A Change of Plan

 

We were dressed to run this morning, having sipped our morning coffee as we caught with the latest dreadful world news. We had made a very slow start; the loss of early morning light, having firmly got the better of me now, and Steve can sleep for England anyway if he does not have to get up early for work.

 

So it was later, well past 8am, just as Stephen picked up the car keys for us to go out to our standard run start spot, when a text came through. It was from a friend who we had arranged to run with on Monday. She had a course booked on this Sunday morning, when we usually run with her but now her plans had been changed and so she could after all run on Sunday. So ALL Change!

 

 

Actually, we didn’t change out of our run kit, but decided that since we were ready to leave the house, we would take a nice walk instead. Steve drove to somewhere different and parked up, ready for us to breathe a little bit of fresh sea air and walk on Littlehampton West Beach. The light had changed since we drew back our curtains earlier, when there was not a cloud in the sky. The sea was sparkling brightly even though there were lots of pretty clouds in the sky and in the distance, it looked as though it was raining over part of the Rampion wind farm that I think it actually about six miles off the shore at Littlehampton but clear as could be today.

 

 

We had walked in a circle around the golf course there, and then back along the beach to the mouth of the River Arun. We had taken the slatted the path over the sand dunes and stood for a while looking at the old fort. Local volunteers have done such a great job of digging out it out from under the blackberry bushes and restoring it so that the original most interesting shape that is visible again. 

 

 

When we reached the river bank we stopped for a while and watched a good number of fishing boats making their way out to sea, struggling against the ferocious power of the incoming tide on second fastest river in the UK. It was most entertaining and we wondered if they had left their departure time twenty minutes too long, because it looked as through it was quite a struggle for the boat’s engines.  It was a bit of a change for us to have time to stop and stare; instead of being out on a run, when the point is to run; and not just admire the scenery willy-nilly. We used the change of plan to take photos of all the tourist information boards that are on the route to the beach ready for the tourists to see, my favourite is the one about the rope makers. It is after all, Rope Walk!