RE: What next eh?
I didn’t think it would be like this. I don’t often think of my own death, but occasionally, as with most of us, I reflect on how I might go. I just haven’t ever considered that my untimely death would be caused by trench foot. But after yesterday’s run, I fear that this could be the reason for my demise.
There is a new route in town, well around town to be a little more accurate. It leaves Hillyfield and winds its way up to Houndean Rise. From there it steps out onto the muddy paths that lead to Jills Ponds, before taking a gently undulating transverse to the top of Landport Bottom. Usually, it then rolls down the hill back into Lewes for a road loop circumnavigating the town centre and back along Southover to home.
Yesterday however, I broke away from the familiar circuit, and it a fit of stupidity took off from the top of Landport Bottom down through the Quarry to Offham, and with a shout of “Hey, Nonny Nonny”, back along the river.
The rain was lashing down when I left the house, the tracks up behind the racecourse were soft, muddy and slow going… but the riverside was something else. There was no recourse to dry land; nothing but a mile of deep, wet, soggy, dirty, mud. Every footstep disappeared into the mire - brown, sticky water leapt up my legs as I slipped and scrambled my way home. Eventually I emerged at Pells to the joys of tarmac, looking like a drowned rat. Feet soaked like never before.
On arrival home, I was forced to undress on the doorstep and head directly to the shower, where I spend twenty minutes in a futile effort to breathe life back into my poor, destroyed feet. I could detect the first signs of gangrene starting to move in. It is only a matter of time my friends… only a matter of time.
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