Mon 3 Nov 2003

Aha! The cruellest month is with us. Excellent. Just the sort of excuse we need for sloth.

It's not been the best of weeks. I've managed only two runs in the last seven days. Less to do with motivation than hitting a very busy patch at work. A project we've been working on all year is now reaching its panicky climax, and I'm having to spend almost every waking hour staring at the gleaming teeth of our deadline.

Time for a renewed assault on the waistline problem. As mentioned last week, I plan to join a local running club, but I want to lose a few pounds before I do. I'm going to try making a note of what I eat, and logging the calories. A good old-fashioned approach to eating: plenty of fruit and veg, low fat, and regular running. Sounds a bit gimmicky I know, but it has to be worth a try.

Wed 5 Nov 2003

The snowball has started its much harder journey back up the mountain. It's like some perpetual battle between Good and Evil. This week, Good is fighting back.

Whichever direction I'm moving, whether towards or away from my world record 2 hour marathon, there seems always to be some external momentum propelling me onwards. All things being equal, if I'm running regularly I keep running regularly; if I'm eating badly I keep eating badly.

I said all things being equal. They rarely are. It takes a fairly small pebble on the road to halt the ascent or the decline, and send me back in the other direction. I'd better capitalise on this one while I can, as it's shockingly successful so far. Only three days in, mind you.

Sat 8 Nov 2003

What a week. I mentioned recently that I've had a work deadline hurtling towards me. This week it hit, and I've been too busy mopping up the blood to post much here. Monday to Thursday were 12 hour days (or 16 if I include travelling time). It's been difficult and intense, but we just about got away with it.

Yes, difficult and intense. The word "stressful" was deliberately avoided because, although the pressure has been massive, I've never really felt close to serious stress. Here's why:

I knew this was going to a tough few days, so at the beginning of the week I resolved to run every morning. And I did. Every day at around 6am I was out there, doing my 3.5 miles. Those 35 or 40 minutes each morning became a temporary parallel universe; a personal space I was locked into, alone. It was like having a party each morning; a party to which work was not invited. It kept turning up and hammering at the door, but I wouldn't let it in.

As a result, every day was like floating on a deeply-upholstered armchair, smiling, limbs tingling sweetly. The week was still pretty dirty and horrible, but I felt able to deal with it.

Yesterday, Friday, I worked from home. At about 3:30 I decided it was time to take advantage of the daylight, and went off for a run. This time I started down the canal towpath, before turning off to explore a new route. It included three very steep hills. I managed the first, but had to walk halfway up the second. It reminded me that hills are great exercise, and I should be including them when I can.

I have a confession. After more than four decades on this planet, it's only now that I've started to appreciate autumn. It began last year, when we were in the USA. After the Chicago marathon, we hired a car and drove up the east shore of Lake Michigan. It was wonderful. The holiday towns had shut down for the winter. This is when I like to see places. I like to catch them when they're off-guard. The dunes were empty. There was no traffic, and the small harbour towns were drawing themselves in. It was just me and M and streetfuls of ghosts. But what struck me most were those long empty roads through the forests, with the leaves a fantastic blaze of colour. It was the first time I ever really understood autumn. Perhaps because I was away from home? I don't know. But something about the place, in the afterglow of Chicago, embedded itself.

This year it's woken up again. This year I've started to see the season properly. Running through it has brought me closer to it. And it's not just the physical splendour that's been so impressive. It's the meaning of the season. The final hurrah. The farewell to the year. The battening down. The realisation that this kind of glorious disintegration is necessary to make renewal and regeneration possible.

I ran more than 8 autumnal miles yesterday, and arrived back home smiling, and feeling that I could have carried on.

Running. It really is the answer.

Mon 10 Nov 2003

That's better: the teachers have just got off. I'm not even certain they are teachers, but that's what I call them. Whoever they are, there must be a sitcom somewhere searching desperately for them. A group of four thirty-something academic types, one woman, three men, who cause uproar and outrage on the Paddington train each morning. Their sin? Irrepressible jollity. They're happy. Their entire time is spent in loud argument or loud laughter. Sometimes they sing or recite poetry, or take photographs. Actually, I like them. But it's always a relief when they get off, and leave the rest of the carriage to its silent, early morning wretchedness.

