Springy

Up betimes to greet a lone rower on the Sweet Thames

thence to Hampshire

A country walk en famille, with a literary destination

pretty things

08.02.2015
Day 300

Sunday, long slow run day, 10 miles averaging 9m/m, with a few marathon paced ones (8.30-8.45m/m)

It's a while until the vernal equinox, but the soft Hampshire countryside bathed in clean February sunshine put Spring into my head this afternoon, if not exactly in my step. My run was before breakfast, over a familiar route through Creekside to the river and back via Blackheath. After that wholesome early start, the rest of the day went downhill, as far as training and healthy eating were concerned. Rick and I drove to Farringdon, in Hampshire, where my middle sister is renting a house, for a family gathering. My elder sister, 60 this year, was catapulted back in time when we walked past the handsome house where Jane Austen lived. Teresa hadn't seen it since she visited as a conscientious English Literature 'A' level student. I was about 10 or 11 when she was memorising passages from Persuasion and I committed them to memory too. So long ago, our Hampshire childhood. Now we trudge across the countryside reminiscing and talking about grandparenthood, retirement, paying off mortgages, Dignitas. We come home and blow our noses and eat three types of home-made cake and drink many cups of tea. We're all middle aged, in denim, relatively fit and healthy, slightly too full of wine, cheese and cake as the sun goes down and that typical Sunday evening mix of fatigue, torpor, dissatisfaction and vague regret washes over as lamps are lit and long drives home are faced.
Next week will be a more abstemious, fitter, better organised, higher achieving week.