Mornings in autumn/winter, when I have a run planned, often start with a quick look at the weather on TV while I sip my first coffee that slides down at the speed of light. The nationwide picture looked gloomy as Carol the weather lady explained what the sweeping blue lines with red teeth meant for each region it swept over. The south coast of West Sussex where we live looked as though it was going to get the worst of the wet stuff. It seems that she has to squeeze in warning for the entire UK in about one fast talking minute.
Well, that was TV. Looking out of our sitting room window though things didn’t look half as bad. Mind you it wasn’t looking like a summer day either. It was overcast but the light shower we saw earlier had moved on and the trees in the garden of the house over the road, were perfectly still and we decided to get dressed to go for the run as planned.
On the way to Angmering Park Estate, we listened to a chat radio station where people were talking about the latest ‘Postcode Lockdown’ areas and who had said what about it. Somebody said that working from home and joining in a series of Zoom sessions, was not the same as being in the workplace at a large company and having the snippets of social life with colleagues, even if it was just that you had to speak to somebody on another floor and pick up some papers, that just by chance, you might meet somebody you like to exchange a few words with, just while you take the lift to another floor. The person may be from the main office or from ‘Human Remains’, that you hadn’t seen for a while!
Steve and I burst out laughing and neither of us had ever heard that department given that typically British change of name. When we had almost stopped laughing our heads off about it, we both agreed that we had never heard it called that before but that it was really funny. Steve said it had made him laugh so much that he couldn’t think what the proper name of the department was and laughed again when I told him it should have been Human Resources, HR more commonly.
That put us in a good mood before we arrived to park our blackberry coloured VW Caddy (that we call Violetta from the Merry Widow). It still was not raining and the air was still when we got out of the van to start off. Me, walking my legs into action up the first slope, as Steve got his mountain bike out and his helmet on. On Sunday, I had felt really good, after I had had very satisfying run, but was a bit tired today and I felt less full of life. There is often no explaining when you will feel good and when you won’t. On Monday we had done our hour-long Ballet workout on YouTube and then a turbo session after that but nothing too exhausting.
Anyway, I was feeling a bit tired so took the start fairly easy and hope that as is often the case that I would come to life later in the run. Then it started to rain and Steve said “You know what the Irish would call this don’t you”? “Yes” I replied, “Soft”. Steve and I have made many work trips to Ireland during our 43 years together and a decent number of those days have been ‘soft’, but Ireland is not called the Emerald Isle for nothing and a lot of soft rain keeps the beautiful scenery that deep lush green.
As is often the case, I felt better and better as we followed todays run route and even with a slow-ish start, it wasn’t a bad time for the distance at all, the last two miles being downright enjoyable, even though there was nothing soft about the rain by the time we reached the end. The wind had got its self well up into a more important state and the rain was considerably heavier.
At home Steve had a bit of office work for me to do, and handed me a small piece of card with some measurements on. One of my small efforts to be green, is that I cut up greetings cards when I take them down after their display period, then there is always a little pile of small pieces of card to write shopping lists on or to make temporary notes on like this one. Steve had laughed as he turned it over, having written on the plain side. Inside a long curved box it said, “Daphne had learned to use yoga and meditation to handle stress….. Just kidding, she was on her third glass of wine!
After the few emails, quotes and invoices, we both changed our clobber again, in readiness for just an hour on our turbo trainers upstairs. After a quick bath Steve went off to work to sort out a few little chores. I had taken my bath after he left and was sitting on Steve’s office chair, wearing my bath robe with a towel around my head, when he ran to tell me that he was totally stuck in traffic due to an accident that looked as if it would take a while to clear so he would be longer that he had told me before he left. While we were talking, Birdy walked into the office and sat in front of me ‘meowing’ loudly.
After I had finished speaking to Steve I looked down at the cat and said indignantly, “What”?
She repeated what she had said much louder the second time.
“What are you saying, that I am sitting where you want to sit”?
I stood up and stepped aside and without as much as a ‘thank you’ she jumped up in the chair and started licking herself clean nonchalantly.
No comments:
Post a Comment