Yesterday I rode my bike. Everything is upside down right now. I don't mean covid. My running has improved. Cycling has nearly stopped. I ride my bike for 90 minutes and my recovery prediction is 60 hours. I've been in zone 4 for 10 minutes and I don't remember it.
I run 10 miles, don't get out of zone3 and my recovery is done by morning.
So yes my bike ride was hard even though it didn't feel like it. It didn't make me feel better. Though I did feel more alive for being in touch with the outdoors for that 90 minutes.
Today I went easy on myself but it was still essential to get out after spending both Monday and Tuesday wholly INSIDE.
Since it was chucking it down I dressed in full waterproofs and took the dog out. He's been dead 13 years but in my head I still walk with him a lot. I put my big-brimmed hat on so I didn't need a hood and stepped out into the rain.
As soon as I stepped outside the air started to hiss like the static from an HV pylon. I put my bigger gloves on, tightened my coat up around the neck and set off into the hail.
Rivers of slushy ice nuggets ran down the road against the slop of my boots. I marvelled at the tenacity and stupidity of people pulling away in their cars into the impending doom and plummeting temperatures.
In the trees the hissing intensified until I felt like a character in a poorly turned television, forever scrambled into black and white and audibly muted.
Somewhere amongst the trees the hail turned to sleet and then to snow and the whiteness started to settle. I had to peer over an allotment hedge unsure if a new spring had opened up or someone was just emptying their bathwater. No, it was a stream running faster than I had ever seen it. I stopped to photograph the woodland scene and a hungry robin appeared on the fence post next to me. Sadly the phone camera was not fast enough to catch him. I picked carefully down to easier terrain and watched drivers like lemmings following each other down Hagg Hill, nose to tail, hoping for the best, or worse, not even thinking.
• • •
I passed the Lamas without remembering, bundled in my own quiet contemplations or closed observations of where I was placing my feet to avoid the puddles.
A woman ignored her nervous spaniel who seemed to permanently be asking, "is this right?". I got a nose-boop off a Whippet then dunked into the heart of a holly bush in search of a decent bivi spot but there was none to be had that was big enough. When I emerged I realised it was too close to the road anyway.
Back on the road I left fresh tracks before turning off for the bottom of the valley. How late for work do you want to be? I guess only half an hour, go the long way another day.
• • •
Down at the river, levels were astonishing. Water flowed in laminar lumps over the weirs then broke into churning eddies where it met the natural rocks. Walking along the path between the river and the man made leet was like surfing a tidal wave as the water surged and billowed to my left and flowed lazily to my right. The path was a wet strip down the middle
The tiny figure of a dipper flitted along the leet. He found a favourite spot, staying still enough for me to get out binoculars and watch him for a while. I stood transfixed socially irresponsibly slap bang in the middle of the path (no-one came by).
• • •
The little bird scuttled between the river bed and bank, diving in after dollops of snow that dropped, coming up every time with something in his beak which he ferried to the bank. He dived back in, submerged, surfacing seconds later in a splash of silver, gleaming through the dull brown flow, all a flurry of feathers. He bounced on his stick legs before going back for more. Sometimes his belly was white, sometimes stained brown from the muddy waters.
He stood stock still when I passed but I stared too hard and his nerve broke and he flew away. Then I felt guilty and hoped he would find his stash again.
Time to shift now. Got to get into work. One last look at the wave of standing water in the park. A dog the colour of dirty snow playing stick in dirty snow, almost as invisible as my dog. I threw someone else's poo bag in the bin. Only 20 metres from the bin FFS. Said good morning to the toilet cleaners from the council. At the end of the park the driver of a horse van was concluding Hollins Lane wasn't feasible without snow chains. I watched him reverse back out onto the main road to make sure he didn't cause a pile up then set about powering up the hill to home, laughing with incredulity at the bloke driving uphill into the snow from the security of his driveway eyes affixed firmly to the traffic report refreshing on the screen of the mobile phone clutched precariously between his left index finger and steering wheel.
I wondered how far he'd get as my footsteps faltered and I reached for the handrail to haul myself over the steepest lump, feet losing traction.
I dusted the life off my coat and hat took of my wet boots and put the kettle on ready for the drudgery of the day.
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