forest

I live pretty close to the Epping Forest in Essex and the changing of the seasons in the forest, particularly at year-end when nature is at its mellowest, has always been a fascinating phenomenon to me. My favourite season of the year happens to be the autumn. The tranquillity of autumn with its hint of the approaching bleakness of winter cannot be matched, for somebody of my disposition, by the vigour and exuberance of spring, - even with its promise of the glories of summer yet to come. I enjoy the gentler pace of life that is engendered by the rapidly shortening days of autumn and I warm to the thrill and anticipation of Christmas that the onset of autumn brings. But above all autumn enchants me with its brilliant display of colours as the trees prepare to shed their leaves. I can think of nothing more enchanting than a gentle drive along the Epping Road in early November soaking in the grandeur of trees bedecked in the hues of autumn. The red and gold of autumn leaves never fails to fascinate me even though I scarcely have the artistic sensibilities that one surely needs to appreciate such splendour of nature. And nature at its most splendid had been just as evident this last autumn in the Epping Forest as ever. However, last autumn, as though in an attempt to entice me away from my beloved Epping Forest, circumstances combined to present to me an altogether different autumnal scene which appeared to rival, if not surpass, that of the Epping Forest. I was in Canada last October and saw for the first time, in several years, the amazing variety of colours that autumn brings to the forests of North America. Here the trees are adorned not simply with reds and golds but also with shades of purple, orange and blue, - indeed all the colours, virtually, of the rainbow except, of course, green, although that is still to be seen on the evergreens. Faced with this extravaganza of myriad colours, I had to concede, much to my chagrin, that the Epping Forest had a worthy rival after all in the Canadian forests. Driving at autumn time along Canadian freeways, which seemed unfailingly to be flanked by forests, it was impossible not to be awestruck by the blaze of colours that stretched for miles on either side. Nevertheless, as someone whose aesthetic sense is lamentably shallow, the breathtaking beauty of the Canadian forests only served to remind me absurdly of the title of the famous song from the musical “West Side Story”, “Everything big in America”, and it occurred to me that like most things in North America, nature’s display of autumn beauty was on a much grander scale there than anywhere in the Epping Forest. Not that it in any way diminished my affection for the Epping Forest. The grandeur of the Canadian forests may have turned my head momentarily but I was always going to return to the charms of the Epping Forest rather like a man who returns ultimately to his first love. For the Epping Forest doesn’t just enchant in the autumn, in the winter too it has an allure that is irresistible. I took the opportunity to drive through the forest this winter during a particularly cold spell, - not long after a heavy fall of snow. As often happens in the days that follow a heavy snowfall, the landscape was still covered in snow but the road had mercifully been cleared so that I wasn’t beset by my usual anxiety about driving on snow-covered roads. On either side of the road, the trees, which had long since lost their red and gold of autumn and had stood bare in early winter, were now a frosty white, - their snow-covered branches strangely florescent in the gloom of mid-winter. Further into the forest, the forest floor that had once been strewn with the leaves of autumn was now resplendent in a blanket of snow. Under a grey winter sky, the snow on the ground had acquired its characteristic strip-light effect which in urban streets lights up the faces of passers-by and which here in the emptiness of the wild illuminated the forest in a cold white light. In the subdued light of a winter afternoon, the forest seemed to exude, to a town person such as myself at any rate, an inexplicable air of almost transcendental calm and quietude. Those attuned to the ways of nature might attribute it simply to the oft-talked-about winter absence of birdsong. Others with a more poetic imagination might ascribe it to winter’s eternal magic. I am scarcely poetic and seldom rise above the mundane. But that afternoon, even I recognised something in the beauty of the forest’s winter scene that was wondrous and quite sublime.