If I'm close to them, I occasionally hear snippets of earnest conversation. Last week, I heard one of them explaining why he had dumped his girlfriend recently: "Yes, she was beautiful, and kind, and young, and great fun to be with", he said. "But our values were too different. She was just too rich for me. She always wanted to pay for everything. She even wanted me to give up my job and devote my life to spending her money. I just couldn't cope with the thought."

I spent the rest of the journey coping with the thought on his behalf.

Thurs 13 Nov 2003

As Reading Gaol's most famous alumni once remarked, "I can resist everything except temptation". I seem to have the same... opportunity.

So there I was on Tuesday, almost drowning in self-congratulation about my ascending good health, when the little matter of a football match came up. QPR were due to play our affable neighbours, Brentford, and I had a difficult decision to make. My habit is to meet up with a mate for a few beers before the game, though this didn't sit very comfortably with my new health regime. What to do? After an afternoon of agonising, I decided that it would be unethical to let him down. More than unreasonable, it would have been nothing less than an act of wanton cruelty. And so I suspended the new me for a couple of hours. Just long enough to squeeze in five pints of Guinness, a gargantuan portion of fish and chips, and three bars of chocolate.

But at least we won the match, and I retained a friend, so the sacrifice was worth it.

I hadn't run since Saturday, so I didn't really deserve a night off. But it's happened, and there we have it. Not surprisingly, the next morning (yesterday) I felt no enthusiasm for the idea of getting up at daybreak, so this morning's run was the first for five days. Not really good enough, given the recent resolution -- and especially as I've signed up for a 10K race on Sunday, and should be honing my body to an Adonis-like degree of perfection.

I lay awake this morning at 5:45, not quite certain whether I was still resident in this body. It seemed I was floating about an inch away. The leaden body was still snoring softly, while the shadow was alert, and eager to get up and get out there. Eventually they merged just long enough to let me leave the bed, but I crept downstairs with a terrible sense of uncertainty and reluctance.

Sometimes you just know that this running lark is total nonsense. A cruel trick we play on ourselves, and on each other. This morning, standing shivering in the lobby, peering out into the cold, pitch-black world, I knew for sure that I was mad. How could I be contemplating handing myself over to such a dangerous, hostile enemy? From the kitchen behind me comes the siren aroma of a newly baked granary loaf, while the central heating creaks into life. How about a cosy, leisurely breakfast instead, with a pot of steaming coffee, a slab of toast and marmalade, and Radio Four?

A minute or two later the knife is twisted as I trot disconsolately past the local hotel. From the open window comes a rich, pungent miasma of frying bacon. Oh God. I could weep. And here's the landlord of the Red Lion, arriving back from the village with his newspaper and pint of milk. I thought about calling out a greeting, but knew that if he recognised me he'd never allow someone as clearly deranged as I must be, back into the pub. On I trudge.

But... but sure enough, the slow magic begins, and ten minutes later I'm bouncing along, grinning like a shark, grateful to be alive this morning under the blazing moon.

Sat 15 Nov 2003

It just hasn't been a running week. I had at least some poor excuse for Wednesday morning, but how can the rest of the week be explained? It hasn't been a lack of motivation. Monday was a rest day; Tuesday and Friday I overslept. This morning I slept in till 8:30, then remembered the Australia-New Zealand World Cup semi-final was about to start, so running was forgotten again.

Tomorrow I've got a number in the Brighton 10K, so either I'm desperately unprepared for it, or I've been meticulous in not over-training. Either way, I suspect it will be another slow run. Once I've got my weight down a bit and joined a club I'm looking forward to speeding up a bit.

A bigger problem than the run itself is getting to Brighton before 9am to give myself a fighting chance of finding somewhere to watch the other World Cup semi between England and France. If I was going on my own it wouldn't be a difficulty but M is coming along for a shop, and she's not a morning person.

Despite the lack of running, life could be worse. I'm off work for a few days now, and shortly I'll be leaving for Loftus Road where a victory against Plymouth will see us shoot to the top of the table. If we win, I'm going to give everyone reading this a present. Either a chocolate bar of their choice, or a million pounds in crisp tenners. Haven't decided yet. If we lose... hmm. I'll vote Conservative in the next general election.

Come on U RRRRs! The future of the nation is in your hands....

Thurs 20 Nov 2003

This is what I meant, a week or two back, when I said that things can switch round for no very good reason.

Last week I ran only once before doing the Brighton 10K on Sunday, and I've not run since.

It's 3 in the morning, and just now, nothing matters.

