February 2008

[Sweder]

The weather's set to change from today so I took full advantage of another stunning sunrise.
With the gentle warmth on my back I chugged eastwards, ruminating over the impending loss of a radio station that's become a close personal friend over the last year. All the while Alice Cooper chirped in my headphones, telling tales on his fellow musicians, poking fun at himself and others in equal measure. You could almost see the maniacal gleam in his eye as he recounted stories laden with lascivious tomfoolery. Cooper's no quitter; he's beaten bigger, more sinister demons than the number-crunching boadroom Nazis holding sway over the future of Planet Rock. Drug addiction and alcoholism to name just two. It's entirely possible that no-one's informed him of recent developments, or that he knows but simply doesn't care. In any event I couldn't detect the slightest bump in his smooth, deadpan style as he served up a series of excellent tunes.

Into my stride I looked around. The Downland had dressed overnight in her finest frosted lace, trailways sparkling, golden grasses shimmering. Sheep grazed, lazy low-flying clouds speckling the hills. Racehorses trecked along the gallops, steered westward to their starting places where their pilots would let them fly, thundering hooves churning up the soft turf until they reached the stables, foam-flecked, steaming, more alive than at any other time. The hounds skipped and pranced, ears up, excited by the raw power of the racing beasts.

With no race of my own to focus on I kept my pace to a steady, fat-burning seventy-five percent, happy to soak up the sun and drink in the rich tableau before and around me. It dawned on me that if I were to only ever run this trail for the rest of my days I would die the happiest of men. The songs came thick and fast, Led Zeppelin, Derek and the Dominoes, Frank Zappa. On this day there could only be one track du jour though.
U2; In God's Country.