Halloween

Halloween up until recently had meant very little to me other than as a day in the calendar that had some strangely rustic associations with the world of witches, warlocks and ghouls. Until recently also, it was not a day that was marked by the observance of any particular custom. Children especially were as unaware of the passing of Halloween as the Ides of March. The 31st of October, in those days of pre-Halloween-bliss, was not a day that children awaited with anticipation, thrilling at the prospect of dressing up in ever more expensive witch-costumes and frightening the neighbours into handing over money and sweets. The thought of wreaking such havoc at Halloween scarcely stirred the childish imagination in those days and peace and normalcy prevailed at Halloween just as it did over Christmas. Little did any of my generation then suspect that these happy times would soon be a thing of the past. It is not possible to-day to say when exactly it was that the idyll of Halloween-obliviousness ended and the purgatory of Halloween “trick or treat” began. But “trick or treat” has now found a firm foothold amongst the popular customs that children in England follow; and the children’s adoption of this American custom has had some serious repercussions for the adult population as well. For adults, “All Hallows Eve” is no longer the inconsequential day in the church calendar that could easily be ignored. It has become a day that must be noted and carefully prepared for, - to ensure survival at the end of a demanding evening of “trick or treat”. Preparation for the rigours of modern Halloween can be a daunting task but the elderly like myself have found that they can do worse than to begin by acquiring a plentiful supply of sweets and chocolates in readiness for the evening’s trials. Also to be advised is the precautionary step of ensuring that a sufficient amount of small change is to hand to dispense to groups of importunate children arriving at the doorstep. Following these two simple guidelines has served me well over the past few Halloweens. I have always managed to send away “trick or treat” children knocking on my door with very little to complain about and in the process have given myself what I consider to be a well-deserved feeling of smug satisfaction at having coped adequately with a formidable challenge. However, life is always full of surprises and even great wisdom acquired through long experience is not immune to being frustrated by the turn of events, - as I found out for myself at this year’s Halloween. This year, to my great disappointment, all my diligent preparation for meeting the challenges of Halloween turned out to have been totally in vain. I followed all my carefully devised plans this year as in previous years, to prepare myself for Halloween. On the day, I went to my local Sainsbury’s and purchased a goodly quantity of sweets and chocolates. Next, to obtain some loose change, I decided to forego my usual custom of paying by credit card and chose instead to pay by cash at the check-out. With some trepidation but with all the charm I could muster, I asked the check-out girl if she would oblige me with some twenty-pence coins. Noticing that she showed not the slightest bit of irritation at this possible impertinence on my part, I went on to impose on her good nature by explaining that my strange request was actually intended to spread happiness amongst “trick or treat” children who were sure to be around later that evening. The check-out girl exceeded all my expectations and let me have three pounds’ worth of twenty-pence coins. Armed with my shopping bag full of sweets and weighed down with my small change, I felt confident that I was fully prepared for the ordeal that lay ahead that evening. Little was I to know, as I awaited the arrival of fearsome mask-wearing Halloween children, that the evening was to end without a single child deigning to grace my doorstep with his presence. I waited nonchalantly, with the confidence that comes with good preparation, for the ring on the doorbell but to my complete surprise and some disappointment the doorbell remained silent. The hours ticked by, - six o’clock, seven o’clock, eight, nine! At half past nine, I conceded that this Halloween night had gone by without troubling me with the ritual of “trick or treat”. I was more amazed than relieved. How could this have happened? Could this have been Sod’s Law working in my favour or had Providence rewarded me with a lucky escape for some good deed that I might unwittingly have performed in past life. With my usual mistrust of children, I was even tempted to believe that this might have been a fiendish trick played on me by the kids, out of sheer wickedness, deliberately to deny me the opportunity of giving them a treat and feeling smug about it, - but deep down I would have to admit that I was quite glad that this Halloween, “trick or treat” for once, seemed to have gone back to being what to me it always was, - not at all a very English custom, at least in my little corner of England.