Let's have a holiday, then reconsider matters.....

Sat 22 Nov 2003

So. Where were you when England beat Australia in Sydney, to take the Rugby World Cup? Me? I was in a hotel room in Bilbao.

I'd woken at 3:30am, and dozed fitfully till 9:45, fifteen minutes before kick-off. The anxiety that had kept me awake wasn't centred on doubts about England's chances (though I wasn't over-confident), but a fear that I might not be able to get the game on one of the European channels here in the hotel room. Thank heavens for the French, who brought me not only the game but the unforgettable sound of those two frenzied commentators. My French isn't good, which is just as well. The pictures were wounding enough, without a salty commentary to exacerbate the pain.

The tension left me stuck to the chair with sweat after normal full time. Extra time provided a different problem. M twice entered the room to ask me what I was doing a) on the bed, running on the spot and b) lying face down on the floor, beating my fists so hard on the carpet that clouds of ancient Basque dust were drifting portentously across the room.

And when that final drop-kick went over, just seconds from the end of extra time, I can't really tell you where I was. I've a remote recollection of dancing that manic, atavistic, electric-current boogie that connects us with out prehistoric cousins just a couple of times per lifetime. Don't ask.

Don't ask, because I can't tell you any more than that.

An hour later, still vibrating, we were at the Guggenheim for our first proper look at this bizarre and wonderful place. Started off with a great lunch and most of a bottle of decent, celebratory Rioja. It's easy to be dismissive of minimalist cooking, but when it's done as well as this, you have to congratulate them. It also drives home the message that we tend to eat much bigger portions than necessary. However small the plate, I never leave a meal like this still hungry.

The Bilbao Guggenheim is one of those must-see buildings. The entire experience is a dialogue between architecture and art; between the shell and the contents. It's absolutely dramatic, and coming so soon after the excitement of Sydney and the lunchtime bottle of wine, well, almost too overwhelming. I've never before been to a gallery where the building itself is the prize exhibit. It's hard to describe, but it's like some great shoal of silver fish, thrashing about on the banks of the river. The titanium skin continues inside, just as the glass interior extrudes through the shell, confusing the inside with the outside, and somehow bringing the city into the gallery, and the gallery into the city, blurring the lines between the building and its environment, and between art itself and the pedestal we use to keep it separate from real life.

It's a great building, and as with all great buildings (like the new football stadium in Huddersfield), the less you know about ART, the more you'll appreciate it.

Running. What's that? Ah yes. Well, I have my gear with me but it's difficult to see too much activity. Not that Bilbao isn't a great place to run. It is. But this is Spain. The wine is too good, the spirits too cheap, the tapas too enticing, the nights too late. The plan is still to run a marathon at the end of April 2004. This means starting proper training around the end of December, so there's time yet. This week is my final hurrah, my farewell to excess.

Where have I heard that before?

Sun 23 Nov 2003

Morning run not an option. Too much gin last night, and too good a Bloody Mary at the hotel bar. Slept much better: no Aussies to worry about.

Bilbao: interesting city, even when it rains all day. Today we took in the other major gallery, the Musee des Belle Arts. More conventional fare this time, but no less enjoyable for that. It's always salutary to be reminded how every generation of art has provoked outrage in its time, before settling down to public acceptance.

Had a long, rainy walk along the river into the city, then meandered round the streets on the trams for a while. Sunday in Bilbao is what Sunday in the UK used to be like. The shops are shut, the streets desolate. In the end we mooched back to the hotel where most of the day has been spent reading and watching TV football. I had hoped to catch a game in the flesh, but Athletico were away at Celta Vigo, so had to watch it on la caja instead: "We" won 2-0.

I haven't talked much about reading in this web log. I try to keep a book or two on the go at any one time. It's one of the great advantages of commuting. Many people seem horrified when I tell them I'm spending between two and three hours a day travelling on trains. But it's a great opportunity to read, and I feel lucky. Driving would be different of course. That really would be a terrible waste of time.

At the moment I'm reading Clare Tomalin's biography of Samuel Pepys. It's a great read, especially for London historians and students of robust quotations. Try: "A man who gets a wench with child and marries her afterwards - it is as if a man should shit in his hat and then clap it upon his head."

A corker.

Mon 24 Nov 2003

Didn't manage a run this morning. Too busy planning the next stage of the journey.

