Did someone say something about running a marathon?
The first phase of the house-move seems to be grinding past with reasonable success. The 3rd day of cleaning and scratching have at last taken us beyond the disgusting end of the chores: the bathrooms and kitchen. Now we are embracing the more genteel tasks of carpet cleaning and window-washing and… but just how interested are you in the minutiae of someone else’s domestic sanitation? Let’s move on.
This morning I sampled my first Berkshire run. How nice to be somewhere else. The cool, rainswept jaunt took me along the picturesque Kennet and Avon canal for around 6 miles, to a spot past Aldermaston Wharf, where I turned and ran back. Towards the end I tired and ended up walking the last mile or so, but a run of between 10 and 11 miles was fine.
Being a canal, the route was pleasingly flat though the scenery and surroundings still managed to be spectacular in a kind of serene and very English way. At one of the several points where the canal met the River Kennet, a stately heron stood on the weir, waiting for lunch to leap past. There were cheerful greetings from the occasional barge gliding by, and from other users of the towpath. Fewer walkers and cyclists and runners than expected: a good sign.
Here was a different world from the one I’ve been accustomed to. But more than a physical difference: the social rules seemed at odds with the real world beyond. It was like an idealised version of reality where almost everyone is in leisure mode, relaxed and full of innocent, childlike smiles and salutations. It was a sort of primary-coloured XP-land, full of happy-clappy smily people. Perhaps there is a canal-side weed that exudes some kind of mild LSD-like sensation to all who pass.
Got back full of leg ache: a consequence I suspect of running on the bumpy towpath instead of the usual tarmac roads.
Tomorrow is a rest day. Off to the match as usual. Meeting up with a mate I’ve not seen for a while so some beer might have to spilt. But what the hell, it’s a holiday…
