A marathon may be a metaphor for life, as we like to suggest, but let’s
give it another dimension. Instead of any old mara, let’s make it the
notoriously undulant Beachy Head. It becomes ever clearer to me that
the analogy is about more than the distance and the fatigue. Factor in
the topography — the ascents and descents; the stumbling climb to the
peak, the uncontrollable slide into the crevasse — and the image takes
on a more realistic, 3D aspect.
In my last entry here I was sitting opposite the HR supremo, having my
redundancy confirmed.
Next, I spent a couple of days working through those feelings of
self-pity, resentment and anger that those cast adrift tend to feel.
Following the script, the pain of abandonment finally turns into a
strong sense of liberation and a determination to make them regret
their decision. This is the vital period, when motivation is at its
highest, and you still have a financial cushion.
So after lunch on the Friday of that week, I turned to the internet.
Went to Jobserve,
typed in the name of the company I’d just left, and was surprised to
see a vacancy with a London company looking for someone with these
skills. Called the agency and was told about another opportunity much
closer to home. To cut a short story even shorter, a day or two later,
I was confirmed as the owner of an extendable 6 month contract,
starting on Monday.
Best of all, the new job is far more suited to me than the one I’ve
left behind, and pays a lot more. Hurrah!
Sometimes, life is a bowl of cherries, and sometimes it’s a bowl of
cherries nestling in a bed of roses.
So what have I been doing with my time? Not running, sadly. I’ve had a
bout of shingles recently (chicken pox for grown-ups) and haven’t been
able to do much apart from surfing the web and wandering off to the pub
now and then to discuss the impending World Cup. It’s been a godsend to
be able to stay at home where I can be shirtless without shame.
Domesticity makes a big difference to the itching classes.
My tadpoles have grown several feet in the past couple of weeks. I’m
indebted to my master of wine friend, Richard
Bampfield, for augmenting my family by a thousand or so of
these creatures, though they were little more than a large blob of
tapioca when he donated them.
It’s nearly 40 years since I last followed the life of the frog like
this, and am pleased to be able to notify the great scientific
institutions of this world that evolution appears to take longer than
this to change things very much. On a warm late spring afternoon, there
aren’t too many better ways of spending your time than by peering into
a garden pond, watching nature struggle to bring forth a new
generation. This is theatre like no other. It’s like gazing at one of
those fantastically chaotic paintings by Hieronymus Bosch or Breugel or
Hogarth, teeming with life in all its splendour and all its distress.
Latest bulletin is that the advanced wave has produced a platoon of
smug-looking froglets.
Much of the rest of my time has been spent on the bureaucracy of
becoming self-employed. This means becoming a limited company to take
in the consultancy work as well as the the web hosting and other stuff
that I do. I’m now Running Total Ltd (website may not
be operational yet — I now need to give it a major overhaul). In fact
I’ve been Running Total Ltd since just after the Hamburg Marathon last
year. It was while I was shuffling round the Alster Lake for the second time
that I began thinking about formalising a few projects, some
running-related (hence the name), others IT. I’ve been web hosting for
years for pin money, but it seemed like time to take this more
seriously. I’ve not followed this up till now. Time to get moving.
So I’ve been busy appointing and talking to an accountant, doing my
accounts for last year, sorting out tax, company bank account, joining
a professional body or two, buying professional indemnity insurance,
and all that stuff. It’s time I started doing some of this stuff
properly.
But in this high-pressure world of business I’ve just entered, I’ll
need some way of puncturing the stress bubble, which is where running
comes in. This illness has been debilitating but it might have done me
a favour. Needless to say I’ve been eating and drinking too much, and
have put on a few pounds, but the break has allowed me to rest
properly. Some coaches, including Hal Higdon, recommend that you take 6
weeks off once a year. It’s been more like 8 in my case, but so be it.
I’m unfit, but nothing that a few painful, breathless sessions on the
towpath won’t sort out.
