July

[Sweder]

Knocked out a stodgy four-miler around the edge of Murcar Golf club at six this morning. Lush greens of grass and gorse under slate-grey skies, mercifully, impossibly holding on to their heavy payload. The golf course, a slayer of reputations and shredder of handicaps, lay quiet, awaiting its first unwary victims. Hell-mouth bunkers nestled on the edges of beautifully kept fairways, some so deep as to need fixed ladders to allow poor unfortunate souls to retrieve their wee ball from the sandy bowels.

A couple of sturdy steeds stood steadfastly chewing grass, watching this large perspiring biped chug toward them, their heads perfectly synchronised as they turned to watch me pass . . . o h s o s l o w l y . Rabbits scurried to and fro, my heavy tread giving them fair warning. White cotton-tails dived into thick heather as a menacing gang of rooks peeled off one by one for a mini-glide, settling back in formation a few yards further along the telephone wire. Their raucous caw-cawing sounded awfully like mockery; I did my best to ignore them.

I puffed and sweated my way along the cinder service track, last night's perfect Kedgeree nestling alongside the remnants of a fine sticky toffee pudding and a couple of pints of Guinness. Heading back towards my hotel I spied a UFO, lights burning in an oddly bright-yet-soft way against the billowing cloud. As I watched the craft ascended through the blanket into the heavens. Moments later the heavy whump whump whump of 'copter blades passed overhead, the laden craft bearing its human cargo to the strange offshore worlds of steel and oil.

A functional outing, wholly required after serious indulgence a few hours before.
Back home tonight to plan a longer, more genuous Sunday run.