Training for the marathon - Jeremy

There’s only a whisper between winter and spring at this time of the year.
Last weekend I was still slipping and sliding through sheets of snow that streaked the fields. Today, the sun was out, and there was even a hint of warmth when sheltered by a hedgerow.

Yes, I know, I’ve now got the surgical bandages round each knee, and yes, I do feel like a real old git – but they actually do the biz – ten miles today without the stabbing pain like someone having fun with a stiletto. So who cares.

Peter and Simon can have a little snigger – but they’re twenty years younger – and yes, they do seem to find the bottles of wine I carry as weight in my pack amusing for some reason or other. Even the local paper seems to think it’s funny me wearing wellies, and had an extremely embarrassing photo of me in it yesterday.

But the model maker came to the office this week and talked about the weights and the way the whole contraption was going to be festooned around us. Jolly scary, because I don’t see how he can get the weight really down – and the original model was over 80lbs. Some small comfort – there will be quite a lot of room inside, so I thought I could set up a sort of mini-bar and no-one would see.

I could have done with a wee snifter this evening in fact. Lovely sunset, and put up a tawny owl, impatient to go off and find his breakfast.

It would have been much nicer to have been watching it, not running, and with beverage in hand, but there you go.

And as the light finally faded, I disturbed sixteen (I counted them), beautiful fallow hinds, chocolate brown and gleaming with health, and watched them bound into the young birch. Aaaah.

Oh, and many thanks to the kind but deluded people supporting us through the ‘Just giving’ website – makes me feel not quite so lonely.

Jeremy Hulme