A Visit to the Dentist

Last week I visited my dentist for my periodic dental check-up and came away, much to my surprise, quite elated. Dental check-ups are not an activity that I can claim to be able to take in my stride and my attendances at dental check-ups tend not be nearly as frequent as they ought to be. Received wisdom about the frequency of dental check-ups has equivocated over the years, - sometimes declaring six-monthly check-ups to be essential for good dental care and other times conceding that check-ups might be undertaken at longer interval such as a year, for example, without serious detriment to one's long-term dental health. This division of opinion as to whether six monthly or yearly check-ups are the more beneficial has been a welcome gift to a phobic like me whose fear of dental check-ups is incurable. With blatant opportunism, I have seized on the apparent rift in expert opinion, to allow myself to conclude that my own check-ups could be made at an even more extended interval of fifteen months instead of twelve months. I haven't of course taken care to appraise my dentist of this unilateral decision of mine to institute fifteen monthly check-ups. Consequently, at regular intervals of about six months or so, his practice continues to send me polite communications reminding me of the imminence of my dental check-up and inviting me to attend at my earliest convenience. I steadfastly ignore the first several of these entreaties in pursuit of my own agenda of fifteen monthly check-ups, although I am aware that this practice might well lead even some close friends to shake their heads and conclude wearily that this is simply procrastination on my part, designed to disguise a phobia of dental treatment. I choose on the other hand to characterise it, perhaps rather grandly, as my iron determination to adhere unflinchingly to my aim of extending the intervals between dental check-ups. Unsurprisingly therefore, when the usual series of reminders arrived in the post just prior to my last check-up, I carefully ignored the first several, until deciding in due course that it was at last timely to make an actual appointment with the dentist. As usual, on the day of the appointment, I was assailed, almost from the moment that I woke up, by a feeling of foreboding, which precedes all my encounters with the dentist. On my way up to the surgery I even tried to invoke the power of prayer to ensure an easy passage through the ordeal that I imagined awaited me. But the efficacy of prayer seldom offers much hope to frayed nerves, and I arrived at the surgery in a state of despondency and somewhat disappointed that prayers had proved so futile in my particular case. Mercifully, I didn't have to wait long before the nurse came out to escort me into the dentist's presence. My dentist greeted me cheerfully as usual. He is the personification of charm and good manners, and when it comes to examining teeth, he happens to have the gentlest touch that I have encountered amongst dentists - and I have been under the care of several over the years, including one who easily qualified as the "Butcher of Walthamstow". As I reclined in the dentist's chair and closed my eyes, as is my wont when undergoing dental examination, I could feel the dentist carefully probing my teeth and uttering the ritual intonations that dentists resort to during dental check-ups: upper right four, upper right five, upper right six missing, etc. They made little sense to me but I apprehended that they might possibly be a damning verdict on the state of my teeth. After what appeared an eternity, which in reality was no more than five minutes, the dentist stepped back and with a most pleasant smile announced that everything seemed to be alright, and that he didn't think we needed to anything to them, - meaning my teeth -, 'this time'. It took a moment or two before the import of his words sank in. If there were such an emotion as 'stunned happiness' then I had just experienced it and I was having some difficulty containing my joy. I should have remained calm and thanked the dentist politely but I did no such thing, and probably to my dentist's horror, disgraced myself by bestowing on him an undignified profusion of thanks, accompanied by several incoherent expressions of gratitude. The dental nurse, possibly mistaking my emotion for distress, came to my aid and escorted me out to the receptionist, to complete the formalities of form-filling and charge-payment. I left the surgery in a state that some dental surgeons might describe as 'post check-up' euphoria. Its effect was to cram my head with all kinds of joyful thoughts and as the euphoria subsided, the realisation gradually dawned on me that the most exhilarating moments in life were not necessarily engendered by extraordinary events such as one's rare achievements or even rarer strokes of good fortune but quite often by the ordinary and mundane things in life such as a visit to the dentist.

