Yesterday was a bad day. Maybe I was slightly hungover, which wouldn’t have helped, but I felt strangely isolated. I say “strangely” because I’m pretty self-sufficient. As long as I have a computer or a book, and access to a fine wine cellar, I’m perfectly happy with my own company. But yesterday it sort of crowded in on me there for a while.
Work is relentlessly worrying. It’s become 7-days a week, and will be until the end of the financial year at the start of April. In addition, the last time I ran was a week ago, and I’ve lapsed into comfort-eating. I’ve started doing the strangest things, like returning from the pub on Friday evening, and immediately setting about cooking myself a chicken Madras. It was the best curry I’ve had in months, but I shouldn’t be eating 1200-calorie meals at midnight on top of several pints of fine English ale. I’m supposed to be dwindling towards a lissome athlete in time for April 20, but I seem to be having an extended Pete Tong moment.
To compound the sense of loneliness, M has gone away to her folks for the weekend, and my favourite pub in the village has just shut. As in forever. The Crown was actually a rather grotty boozer, but it stocked West Berkshire Brewery’s fine Good Old Boy bitter. Most Friday nights, I would meet up with my CAMRA mate, Russ, to sup a few GOBs while we diagnosed the world’s problems, and hammered out ideal solutions. The trouble was, I could rarely recall our conclusions. Or worse, remembered them, but had no idea what itch they were designed to scratch.
We knew that the existing landlord, Graham, was finishing on Friday, and were told that the new people would arrive the following day. But on Friday we learnt that the new people had pulled out, leaving no one to look after the shop. So it’s gone dark; just the latest example of a blight that is closing 40 pubs a week in the UK. It’s a contraction that will have far-reaching social consequences, yet it goes largely unmentioned. Perhaps in a turbulent sea of disastrous economic news, this trend is seen as just an insignificant bit of flotsam. Or perhaps the news machines feel powerless to stop it. Pubs have been in decline for a few years, since supermarket booze got so cheap. And the smoking ban, which I welcomed, hasn’t helped. There was a noticeable instant drop in pub attendances after the ban came in, and they seem not to have recovered.
But wait while I… ooofff!….. clamber off this soapbox. There are other pubs in the village, but the closure of this one does feel like the loss of a friend — and it may well amount to that literally, as Russ is not likely to come over this way for the more commonplace beers available in the other drinkeries. I won’t suffer too much on that front. I will be happy enough with the London Pride available at a couple of places, or the St Austell Tribute Ale at the Red Lion. Not as good as GOB though, nor as cheap.
Another reason for my gloom (not to mention the general subduedness in the wake of my mother’s demise) is the lack of running this week. Last Sunday, I managed a steady 12 miles on what seemed to be the coldest day of the winter by some distance. It was the same morning of the Almeria Half, which I should have been running. I even set off at the precise moment that Almeria was due to start — 9 a.m. (10 in Spain), though i wasn’t to know that there was a characteristic Spanish bodge which resulted in the entire field running more than a mile before the race had to be called back and restarted, an hour later. It seems that the lead runners had taken the wrong route. That was an exciting new variation on a theme. Last year I entered the 10K, but someone had forgotten to erect any direction signs, so the 10K entrants ended up doing 13K. Quite funny really.
So anyway, I trotted 12 miles on they greyest, iciest, most hostile running day in years, my head filled with the vision of my mother’s corpse from the day before. We don’t often see dead people, and it’s always a salutary experience. It was strange how you instantly sense that they are no longer there, even though look pretty much the same. I’m charged with delivering a eulogy at the funeral, so I was able to think of a few ideas.
I headed off down the canal, coming off after 3 miles or so to follow the hilly back lanes I’ve mentioned previously. It was the first time I’d done the hills since my injury at Christmas, and it was far from comfortable. In fact, it was a failure. I didn’t seem to have the energy — mental or physical — to tackle them. After struggling up the first at a semi-plod, I pretty much walked up the others.
After 6 miles or so, back on the straight and narrow for a mile, a car stopped alongside me, and a harassed looking woman of about my age leaned through the window. She was lost, and close to tears. Remarkably, she went into a rant about her 93 year old father, and how she had to drive up from London each weekend to see him, and he had no quality of life, and it was doing her head in because she had so much work to do, and although he had carers attending to him, she was struggling to cope with the situation, and her mother had died 10 years earlier, and really it would be better for all concerned if the end would come for him, and is there a back road to Pangbourne as the police had closed the A340……
Easy to parody her, but I felt sympathy. I don’t think she was being unreasonable or selfish. She was stressed out. It made me think that it was actually not a bad thing that my mum had gone when she did, after a short but difficult illness. She could quite easily have lingered on for years, unable to walk or do anything constructive, totally dependent on others, and becoming incoherent and miserable. It’s no fun for anyone.
When I got home, I found my wife running up the drive to meet me, with a medal to put round my neck, an Almeria teeshirt, and a goody bag containing chocolate, a pen, and a couple of tomatoes. A very sweet thought.
On Monday we woke to find a dense layer of snow over our world. Around 6 inches fell in the south-east. It won’t sound much to some, but it was apparently the heaviest snowfall in 18 years, and managed to paralyse London and most of the region. Many people gave up too easily, and used it as an excuse for a day off work. Despite the elements, I set off at about 10 to drive to my dad’s place in London, and had no trouble at all until I reached his small side road, when I found my wheels spinning a little as I parked. The major roads were gritted but empty of traffic, making it actually quite a pleasant drive.
Plenty of sombre family business to discuss, and a visit to the funeral directors to undertake…
It was a new experience for me. We were assisted by a middle-aged cockney lady with a chemical blonde, bouffant hairstyle and a gravelly, 40-a-day, voice which seemed overwhelmingly appropriate. She knew her stuff, and in these situations, you need people who know their stuff. Like how to arrange the transportation of a body to Ireland. There are legal hoops a plenty, and this lady helped us jump through them.
The snow, which has hung around all week, became my excuse not to run. It was only today, Sunday, that the pavements have been clear enough to consider a jaunt. A week on from my last outing, and with that late-night curry on board, as well as a couple of fry-ups and a few pints of beer, I finally left the house again in my running shoes.
And what a beautiful day for it. The sun was out, and it was actually faintly warm. Uncold enough not to wear a jacket. I don’t dare weigh myself, but I must have lumped on 10 pounds this week — and I felt it. The first two miles were horribly painful and lethargic. When I got to 3, I had found my stride a little better but still, there was no chance of a long run today. This was just a loosener; a reminder; a memo to self that I wasn’t off the hook. I have a non-negotiable marathon to run in April, and I mustn’t pretend that I don’t.
Interesting times. Perhaps the lack of running contributed to the wave of misery I found myself surfing on yesterday. Certainly I felt in better spirits today, though work is still gnawing at me. It’s like being tethered to a large rat. The more bites it takes, the larger and more powerful it becomes, while I diminish.
Must stop it somehow, or it will consume me. And then where will I be? But this is a project for the week after next, when this grim merry-go-round finally winds down.
