Easy run day blessed with nature study

Easy run day blessed with nature study.

We still started off early, even though the forecast held the threat of the overnight rain continuing into our outside exercise time.  There were a few dark blue grey clouds about but when we set off there was not actually any rain. Having had what for us is a quite big run week we had an easy 4-5 miler planned for this morning on a route that didn’t do more than gently undulate.

On the short drive to our start point I had to smile because Steve had the radio tuned to the BBC Asian Network, that immediately gets me dancing in my seat and I can even do that side to side head thing that the Asian dancers do now and again. So at junctions, we get some pretty funny looks. It is something we have both grown to like and in fact even years ago when we were first an item, we use to listen to a radio programme on LBC called Rice and Peas. This BBC radio station has the same sort of mix from modern ethnic music, some Caribbean right through to really lovely Bollywood bouncy, wriggly, dancing music. I love the hands and you can’t stop me once I’m off.

At home I listen to Classic FM and it runs all the time, whether I am writing or sewing. They have had a shuffle with the announcers and I am now happy that it means that I have Alexander Armstrong for 9 am-12noon every weekday and he is after al, my favourite, such a nice voice. If you were checking off boxes, with the good points, he is also a great singer himself and had a number one classical album a while back which I did buy. His third talent is that he is very funny and I will forgive anything from anybody who makes me laugh.  Steve likes him too and we saw him at the Chichester Festival Theatre when they were recording Friday Night is Music Night, he sang McArthur Park which was amazing. Oh yes, and of course there is Pointless on TV where he shows himself to be right clever clogs. Steve has a favourite broadcaster that he listens to in the bath, while he is working and in the car sometimes. His radio man in Maajid Nawaz, who is also very interesting to listen to, and never seems to lose the plot. Nothing blots that man’s clear thinking. 

The little easy run today was almost a pleasure. I admit that those days when all my running was a joy, have actually long passed and now most of it is training that has to be done to keep me where I want to be; Fit and healthy, and not let go of something that I have worked very hard to establish.

We were into mile three when I called a halt because I had spotted and really lovely beetle who was striding along with a mission, bounding straight down the middle of a flint path with a sense of true purpose. 

 So we stopped for a couple of minutes to take photos but Steve drew the line at the suggestion of me picking him up, in case I put him off his stride and he got lost. And beside he said, people would think you were barmy for playing with a beetle. They think I’m barmy anyway so what does it matter. I never have been that girly about bugs, mice spiders etc. I think you will agree that he looks pretty handsome in the photos. The beetle that is.

Toward the end of the run we passed, at the standard distance, a big man with loads of photographic equipment including an enormous lens, to whom I shouted, “Did you get the Yellowhammer just down there”. He said that he had seen it but not caught it on camera. And he looked like a true professional with all the kit. So we were pretty pleased that we did get a couple of shots of it as we passed by his usual stretch hedge.

 

We did some vigorous self help knee warming massage and stimulation after we got in. We have both long held the belief that your own hands are a powerful tool since our earliest days together when we got into that sort of thing about forty years ago.

All that is left to mention is that Steve is still trying to redeem his bad film choice the other day. He had spent some time trying to find something better to prove that he is not totally useless as picking movies. This time he struck gold, even though it was based on a children’s book. It was a Martin Scorsese film, although you could have been forgiven for thinking it had come out of the Stephen Spielberg stable. 

‘Hugo’, was one we had missed in 2011 when it was made and was most unusual and imaginative, sheer pleasure for the eyes and mind. It was an homage to old movies and was filled to the brim with top quality actors. The title role was played by Asa Butterfield as the twelve year old boy whose adventures the film focused upon. Cast was: Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lee, Helen McCrory, Jude Law, Ray Winstone and Sasha Baron Cohen in a part that was made for him. 

 

 Wordy Birdy

When we had finished all our other exercise indoors, my little cat Birdy said that she thought all the stuff we do is utterly ridiculous and all you really need to do to stay on tip top form is run around like a Maniac for ten minutes twice day and then sleep until your next meal.