As my husband just passed by me while I was working at my desk, I asked him to throw a scrunchy to me, to tie my wild hair back so that I could see clearly as I typed. I had taken one off earlier when we came in from our run and he picked that up and threw it across the room at me. I reached out, a metre to my right as it sailed through the air, way off course and grabbed it. He had the nerve to say, “Well caught”! Huh! For somebody who is very good at so many things, it is surprising then, that he cannot catch and he cannot throw, with any degree of accuracy at all. I had muttered, “I know”, in return, and he walked off mocking my own sarcastic tone. Over the years I have always told him to stand still and not move if I have to throw anything to him because there is no way he can catch anything unless it is thrown directly into his hands. I always leave him to arrange everything most of the time, because I am too much of a dreamer to work on one thing at a time, and I admit to a need to be organised. However, if I stop him putting my foot down by saying “I don’t want to do that”. He will change things around for me. Though once working, I have always worked hard, once I understand the requirements. For a few years now I have not done any of the physical work within our business but I still do most of the office work because he doesn’t type.
It is strange when in his own area of work he can manage any situation and at times when there has been a larger than usual shipment or some other huge task of moving a massive amount of antique furniture around, collecting, packing, delivering etc. when we have been working with another group because of the size of the task, no matter who was in charge at the onset, he will quickly and politely take over completely, to complete the mission as smoothly and competently as possible. He is much admired for this gift.
When I first started working with him, his most trusted employee driver/packer, told me dozens of times that if Stephen had been in the army, they would have made him a general. That always made me laugh because I don’t think he would have liked being given orders, at all, he does like to be in charge and mostly, its best to let him at it, because he never panics, when managing any situation no matter how great the challenge.
Last night after dinner, I had mentioned that I thought we had got a bit lax with our run starts, during the darkest winter days when we are lucky to get 8 hours of daylight. Steve tends to fuss over me a bit during that time when he knows that I really don’t do well for a good eight week at this point of winter. Happily, we have just started to see the sunset getting later by a smidgeon each day. In fact, I think today may well be the first time Sunrise has been before 8 a.m. and that was why I thought it time to start to be less kind to me, and start to put the alarm on early enough to get up, have coffee, get our running kit on, get out of the house, into the car and off to our run start earlier than we have done since before Christmas.
So, we were up and out of bed at 6am this morning, and after I quick news catch up while we sipped our wake-up call coffee, we were on our way. It was barely first light when we got out of the car to start on our way. There were no other people at the parking spot at that time. We were rewarded for making the early start by three pretty little deer crossing our path after only about half a mile which is always a treat for us to see their little white butts bobbing away through the trees, bounding and leaping. Wonderful.
Walking in the woods has never been more popular and the down side of going out later, is that you will have missed any deer that were about because they seem to disappear out of sight when there are hoards of people. Of course, with the kids off school, it is a marvellous thing to do with the family, because they can run around as wildly as they want and shout and yell, without disturbing anybody. Anybody but the wild life that is.
There was not a single soul about for most of our training period this morning. We had hoped for a pretty sunrise whilst we were out, but it was a deadly dreary old morning and there was not a sign of any brilliant colour display at all. The silence of the woods was only broken but the odd cage bred, dopey pheasant, making gobbling sounds as they move, trying not to remember that they can actually fly, but instead, running around like headless chickens. We did briefly see a black animal about the size of a dog but more agile, lightweight and sleek flash through the undergrowth but in the early dim light we could not make out what it could have been. It looked like some sort of wild cat but bigger.
By the time we got back to our car there were a half dozen other cars parked around there as we set of for our short drive around Arundel, just for the beauty of it before setting off for home. Steve had work to do and made a second lap of that small route around Arundel Castle and Cathedral later, and to get there, from his workplace took the quiet roads back past where we had parked for our run but four or five hours later, he counted the cars parked there in the afternoon. He was horrified that there were thirty-six cars at that time. It is only a small space and so the cars that arrive later are parking on the grass bank further along the road and it’s making a real muddy mess. But at least people are able to get out for a bit of fresh air rather than stay stuck indoors all the time, which is miserable but necessary for us all in these horrible times.
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