Champagne for one

The raiding party has been and gone, carrying off my wife like a trophy. So once again, the apartment is empty and silent — and seems even more so in this bright sunshine.

Chatting to my mother-in-law last week, shortly before the great departure, she opined that the flat is beautiful and the view over the lake lovely. “But”, she added helpfully, “I would be lonely living here on my own”.

Am I lonely here? I suppose I could be. But if it doesn’t feel bad, how would I know?

M was here with me for six months, before the last granules of her six-month sabbatical dribbled away. She returned to Blighty four months ago, and despite her occasional trips over, Switzerland isn’t feeling like a joint enterprise at the moment.

This may change. She’s applied for a job with the company I work for, though the good news that she’d successfully negotiated the third of the four hurdles arrived in the same message as the bad – that the “current economic turmoil” had raised the possibility of a hiring freeze, with no final decision yet made. [ADDED LATER – She didn’t get the position.]

In occasional moments of melodramatic melancholy, I fancy myself discarded and detached from it all, like a Champagne cork tossed into the lake from one of the party boats. Happily, the default position is optimism all the way. Not self-abandonment but self-rescue; an exhilarating escape; a seizing of opportunity. The old tabula rasa has been re-presented, and I must make best use of it. Don’t just grasp the nettle, man. Yank it from the earth and chomp on it till your eyes water.

Yes, one has to be positive, which is the problem with the mother-in-law’s cogitation. “I would be lonely living here on my own” states her difficulty, but where is her solution? It’s the vital bit, and it’s missing. My solution is to be unaware of any problem. Too busy experimenting with lifestyles, overlaying nuances, working out which existential outfit suits me best. The great optometrist of circumstance is slotting different lenses into the frame, and I patiently wait for the moment of clarity.

What I do know is that I miss running badly [sic]. I’ve done almost nothing in that line for 18 months, and it hasn’t improved me in any way. A few months ago I declared myself persona non plodder, but any appeal this passive calling may have had has now faded.

Time to try again. The left calf hasn’t coo-eed me for a long time. Is this Rottweiler of an injury dead, or just sleeping? A few slaps with a sweaty trainer should provoke the answer.

This pinnacle of pining has been reached by a number of simultaneous routes. One is the thought of Almeria. I passed on the RC annual January jaunt to southern Spain this year. At the time, it seemed no great loss. Apart from not being in running shape, I had a lot on my Swiss plate, and happily nibbled its contents as I watched Medio Maraton weekend come and go. But the thought bounced through my head again just last week, and this time I caught it. Maybe it was the great Antonio d’Almeria with his recent messages; or the muffled Tasmanian chatter from the next room. Or the onset of autumn, and the need to plan some watery winter sunshine. Whatever it was, the outcome was the decision to rejoin the party in January 2012.

So last Thursday I auditioned with an early morning stumble along the edge of the lake. Just 30 minutes or so, but enough to shake up what remains of my respiratory infrastructure and lower limbs. I spent a recuperative weekend in a state of mild, consolatory drunkenness, wondering if I would ever walk again. By Tuesday evening, things were looking up, and I was able to scuttle breathlessly  down the hill again to the lakeside path, where I tottered through the swarms of leaner, fitter specimens for just under 5 kilometres.

And then tonight, I was out again, but this time for a strenuous hill walk. Just a couple of towny miles and 40 minutes, but enough to measure the length of the hill (950 metres) that runs from the end of my road down to the lake. I can get there in fewer metres, as it were, but I wanted to gauge this particular route as it’s pleasingly steep and twisty, and mostly traffic-free. Calf permitting, this will be a fearsome workout.

If I ever manage to run all the way to the top without expiring, I’ll throw a party. The guest list may not be too extensive at present, mind.