No Ordinary April

[Bierzo Baggie]

It was certainly no ordinary April. With my head well down with a combination of work and baby preparations and not having run at all since March the Springtime changes have passed by unnoticed and unremarked.

Whilst March consisted of first tentative buds sprouting almost apologetically from leaf bare trees, April is a month of rude, abundant growth. It rained a lot here and blossom came and went and everything turned green. The roadside weeds were suddenly dotted with tiny purple flowers and the first poppies came out alongside them. The nesting swallows settled and then chased each other round and round the entrance to the garage . But without running I’d become more or less oblivious to all this. Didn’t actually miss the physical activity of it, ...hey, I don’t even like running that much (walking and cycling and even football are for me altogether pleasanter forms of exercise) but I have missed sensing what’s around me, hearing the wind or the rain or feeling the sun on my forehead. Equate all this with feeling ...well, alive.

No endorphin-induced withdrawal symptoms then, but a certain nostalgia crept in on looking through the kitchen window and seeing Monte Pajariel now exhibiting a patchwork quilt of more subtler shades of green. Spring, rebirth, growth and the continuation of nature’s great cycle...and ....and.....