In Another World

 

In Another World

It’s time to admit that I have lost track of what day it is completely now. Every day seems like Sunday or at least it seems like Sunday used to be. In a strange way it’s rather nice and so peaceful.

Every week used to be the same. Planned. Places to go on certain days. People to look forward to seeing. Friends to talk to even if it was only few words in the middle of a swim training session, a quick exchange at the shallow end from lane to lane.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday swim at Littlehampton Wave 6.30 am. Sometimes Steve and I did a short run afterwards then maybe went to Costa Coffee before going home to get ready for a working day. Tuesday and Thursday, a turbo training session or in summer, a bike ride then home or to work.  On Saturday morning, a longer session on the bike in the morning and our club swim session at 5pm in the afternoon and a bit if a chin-wag with pals.

  

Sunday morning was the longer run. After driving to the start point Steve and would begin our run before our friend even arrives at the parking spot. She is a little faster that us and would pass us somewhere along the route. Where she caught up with us would vary on several different things. Once off the hard surface she would take her trainers off and put them in her little back pack and continue to run barefoot unless it was extremely cold. There is another use for her back pack too. She is the greenest person I know and would not pass and empty beer of coke can, McDonald’s carton, or any other piece of plastic or metal that one of the world’s brainless idiots had cast aside in our wonderful countryside. She might also pick up natures gifts from the ground… a mouse skull, a pretty feather, a fluffy bit of sheep wool. All go in the bag. She has the long poem that she is learning, and recites as she runs, also in the bag in case she forgets a line from it as she goes and can check where she got lost.

 

After the long hilly run we meet again and all go off to a tea shop nearby, we take turns at choosing which one to grace with our muddy trainers, slight odour and happy faces. 

Now we are missing our friends and unbearably missing our swimming. Our daily schedule is an alternate one of Bike or Run followed by classes found on YouTube for the rest of the morning.  Our training is going very well indeed and we feel better about it because we are regularly doing stretching or movement of some kind and therefore our muscles are not tight or tender, that is big change, a huge plus.

Steve is with me all day everyday instead of going to work after our daily training.

He is less tired because he is not doing any heavy work loading and unloading furniture. There is no work. No transport to be done, no collections to be made, no packing to be done for clients. There are no clients. That world has ended. The business is on hold. Costs are not of course.

On our short journey and 5.15am today Steve remarked that it was such a huge contrast to what our world was like. As an example he mentioned that in a normal busy work week the cost of diesel would be between £900 and £1000 for the transport journeys. At the start of this Lock down, our little quite old VW Golf car, who is called Markus had a full tank and has not had to be taken for a fill, neither have either of our business transport vans.

We did a longer run this morning and the wildlife count was 17 deer and couple even had antlers not many (deer that is and not antlers) a Yellowhammer and noisy Blackbird, lots of spring lambs being really silly in little groups, a Woodpecker and a few Sky larks. As we ran down beside the gallops for the nearby racing stables we had the added joy of seeing seven or eight races horses galloping two at a time to the top of the hill. It is the time of year that spring flowers are bursting open everywhere.  If you didn’t know about the daily death toll, the lack of income and the still present danger; the world would still be full of wonder.