100 Seconds to Midnight

Running is a curious past-time, because at it's simplest form it requires little skill there is an assumption that it will be easy - it isn't - but it is addictive, or at least it can be.  On a good day the hard effort pails into insignificance as the endorphin rush that follows the run blocks any pain and causes feelings of euphoria akin to a dose of morphine. On a really good day these feelings take hold whilst running and in your head you are suddenly invincible, ready to conquer the world.  On many other days your mojo is nowhere to be seen and yet still you lace up your shoes and head out, come rain, shine or snow in the knowledge that one day it will return, you just have to keep at it - regularly. In an attempt to build some much needed continuity at the start of this year, I devised the 20/20 challenge for 2020.  To walk 20 miles or 20 km and run 20 miles or 20 km each week.  Last week was the first week I ran over 20 miles, this Sunday was to see me complete 20 consec

True to my word, I returned to the churchyard last Friday, but rather than long bows and Brontës it was the following that moved me: IN MEMORY OF David who died April 25th 1847 Aged 11 Years ALSO of six Children who died in their infancy.   There is much in that one sentence that I don't fully comprehend, first and foremost the grief those parents endured, followed by questioning why the children aren't named.  In my ignorance I can only surmise that it was either a lack of money to have the stone engraved with additional letters or perhaps convention not to include them individually, but what is obvious reading the inscription all these years later is that, despite the statistic they may have been reduced to, they were never just a number.  Much like 33,614 isn't (at time of writing). Like many I watched with incredulity on Sunday night at the way in which lockdown in England was eased, and horror on Monday morning at the pictures emerging of busy railway stations and tube

If I stop to think about the process I go through in writing this blog, I would say that it generally involves catching a train of thought during the week, running with it to see where it takes me and deciding if there is enough in it to reach a conclusion.  It is usually intuitive, involving a slow meandering through my mind trying to link my various musings and then several hours searching for the words that best describe those reflections.  It ignites my creativity and takes me into a head space that makes me feel alive and most importantly shuts everything else out for a while.  Not so however, when your main train of thought during the week concerns the dog's anxiety and depression and the conclusion you keep coming to is that he needs another dog for company but you don't really want to go there, except that you could. It would be so easy, especially when the pros are all immediate and the cons belong to a world 'out there' and for now, out of reach.  And that in

do not fast forward into something you're not ready for.  or allow yourself to shrink back into what's comfortable.  growth lies in the uneasiness.   the inbetween.   the unfinished sentence.   you are a season of becoming.          Danielle Doby  I turned 50 on Tuesday. 18,263 days alive as this incarnation of me.  I haven't tried, but I wonder how many of those days I can actually remember and given that the answer is precious few, why have I not been more selective in choosing the ones I've given head-space to? For two thirds of my life I have allowed my feelings surrounding New Year and, as I discovered this week, birthday eves, to be coloured by a memory of a friend's mum dashing around at half past eleven on Hogmanay desperately trying to get the house clean before midnight.  It never actually instilled in me the habit of clearing out, just the notion that everything should be in order before the big day and that, when I failed to do this,