One lives and learns. A week before leaving the UK I checked the car rental rates for Bilbao, and was pleased to find that you can pick up a medium range vehicle for around �16 a day. Pretty good, I thought. Would it be even cheaper to book it locally? Yes, obviously.

Bongggg!!!! Sorry, wrong answer. Lose �200.

Early this morning I checked at the hotel reception, and found that the local Avis wanted about �250 for 4 days. A capsule of mild concern burst somewhere in my gut, but by midday this had sort of lathered its way into a great frothy wave of panic that threatened to overwhelm me. I can't think of a much duller topic than car rental, so I'll spare the details. But it took much longer than expected to get a deal much worse than I could have got in the UK. Two lessons here for anyone planning to hire a car abroad next year: 1) it's much, MUCH cheaper if you arrange it at least a week in advance on the internet, and 2) be aware of currency fluctuations. Not long ago, �1 = 1.65 euros; now �1 = 1.38 euros. So it was cheaper to get a deal in pounds than in euros. In the end, I went to an internet caf� and rented a car online from a place almost next door to me. But it would have cost twice as much if I'd walked in off the street and booked it there. (But even online, it was still 50% more than I could have got it if I'd booked a week earlier.)

Crikey, that was the most boring paragraph I've ever written. I've just had to correct loads of spelling mistakes in the last half of it as even I fell asleep halfway through.

The one exciting moment came as I waited in the office for them to receive confirmation of the order. With a 3 hour siesta due to begin in 4 minutes, I had to get on the phone to Cleveland, Ohio to persuade someone to send a fax to the machine I was leaning against. The tension was unbearable. It was like the rugby world cup final all over again. Staring, dry-mouthed at the digital clock on the wall as the manager fidgeted impatiently with the office keys. Then, 28 seconds to go, the machine whined and squealed, and gave us our fax. Thank you Jonny Wilkinson. We'd never have made it without your inspirational example.

Five minutes later we'd swapped one sort of pain for another. Why do Spanish drivers just park in the middle of the road? Why are traffic lights ignored? Why do Spanish cars bother to have an indicator installed? What a waste of resources - their use appears to be frowned upon to put it mildly. Probably illegal in fact.

Twenty thin-lipped minutes later we'd effected our escape from Bilbao. Strange how your impression of a population can change once you get among them on the road.

Our destination was San Sebastian, about 80 miles further along the coast. But it took most of the day to get there because we opted to detour via Gernika, and take the tiny coastal road instead. But siesta was in full apathetic swing here too, so everything was closed. We even managed to miss the Monday market, the bombing of which by Hitler (at Franco's polite request), killed two thousand civilians. Picasso's great painting, Guernica, was really the only reason we wanted to see the place. The picture itself is in Madrid, but we were ghoulishly interested to see the source of its ghastly inspiration. An unremarkable little town, its siesta-empty streets giving it a memorable poignancy.

From Gernika we drove north to the coast, and followed the tiny, serpentine roads all the way to San Sebastian -- or Donostia, to give it its Basque name. (It was interesting to see that almost every road sign in the entire region had the words San Sebastian painted out, leaving just Donostia. Welsh nationalists did something similar a few years ago.) Quite a hair-raising drive in places, the road narrow and precipitous, with no barriers to offer a second chance.

The city was dark when we arrived, and seethed with chaotic, rush-hour traffic. It took us a while to find our pension, the small hotel we'd pre-booked. The map was of limited use as the street signs are invisible in the darkness, and there was always an impatient hoot to hurry us on if we dared to slow down. Eventually we deposited the car in a subterranean car-park, and walked. Amazingly, in such a big city, we found ourselves just two hundred yards or so from our hotel.

The walk was brief but memorable. San Sebastian is built, quite implausibly really, along a stretch of wild and rocky coastline, and with the tide coming in and the wind up, we had the unusual sensation of spectacular, crashing breakers in the very heart of a major city.

The pension is slightly grim, though the fact that I say that is just another miserable reminder that I somehow got old and cranky while I wasn't looking. When I think of some of the places I've resided in my time, the Hotel Kursaal in San Sebastian is luxury beyond reason. I wonder if India is still like it was in the eighties? Some of the 'lodgings' I stayed in, in those small, ants-nest-like Indian towns were literally nothing more than a concrete box with a concrete platform for a bed and one licey sheet that you could choose to use as a mattress or as a pillow or as a duvet. Sometimes there was an unspeakable hole in the corner of the room for you to shit into, and that was it. Why do I look back on those trips to India and Nepal with such nostalgia?

