After my run this morning, I sat in Glasshouse, enjoying a brunch of shakshuka and strong coffee. For the 30 minutes or so that I was there, I watched a clapped-out wasp repeatedly trying to scale the window beside me, only to flop back down to ground level — before immediately starting the ascent anew. For those with a particular interest in wasp welfare, I should mention that I tried several times to open the window to give the little chap a helping hand in reaching the fresh air he craved, but I was eventually advised by the watchful waitress that the window was screwed shut. Unlike my wife, I’m not a keen handler of creepy-crawlies, and flightless wasps are, in my judgement, honorary members of this fraternity. So I couldn’t bring myself to find a way of airlifting and conveying the hapless creature to the door of the establishment. Instead, I began to see the relentless struggle of this insectile Sisyphus as a metaphor for existence in general, and mine in particular. We are all but wilting wasps on the foothold-free window of life, I opined to the waitress. She responded: “Right, that’s… seventeen pounds in all. No service charge included.”
Despite the appeal of this despondent image, things are actually heading in the opposite direction. At least for now. Short story short: On another sun-drenched morning on the seafront, I once again clocked up 30 minutes of stately and relatively comfortable jogging made up of five helpings of six minutes each, mostly separated by three minutes of determined striding. I say “mostly” because I extended one walk break to do some more calf raises and stretches, which have now become a daily routine — and I feel better for it.
I was never anything like a fast runner, and after some contemplation over recent weeks, I’ve opted to maintain that tradition. In the final 6-minute run I did try to accelerate to see what would happen. Well, nothing happened. I’m like a creaky old clunker stuck in first gear, bumping and scraping and grinding along while the bloke inside gazes blankly out at the scenery, occasionally chuckling to himself for no obvious reason — at least from the observer’s perspective. From his own viewpoint the reason is clear. Sunny day. Retired. Thirty more minutes of running without a peep from the calf. And plenty of young runners around, most of them presumably ‘working from home’.
It cheers me to be waved at by other runners as they bound past. This acknowledgment is an acceptance that I’m part of the community, and it gladdens my heart. Like on that golden morning in Puerto Banus in early 2001. Have I told that story here? (A quick search suggests not.) I’ve written about it somewhere. I’ll find it and post it here.
I felt even happier to finish up at Glasshouse with that pleasing plate of shakshuka, and the poor old wasp to daydream over. My life is good at the moment. It’s always good. “Things could be worse” is commonly heard in my household. Deeply unoriginal but always comforting. The briefest of glances at the news from Gaza or Ukraine or Runcorn is enough to put my tickly calf into perspective, and turn it into a blip deserving of nothing more than a casual shrug. One day, something really bad will happen to me. To us. And then my mind will meander back to an occasion like this morning. Good food, good weather, money in my pocket, no authority figures to stress over, no Damoclean sword suspended above me.
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As I get older I become more aware of the domestic clutter that surrounds me, and the need to reduce it. So it was with mixed feelings that I arrived home from my run to find that it was my annual QPR Delivery Day. This little-known special occasion occurs because about five years ago I bought a bond to assist Queens Park Rangers with their traditional financial struggles. One dubious benefit is that I have about £350 to spend each year before the end of May in the club shop. I don’t really want or need anything from the club shop but it’s a shame to waste it so I order a ton of arbitrary items, each and every one of them branded. It means that I live in a house with QPR pyjamas, QPR dressing gowns and towels, QPR mugs and a QPR chopping board. I have QPR gnomes among the shrubbery and a QPR rubber duck for the bath. This year I ordered another for the pond I’m very slowly creating in the back garden. Other items this year included a collapsible plastic stool embossed with “Come on You Rs!”, some QPR plastic ponchos, a QPR wallet and QPR passport holder, a QPR thermal water bottle, a QPR bootbag, yet another QPR umbrella in case it ever rains again, QPR touch-screen gloves, and various items of QPR clothing: training vests, shorts, a ‘travel gilet’, thick jogging pants… you name it. They even sent me something I didn’t order, presumably thinking it was an oversight on my part — a QPR keyring.Deep down, of course I treasure all this stuff. The club is still where my primary football affections lie, and always will. No, I just need a handy storage receptacle for many of the lesser-used items. Don’t read anything into this but I plan to write to them and suggest that next year they may want to consider adding a QPR branded dustbin to their inventory.
