Rambling round the ‘hood in recent days, I see more heartening evidence that spring is just around the corner. One of those refreshing, cold-but-sunny mornings yesterday proved ideal for a pre-match stroll past the daffodil-lined front gardens and into the deserted cemetery on the hillside. I’d not describe Ocklynge as a riot of colour at the best of times but the signs are there, with buds erupting on the shrubs and leaves starting to unfurl. The great sense of optimism that the season represents was consolidated later in the afternoon when Brighton won at Newcastle to push them into the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.
Cemeteries too are strangely cheerful places. They may seem like an obvious intimation of mortality, and as clear a symbol of death as you can find. But in being so, they are also the opposite, surely: a vivid reminder that we who are left are still alive and, just like the new shoots shyly nudging outwards on the branches, bursting with potential. There are said to be 20,000 people buried in this place (far more than there are headstones), yet here I am, striding through them. One of me, 20,000 of them. Lucky and alive.
I pass a grave bearing the name of Bernard Shaw which randomly brings to mind George Bernard Shaw’s view that “It’s impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.” It’s probably more true now than it was 100 years ago, when he wrote it. 
Back then I suppose the hot topics in the public bar would have been the Irish uprising, votes for women, and the progress of the war in France. We’ve swapped out the issues but have forgotten how to discuss them. Now we’re just point-scoring, meme-circulating, slogan-chanting robots. It’s one of several reasons for slipping back into the RunningCommentary groove. In 2016, the best protection from Trump I could find was PG Wodehouse. And I may need to retravel the Plum path now that the great orange lunatic is back in the White House. But if I’m shrinking from the news yet again, I realised should aim to do so more positively. Why not try to wring a few drops of cheer from the stinky rag of American politics?
And so far, so good. Today was the start of week 4 of the C25K programme, and a further small shift onwards in running minutes. Only 14 of them, officially, but I felt sufficiently energised to make this up to about 20 in the end. Clumps of four jogging minutes separated by three of purposeful walking. It wasn’t so much the small achievement of the minutes that cheered me as much as the realisation at the end that I still felt strong and motivated, and capable of continuing. Suddenly, the idea of getting to the end of the 9-week plan, intact and still in working order, seems faintly realistic.
My big initial ambition is to get through one of the local 5K parkruns. The very idea seemed mad just three weeks ago but now I’m starting to chip away at my doubts. Spring really is a miracle.
