This morning when Steve and I started out for our run, we thought we would take a different route and try to stay on half decent paths or even road, which we usually avoid since I much prefer to run off road. We started out more of less letting our trainers select the way we turned and it was not long until they turned into one of the many woodland pathways that for a month or so had been so very wet and muddy that we had crossed those routes off our list for a while, since neither of us can do with trying to run on very slippery surfaces with a danger of falling and injuring ourselves. I do think that in my case at eighty plus I need to be a little more cautious.
With
the number of storms and heavy rainfalls of late, some of the narrow ways had
become pretty much impassable and there were more deviations of the line to
avoid very boggy patches, that we stopped even trying to negotiate and have
stuck to wider pathways. However; this last week or so the whole of the woods
has frozen hard and so what was muddy, leafy ways, now hard as rock but terribly
rutty after horses and mountain bikes. Still, we were able to get a half decent
run session in today with a little care……. Until, having taken a path that we
had never used before after about thirty minutes, we arrived at a heavily fence,
wired and gated place that bore signs saying Strictly Private, no public access.
There was a pick-up truck parked not far along and an estate house on one side.
It was our good fortune that the driver got out of the truck and waved to us
then came to the gate and chatted for a moment; we have been regular runners in
his private parkland for nearly fifty years and know by sight many of the
estate staff. This man was one that we
waved to often somewhere along our run route. He came and let us through and
told us exactly where we were and said that that was where he lived. So that
saved us having to backtrack a mile or so to where we had turned off.
It seemed to me to be colder still today and so I added yet another layer, a fourth layer that is, to my poor old body. Still there was no question of over heating on such a cold early morning.
After that, we stayed on the road for a mile or so until we turned back onto a known path that was not too bad for the last stretch of our run.
It was wonder that I even woken up this morning because I had a yet another very bad night sleep-wise, I had got up and sat in an armchair and read some of the book that I am enjoying at the moment which is one by one of my favourite authors Nora Roberts, called The Art of Deception. It isn’t a new one but none the less one that I have missed, it’s a paperback and at the bottom of the cover there is a quote from the Washington Post that claims Nora Roberts to be: The Most Successful Novelist on Planet Earth! Well, I’m enjoying is very much anyway.
Since we the masses, need to be kept busy in the light of the troubles of the day, I have another recommendation for anybody with time to read this page of mine. My husband and I watched a new movie on TV last night, it is called RAMS and stars Sam Neill, Michael Caton and Miranda Richardson. It is an English language version of the original Icelandic film of the same name that Steve and I had watched a few months ago with subtitles and loved it even though it was very harsh compared to this new production. It is a most unusual story about a pair of New Zealand sheep farmer brothers, who have not spoken to each other in forty years since their father died and left the whole farm to just one of the brothers. They lived and worked next door to each other having split the property but never spoke a word until a disaster occurs. It may sound like Dulls-Ville but it is utterly brilliant, funny and sad.
I can also make yet another confession at this point. This secret is that whilst out on my runs, I also speak to the sheep as do these farmers. I often tell them how pretty they are and that I like their earrings!
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