January 20th

Dragged through pain, blindness,

Hot tears falling, reminders,

Hollow thoughts of home.

 

Was getting a little bit excited, you know, in a controlled stoic, square jawed, polar exploration way about two important Captain Scott exhibitions this year, to commemorate the 100 years of him and his team reaching the South Pole, but also of his death, expiring in the icy wilderness on the long slog back. One is at the Natural History Museum and the other at a museum I was ignorant of until a couple of weeks ago, the Polar Museum at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge.

I’m looking forward to seeing Scott’s diary (on loan from the British Library) with that poignancy in his last letter to his wife and final line, his hand so shaky through weakness “For God’s sake, look after our people”. Also, the photographs of Herbert Ponting and all the artefacts and scientific specimens collected.

My Haiku however is a tribute to Irish polar explorer Tom Crean, a mainstay of Scott’s expedition as well as others for both Scott and Shackleton. He seemed to be a big gentle bloke, one of those guys you always want on your team, even tempered, reliable and utterly trustworthy. Crean was a member of the support party for the final push, so was ordered to turn back despite being so close to the pole (168 miles), so devastated, he and two others followed the trail back to base (Edward Evans, William Lashley). They got lost and needed to take a long detour, meaning their food was in short supply. The Haiku references his heroic solo walk, 35 miles in 18 hours in terrible conditions to get help for his colleagues, Lashley was weak, and Evans was sick with disabling scurvy and snow blindness. The hot tears were Crean’s, he thought Evans had died. Evans later recounted “his hot tears fell onto my face”.

The illustrated children’s book Tom Crean’s Rabbit is a wonderful true story, about him trying to find a safe warm haven for the rabbit on Scott’s ship Terra Nova as they voyaged south. Well worth buying. By Meredith Hooper and Bert Kitchen.

 

 

Tom Crean (pic from Wikipedia)

January 19th

 

Today’s Haiku is about Trolls, we watched Troll Hunter last night, a Norwegian film about… Trolls. It’s a fast paced, comedy horror, there is beautiful scenery aplenty too, as you’d expect, from what is a stunning country. We decided we like Trolls, they get a bad press. But they are just following their instincts right? If they want to kill humans we shouldn’t judge them for it, it’s just what they were made for.  We should run, like we’ve run for generations before.

Trolls are cool, Luke Pearson also wrote a graphic novel with a Troll in it, that is brilliant too. Hildafolk… I cannot recommend it enough. Another positive representation of Trolls is here, a little (free) short story by Yasmin. She and her creation, Glenda the Troll are both very talented!

As for Tolkein, I love you man, but you were mean to Trolls. Or at least Gandalf was anyway.

 

Beware of bridges,

Of blackened pines, caves and mines,

Hiding, biding time.

 

An artists impression (well, my impression) of a Troll. He stands three metres tall (about ten feet) and smells of rotten roast chicken. I saw him in the moors one moonlit night I think!