I suppose because nothing much mattered then, and I rather like the idea of nothing much mattering. Perhaps this is one of the things I like about running. Competitive runners must be full of anxiety, but not me. Perhaps that's it. Perhaps when I run, I rediscover that precious state of not giving a damn. Or is that one of those insights that I rediscover once or twice a month? It sounds sort of familiar.

Anyway, we are in San Sebastian, peering round a basic hotel room... It's an unusual place. The hotel occupies the second and third floor of an apartment block; one of those old-fashioned places with the central lift and the sliding gates that you have to manually open and close, and that people never shut properly, rendering the thing unusable. There must be a special name for these conveyances.

One of the first things we discovered, checking inside the wardrobe (as you do), was a good quality running jacket and technical T-shirt. A remnant, I suppose, of yesterday's San Sebastian marathon. The proximity of the race to our arrival is no coincidence. When I first booked the flights, there was an outside chance of doing the marathon. The plan was to arrive in Bilbao as we did, then collect a car and drive straight over here. Even when I'd abandoned hope of taking part, I was keen on the idea of coming over to watch it, but decided instead to save the running goodwill for a more crucial investment opportunity between now and May.

I wonder how the runner whose gear we found got on in the race? M, whose sense of smell is tragically acute, was confident they belonged to a woman. We handed them in of course. I'd no intention of stealing someone else's running gear. And in any case the T-shirt was far too tight.

The evening was spent wandering the throbbing streets of the Old City. After an hour or so of meandering, we stopped off at a couple of tapas bars. I love this system. You wander in, order your Rioja tinto which comes in a beaker, and select a few of the savoury delights that line the counter. Tortilla wedges, chorizo, all sorts of delicate little sandwiches and rolls, cheese and olives and anchovies on cocktail sticks, pat�... Each tapas (or pintxos as they call them here) comes with a small tissue that is scrunched up and thrown to the floor as the food is eaten. Then more Rioja is shouted up and the cycle continues.

Everything I read tells me that the Basques are different from the Spanish at large, in much the same way, I suppose, as the Scots are reputed to be different from the English. I can't say I've noticed this yet. They've been just as friendly, civilised and manana-oriented as Spaniards everywhere. Nice people.

From the flags and photographs in many of the bars, we seem to live in a Real Sociedad environment all of a sudden. They must be nearby.

Tues 25 Nov 2003

Thought about a run this morning, then thought about something else instead.

We spent the morning scouting the rest of the city, trying to come to terms with the bizarre conglomeration of natural beauty and urban chic. Here we have a splendid municipal hall and plaza, and a dense network of shopping streets; but over here, a few yards away, is a low wall, beyond which is a fabulous, golden beach, craggy cliffs and a froth of surfers padding along the sand. While looking in a window of a department store in one of the smarter streets, a man puffing on a cigarette slaps past in full wet-suit, goggles and flippers on his way to the beach. High above the city are hills capped with churches and monuments, wagging an admonitory finger at the sinning masses below. But a great place.

Serendipity led us to this grand farmhouse in the hills above Hondarribia, twenty miles or so along the coast towards France. I spent a fruitless hour in an internet caf� in San Sebastian this morning, looking for a reasonably-priced hotel in the area. Frustrated, I went for a bracing stroll along the... the urban seashore, wondering what to do next. Just beyond the bay I came across a shop promoting something called Agrotourism, which I presumed to be something to do with football supporters travelling overseas. But no, it was about urban types like us, visiting muddy places in pursuit of leisure. I went in and had a chat, and a few beaming minutes later, we had a farmhouse in Hondarribia for the night at about �30 all in.

It took us a while to find the place. Iketxe eventually appeared at the end of a 3 mile track off the main road into the town. 3 miles of single-track road, desperately hoping we wouldn't meet another driver, and particularly not a Spanish one, brought us to this absolutely delightful farmhouse high up on the side of a wooded valley. A friendly dog called Pedro trotted out to meet us, and show us the way. I don't talk Dog, and my Spanish Dog is even worse, but we managed to get along pretty well.

Paxti, the proprietor, a jolly man of around 50, greeted us and showed us round. Being the low season, we had a choice of rooms, and went for the one with the terrace overlooking the valley behind the house. Too cold to sit out for long but no matter, the pleasure of just being out there, gulping lungfuls of rural Spain, was too exhilarating to pass up.

