It was gorgeously autumnal - the temperature was cold, but just right for running (I am reliably informed). While he did the hard work of running, I wandered around the 'Food and Fitness festival', getting some breakfast (the marathon started at 9.30!) and picking up as many freebies for K as I could - Lucozade recovery drinks, and energy bars. I was amused that the members of the Welsh Guards band seemed to be making the most of this as well!
After reaching my tolerance level of browsing through marquees, I went to sit by the Serpentine and drink my thermos of coffee and read my book (Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel - a well-deserved winner of the Booker Prize recently! I'm loving it!) until it was time to wander down towards the finishing line to see if I could see K coming in... Eventually I did, though of course I was not quite ready in time with the camera, so only got a picture of his back disappearing into the distance... Because of the crush of people at the finish line - there were 10,000 runners taking part!! - we had agreed to meet at the Albert Memorial, where we sat for a while watching the stream of runners flowing past... I had to wonder to myself what on earth makes people put themselves through this! But trying to raise money for a worthy cause goes a long way to helping you towards the finish line...
Speaking of which, K has not quite reached his sponsorship target, so if you're reading this, please go to his JustGiving page and help him raise money for International Action for Iraqi Refugees - there are 4.5 million orphans in Iraq and about 1 million young widows, and even if each of us gave a small amount, together we can help them to survive and build themselves a future and a better life.
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We have just got back from a lovely weekend in Oxford, visiting wonderful friends Bob and Bev for dinner on Saturday night (after a full day spent in the British Library, so we felt very virtuous), and a lovely Sunday lunch in Woodstock today with Annie and Honey, whom I don't think we've seen since their wedding, nearly 3 years ago... shocking. It was great to catch up, and it felt so lovely to be 'out in the country' - and as always cosily nostalgic to be back in Oxford, wandering around old haunts, seeing what has closed down and what is new, and letting those old memories flood in - things you have not thought about for years....
It is well and truly autumn now. The trees are at that point where they have not yet shed all their leaves and they are turning all the colours of the autumn spectrum. It has been really beautiful cycling through the parks. Very cold though, with crisp autumn mornings, which turn into those lovely days where the sky is blue and sunny but there is a chill in the air. People are starting to burn logs on their fires, or make bonfires of fallen leaves, and there is a wonderful woodsmoke smell in the air, which I always associate with autumn. It is still that period before the clocks go back, when it is just dark all the time - when you travel to and from work in the dark - but at the moment it is lovely in the mornings, and gets gradually darker as I cycle home... Lights come on in houses, and as you glide past you can see glimpses of people's cosy interior worlds...
I had not been cycling regularly for a while and had found myself feeling really quite stressed out - one of the reasons for not cycling was the need to get to work promptly, then working really long stressed out days and just wanting to get home quickly and flop. I was feeling like I was not at all on top of my work and that it was all just too much. Plus, it coincided with a period when I had run out of Evening Primrose Oil - which is supposed to keep your hormonal levels nice and balanced, though I don't know whether any of that alternative medicine stuff is really true... But I decided that the exercise from cycling would help me cope with feeling stressed. Also, my plantar fasciitis had come back after - I don't know, maybe it's just over a year since I had it - and cycling seemed to help it last time. And indeed having cycled almost every day for the last two weeks (and got some new Evening Primrose...) I feel much much better and far less angsty about everything now - though I still have a sore heel. The first two days I decided to get back on the bike it rained - it has been very dry this year - but I was determined, and even though I was soaked by the time I got to work, I also found it fresh and invigorating!
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The other day, I was cycling along Hayter Road, having just set off for work, and one of these new bike-mounted traffic wardens was there writing someone a ticket and he called out to me as I went past, so I stopped and turned back to him expectantly - I didn't think I had done anything to inflate the ire of a traffic warden (or parking enforcement officer, or whatever we're supposed to call them these days...). He said, "Excuse me - what colour would you call this car?" I looked at it, and to me it seemed a kind of dark greyish silver, so I said, "Silver?", which seemed to be a word he had never heard before. He thanked me and I went on my way. But as I mused on this humorous encounter, I soon began to realise it was in fact a rather philosophical question he had asked me, because almost every car parked along that part of my journey was some or other shade of silver, and how would you differentiate between them?
I began to think that if I were Paul Auster or W.G.Sebald - which quite clearly I am not, and never could even begin to approach the brilliance of those literary geniuses who are my heroes - that this momentary encounter with the traffic warden could have been the inspiration for some brilliant piece of writing... Oh well, being me, this is what you get.
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