Tale of an Idiosyncrasy

One of my recreational activities, for some time now, has been that of jogging. Despite being a long-time jogger, I have to confess that jogging remains an activity that does not come easily to me. As a jogger my efforts are risible and my jogging is probably best described as "shambling". I cannot claim to be naturally athletic and somehow the fitness that most joggers acquire through regular exercise eludes me. To compensate for my natural lack of fitness, I have been compelled to resort to such desperate stratagems as running in as lightweight a running attire as possible and wearing the thinnest-soled trainers available in sports-shops. The latter of course has a drawback: lightweight, thin soled, trainers are not really considered to be best suited for running. The received wisdom about appropriate footwear for running has it that they should be specially moulded to provide support for the arches of the foot and have soles which are stout enough to absorb the shock that the human frame receives as each foot lands on a hard road surface. Such shoes however, could scarcely be my preferred choice since the thought of running in stout-soled shoes rekindles in me all the painful memories I have of gasping for breath whilst running in army boots in my younger days as a serving soldier. I always regarded it then as a form of torture inflicted on less fit soldiers like me by the Army's sadistic PT instructors. I therefore studiously ignored all good advice about the correct running shoes and remained steadfast in wearing the minimalist footwear that I fondly imagined to be performance-enhancing for non-athletes like me. I may well have persisted in pursing this course of idiosyncrasy had it not been for a chance event that normally need not have concerned me at all. The event itself was quite dreadful: a ram-raid on a sports-goods shop at Chingford Mount, - not very far from where I live in London. I happened to be walking past the shop and was quite saddened by the scene that I witnessed. The shattered shop-front and the ransacked interior of the shop were a grim testimony to what had occurred. I recognised the man standing in what remained of the shop-doorway as the owner of the shop. I had seen him before on my occasional visits to the shop with my late wife to get trainers for our grandchildren. The shop happens to be a family-run business and the courtesy and good manners of family members who serve in the shop had always made my shopping trips there a pleasant experience for me. Seeing the owner standing in front of his now devastated shop, I could not help feeling an overwhelming sense of sympathy, although what I did next was, I realise now to my embarrassment, something prompted more by an idle curiosity than my deeply felt sympathy: I asked the man what had happened, - a question that he had probably already been asked a dozen times that morning. To his great credit he retained his good manners, and even managed to raise a friendly smile as he informed me that the shop had been ram-raided in the night. Everything in his demeanour was a lesson in stoicism in the face of adversity which I found so touching that I felt it deserved some helpful gesture on my part in return, no matter how trivial. I decided therefore that this was the time to get the new trainers that I had been contemplating buying for some time but had hitherto procrastinated for various reasons. I walked into the shop and after trying out one or two pairs of trainers, selected a pair that was predictably of the thin-soled variety that I always preferred. This turned out, to my surprise, to be a pair of ladies' gym trainers, as the owner soon informed me when I took the pair to the till for payment. I am not sure if my disappointment and confusion were all too obvious, but the owner felt obliged to offer to help me with the selection of a suitable pair of men's trainers. He showed me a couple of pairs which he recommended as being good quality as well as reasonably cheap. To my alarm both had the thick soles that I had always imagined to be inimical to my puny efforts at jogging. Not wishing to offend the shop owner, I rather hesitantly mentioned my absurd paranoia that thick soled trainers were akin to heavy army boots and would therefore prove my nemesis when engaged in jogging. If the good shop owner were perplexed by this bizarre assertion of mine, he did a remarkable job of keeping a straight face and maintaining his professional manner. With commendable forbearance he explained that there was no question of these shoes being heavy. They were ergonomically designed to be both light on the foot and provide maximum support for the foot's arches. Normally, I should have dismissed this explanation as typical sales talk but there was something disarming about this shop owner's obvious honesty which persuaded me that perhaps what I was being told was simply a frank comment on the merits of the trainers that deserved to be heeded. It was time, I felt, that I rose above my phobia and committed myself to using the kind of running shoe that was regarded by most sensible people as being the most appropriate one. Assailed as I was with lingering doubts, I willed myself to putting aside my reservations and agreed to the purchase of the trainers that the owner had recommended to me. I need not have tortured myself as to whether I had made the right decision. My trust in the shop owner's advice was fully vindicated. The shoes, as it happened, turned out to be the most comfortable as well as the most lightweight shoes that I had run in to-date. This happy outcome nevertheless gave me some food for thought. Rational beings like to believe that their actions are the result of rational thought. That I should have eschewed the use of what might be regarded as the ideal footwear for jogging for so long, appeared to me on reflection not so much a harmless idiosyncrasy as an illustration of irrational fears harboured by otherwise rational minds, - if such a generalisation might be permitted from my own particular example. Even more irksome to me was the realisation that my irrational fears were not dispelled by any application of rational thought on my part but rather by a chance random event, i.e. a ram-raid on a shoe shop. This realisation was itself quite unsettling in that it seemed to confront me with what I believed to be a different kind of irrationality, - that of the phenomenon known as chaos in which chance random events result in equally random unforeseen consequences. I am not sure however, whether my unease about my brush with chaos was well-founded. The very unpredictability of chaos has now become, I believe, the subject of a rigorous mathematical theory. One of its better known propositions concerns the so-called Butterfly Effect, which holds that a random event such as a butterfly fluttering somewhere on the edge of the world can be the determinant of a full-blown hurricane, thousands of miles away in mid-ocean. The romantic in me likes to believe that researchers into the Butterfly Effect will perhaps be able to construct a neat mathematical formula to explain how a random ram-raid on a shoe shop somewhere in Chingford, came to be the determinant of my burst of rational thought, which dispelled my phobia of thick soled trainers. The realist in me, on the other hand, tells me that such a formulation would be unlikely. I do harbour the hope however, that I might have provided mathematicians with some interesting empirical evidence, - that of my experiences with my trainers, with which to validate, or otherwise, their Chaos Theory. Perhaps my episode with the trainers had served some higher purpose after all.