We unloaded the bags, then drove back into the town to have a look around. Not for the first time on this trip, the rain has been tipping down all day. It didn't matter. It made the stroll along the sea-wall even more energising. Rain gets a bad press, but you just have to learn how to deal with it. Like grasping the proverbial nettle. Show it too much fear, and it will just make you wet and cold.

It rained on your holiday? How terrible! What rotten luck!

Did I care? I did not care. I enjoyed it. And as I stood alongside those crusty Basque fishermen on the sea wall this afternoon, watching them cast their lines and exchange their shouted banter, I suppose I did wonder if I'd rather be back at my desk in Shepherds Bush. Briefly.

The lashing rain, the guys cackling and winding in their empty hooks, the beakers of Rioja being filled and drained in one smooth movement. Someone played a recorder, and a young girl stood on the wall and sang some kind of hymn at the top of her voice.

Did I wish I was somewhere else? No.

To travel is to live.

We drove for a few miles along the coast. Arriving at a small town, we parked up to buy some provisions for this evening. Wandering round this charming place, it dawned on us that we were in France. We'd driven across the border without any restriction; in fact there was no border. We called into a deli to buy some bread and cheese and olives and salami and wine, and reminded ourselves how good it is to be European. France-Spain, Spain-France. It didn't matter.

Back at the farmhouse this evening, we sprawled in the large, wood-panelled room and read, and ate our bread and cheese and olives and salami and wine. I drank the 98 Bouzy, M her freshly-squeezed orange juice. Bloody heaven it was; bloody heaven.

Wed 26 Nov 2003

Thought about going for a run this morning. Mercifully it was last night that I had the thought. I managed to forget all about it until midway through a good rustic breakfast, by which time it was too late. Oh well. Worse things happen at sea. Instead, we headed off across the mountains to Vitoria.

A great drive. We ignored the artery and followed the tiny capillaries instead. A bit precarious in places, but worth every moment. You could have wept for the scenery in places. It was like something out of Lord of the Rings; or like the cover of a Yes or Led Zeppelin album. Soaring peaks, wooded hillsides, monuments silhouetted in the distance, snakey roads visible down through the deep valleys and up the other side again, birds of prey hovering overhead, and hundreds of wild drivers, trying to force bloody foreign drivers like me off the road.

Vitoria's looks like yet another great Basque city. Is there no end to them?

The hotel, the Dato, is gloriously kitsch. It fancies itself as a monument to Art Nouveau, and the rooms and landings are full of zany period sculptures and decoration. Huge mirrors and stained glass everywhere.

And all for about �25 per day, per room.

Thurs 27 Nov 2003

Spain has a lot of runners. I thought that this morning, when I should have been thinking about going for a run. Really, I've seen hundreds of people jogging round the place. It's nearly two weeks since the Brighton 10K, and I seem to have entered an involuntary retirement. Bugger it, I'm recharging my batteries before the serious stuff begins.

Vitoria's a stunning place. Everyone should visit this region at least once in their lives, and shouldn't miss its capital, Vitoria. Do as we did: spend a day just sloping round the ancient part of the city, goggling at 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th century churches and schools and fortifications. Old Europe at its best.

I've spent more time than I wanted to on this trip thinking about George W Bush and his cronies, and how badly they've affected my life. When Rumsfeld spoke contemptuously about "Old Europe" in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, I thought, yeah, that sums up your myopic, egocentric, insensitivity in one simple phrase. It displayed everything that's wrong about their vision, and their understanding of the world around them. Bush antagonised London for four days last week, for no other reason than his own ego, and he's already hunting down new photo-opportunities as election year approaches. On tonight's TV news I see that he's flown all the way to Iraq just to be photographed wearing a flak jacket and holding, with hilarious appropriateness, a large turkey. An hour or so later, when the photographers had done their stuff, he clambered back up the steps of the plane and went home again.

Today is our last full day in Spain, and we're enjoying it. After our sight-seeing day and a trip to the modern art museum, where I decided to spend most of the time sitting in the caf�, reading, writing and absorbing good quality Rioja, we treated ourselves to a good meal out this evening, and more good wine. Then back to the hotel room where I plan to watch a rerun of the Inter Milan-Arsenal match, and polish off a half bottle of something decent.

Tomorrow we go home. I won't think about running at all in the morning. Which is just as well.

It's been a great trip.

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