100 Seconds to Midnight

I like tracking things back to the point at which they began: a phone call from my school friend cancelling our arrangement to meet up on the first day of Fresher's Week which altered who I spoke to that day and ultimately the friends I made at University; a trip made to the very north of Scotland twenty years later to visit one of said friends, which coincided with Sid the dog running away from home and his fate being sealed when my son Hamish, proclaimed "He's just the right size!"; a whisper sent out into the Universe not long after about a dog called Nash which ten years later still, saw him come home. Out walking Sid the dog, Alastair and I used to see a couple walking a tricolour of Labradors.  Speculating as to their names and dreaming of our own little pack, we settled on Crosby, Stills and Nash: Crosby for our new dog, Sid could become Stills and Nash was out there somewhere waiting for us (I don't think we ever got as far as Young).  If you have never he...

In a roundabout way I think what I was trying to say last week is that I like measured outcomes. I work best to deadlines and have a tendency to gravitate towards doing things where the end result is more or less known at the start.  I have no doubt that, on some level, it is the relative safety of this approach that appeals to me, and, in the case of running events it's always good to witness the elation of those who have successfully crossed the finish before signing on the dotted line , although the smiles often belie the effort and sometimes pain in getting there.  Thus when the 'magnificent seven' registered for this year's Endure 24 within a week of finishing last year's event we thought we knew what to expect - and then 2020 arrived. But, if it was odd last year that we would choose to set up camp and then run five mile laps from midday Saturday to midday Sunday with only the promise of a T-shirt at the end, it may be odder still that we would do so under lo...

I am drenched with melancholy by the summer rain when the sky opens up and moves the  furniture of my mind around with an easy grace. The scent of heaven conjures up a frayed and torn duffel bag of words, I resist the temptation to write another poem, but I am not forlorn. By the river that empties into the sea,  I leave three words for you in the sand. The tide will wash them away, but not before we break into waves and crash against the dark grey sky. Anna (on Neopoet as Kailasana2) I am drenched with melancholy by the summer rain. I wish I had written this sentence not least because for the most part of the week, it is the very epitome of me.  It would appear that in many ways I am not ready for the lifting of lockdown, and am overcome by a sense of foreboding that was only amplified by the storm that whistled through the chimneys of our house yesterday. Don't get me wrong there are bits that I will be glad to see the back of and chance meetings with friends twice in f...

I was twelve when I first learned about salmon returning to the place of their birth to spawn. On holiday with the school, we were taken to view the fish ladder at Pitlochry - built so that the salmon can still make their way back up the river Tummel, after the construction of a hydroelectric dam rendered their journey impossible.  I don't remember being particularly inspired by the series of chambers, tunnels, mirky water and possible sighting of a fish, but how can anyone not marvel the fact that these fish, born in a river in Scotland, travel downstream out into the ocean, swim across the Atlantic (sometimes as far as Greenland) and then several years later make the journey back to the exact river where they were born so they can release their eggs and the cycle can begin all over again? And when it is nature, and not man, that puts an obstacle in their way in the shape of a waterfall, then nature also provides the answer by giving the fish the ability to leap up to 3 metres out...

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 complet...

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 tu...

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 ...