I am a Duck-Billed Platypus

So what did I do in Turkey, you ask (well, some of you ask).  This might surprise you (some of you) but mainly I swam. 

I’m not one of life’s natural swimmers; I’m one of life’s natural floaters. Okay, so that’s an unfortunate term but hey, there isn’t really an alternative. I like to float, shall we say?  I love water but tend to bob around on top of it, gently swayed this way and that as the current wishes.  Or slowly revolve in circles, like Eeyore.  I like the feeling of being supported by water.  I rather like the passivity of it too.  I’m generally a pretty active person so the whole surrendering aspect of floating has always struck me as quite balancing somehow. 

James, however, wasn’t impressed.  ‘You’re  just a rubbish swimmer,’ he said with that careless scorn of the young. Then, catching the look on my face. ‘Sorry, that sounded awful.’ Patting me in an almost avuncular fashion on the shoulder. ‘But you really should learn how to swim properly.’  In other words, not thrashing my head from side to side as I progress painfully through the water.  Then he threw down the challenge.

‘I’ll teach you if you like.’

Shit.  Trapped. I have promised myself I won’t let fear get in the way of stuff anymore. ‘Okaaaay.’

So there we were in the pool.  Early, before the Russians ploughed in to play extreme water polo or turning themselves into human pyramids (they liked this game and once got to three levels before collapsing and nearly concussing the newly-weds who were snogging in blissful unawareness nearby). 

‘First step is putting your head under the water,’ said James.

‘Aagh,’ said I. ‘That’s scary.’
He fixed me with a beady look and showed me what to do.  I gulped but obeyed and, hey, it was okay, it really was.  And after that it was all just so easy. Why on earth (or should that be 'in water'?) had I waited so long?  After he was satisfied I could do lengths of crawl and breast-stroke, he got me diving.  Not just off the edge (though that was fun) but sinking down to the bottom of the pool so we sat like a pair of Buddhas, grinning benignly at one another.

I was feeling pretty smug but he wasn’t finished with me. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Time for snorkelling.’ After a quick practice session in the pool, we were off to the sea and bobbing gently in the Aegean… Oh my! Oh wow! How amazing to reverse one’s world.  To look down instead of up.  To see the sea as part of it, inside it.  Who knew the fish came so close to shore?  And, just like that, I lost my fear of the sea and its creatures.  Ever since a cod sucked my toe in the US (it did, it really did), I’ve been scared stiff of swimming in the sea.  But when you can see everything…when you become part of a world, instead of alien, there’s nothing to fear.  Okay, smart-arses, the odd rogue shark, I suppose. 

‘Do I still swim like Asbo?’ I asked at the end of the week, by which time the boy was so brown I barely recognised him, while I had simply sprouted freckles on my freckles.  He screwed up his face in concentration. ‘No.’ 

I smiled.  ‘So, what am I?’ Thinking sleek sea-otter or whip-like piranha.

‘Umm, you’re more of a platypus.’

What??

‘No, no…’ he said with that soothing shoulder pat again.  ‘Don’t be offended. Duck-billed platypuses are excellent swimmers.’

‘They are?’  Mollified.   

‘They also emit a low growl when disturbed,’ he added, raising an eyebrow.  ‘And store fat reserves in their tails.’

Let it also be noted that they can also move extremely fast when provoked.    :)

On Twitter

Twitter, eh?  I seem to have been defending it a lot lately.  Last night I was at a birthday party and a friend who runs a (rather amazing) country house b&b thanked me for putting a guest onto her. ‘Don’t thank me,’ I said.  ‘Thank Twitter.’

‘Oh, I don’t get Twitter,’ she replied breezily.  And I thought, how strange. I just don’t get why small businesses don’t use Twitter cannily.  Yes, it takes a bit of time to build up a following but, after a certain point (if you use it wisely and appropriately), it is self-generating. 

I explained how I’d simply written something about how beautiful Exmoor was in spring (a rare lyrical moment) and someone I know online (the lovely Lorraine) had replied.  Next thing, she’s asking for a recommendation near Dulverton and lo and behold, Three Acres gets a booking.  And I get to meet Lorraine (see, it’s a win-win).

Another excellent Exmoor hotel (a little further away) does it perfectly – Rosi gives out tantalising snippets of information about what’s on locally, what’s on the menu, why it’s worth coming to this little bit of heaven.  By beautiful serendipity, it turns out that she and I went to the same university and even did the same course – yet I’d never have met her if it hadn’t been for Twitter.  I have a list of places a mile long that I will visit when I get the chance – from Northumberland to Tanzania via Greece.  And yes, all from Twitter connections.

Meanwhile back at Vicky’s dinner table the puzzlement continued. ‘Isn’t it just people talking about what they had for breakfast?’ said Gill with a wrinkled up nose.  Well, you ignore those, don’t you?  Just like you ignore spam or people who irritate you.

‘I don’t have enough friends to have a conversation,’ quipped another mate.  Ho ho ho.  Follow interesting people or people with similar interests and say things that will interest you and them.  Give a little bit, share a little bit.  That’s the bottom line.  And I explained about how a good tweet or a good cause can go viral. 

But really, I don’t love Twitter for its business opportunities. I love it for the connections.   It’s a web.  You get chatting to one person and then, through them, you meet someone else and then...whoah, off you go. 

A couple of days ago I was chatting to a couple of Twitter friends and somehow (I forget exactly) we got onto talking about poetry and I waved my arms around a bit at Old English poetry (The Seafarer, anyone?) and then Barbara (@dumphimlove) posted this – and I tossed it to Margo Lanagan as she has been writing a book about selkies and she passed it on and now I’ve met three more writers who love myth and folk tales and so the magic spreads. 

Sometimes it's downright hilarious.  A couple of days ago I found myself holding two conversations in tandem: one relatively thoughtful about literature and one distinctly low-brow with the potty-mouthed mummyblogger crew.  Not letting one pollute the other was, hmm, challenging.

Once again, I find myself floating fecklessly in cyberspace.  Yet again, I hear myself giving people advice I don’t follow. I don’t promote myself as a writer online; I never remember to plug a book; I probably scupper myself professionally by forgetting people are listening and chortling wildly over weirdly shaped penises or my capacious inglenook instead of being a wise, kind, lotus-positioned self-help *guru* (cue hollow laughter). 

But hey.  So be it. Really I just love the way Twitter appears totally random yet offers a clear conduit for synchronicity. And the best thing of all is when you see a couple of people you know and love, chatting happily to one another, getting a kick out of a new connection of their own.  Webs. Spinning.  Delicious.

PS - of course, if you want to use Twitter properly, don't follow me...get a decent guide.  @erica does a good online course in social media.  Or there are always books... or, hey, ask on Twitter... ;)