Summer running.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Running slipped off the agenda and I hardly noticed it wasn’t there. Then an appropriate route suggested itself on the last day of a 5-day trip to the UK and the inevitable moment of re-acquaintance arrived.

This was to be a little homage to my father and my intention was to follow the exact route of our last walk together. Perhaps it was fitting that it hadn’t been some tough old slog along an icy and windswept mountain ridge far from home. The chosen path of that sunny summer day two months ago had been a simple one, one which stroked the gentle meanders of a very English river.

On my return to the river in late September autumn leaves floated peacefully on the surface and although the flow was barely perceptible it teemed with metaphors. A flock of Canadian geese formed a tidy V overhead. A swan beat its mighty wings like thunder and flew a cumbersome line before landing on the water 100 yards further on. A badger slunk into the shadows; this was the first time I’d ever seen a live one.

I ran for less than 30 minutes, at first with a spring in my stride borne from the optimism that I was still the same. Then I realized that I was running in the wrong direction .In July we had walked upstream in search of the footbridge to Arley station where the Severn Valley steam trains spit out their steamy hellos. But today my route was taking me down through Stourport on Severn and past its mini-Blackpool pleasure park.

No matter, both sections of the river were evocative enough of other times, of old haunts for Black Country youth escaping the smog for the fresh country air, a mere bike ride away. A twirl on the big wheel was just one more option and a wheel is as good as a river as a metaphor for life. This was where it all started. This was home.

I stopped and looked upstream and downstream. The water was so still I couldn’t judge which was which. The only thing that I could be sure about was that I’d run the wrong way and that this was a river of metaphors. So there.

Sorry dad. How many times did I laugh at you for carrying a map everywhere? And now you’re smiling down at me, wagging your finger and saying I told you so....

30 minutes running were enough for me and I walked back to Bewdley.

Recommended reading “My father and other working class heroes” by Gary Imlach. It’s a book I should have read earlier.