Category Archives: 2006

108. The moonlit door

guildford-parkway-the-listeners.jpg‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champ’d the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor.
The Listeners
Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

It’s unusual to find a poem on the side of a building, especially picked out in brick and 15 m high, but that is one of the unique attractions of the Guildford Travel Inn.

It may be one of the few, actually, since its location right beside the booming A3 dual carriageway is nowhere near as lyrical as the inspiration adorning it. But it cheered me to learn that its author Walter de la Mare was born in Maryon Road in Charlton, just a short sprint from mile 4 on the London Marathon course.
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107. Don’t it make a bad run good ?

wey-valley-winter-guildford.jpgThirteen for me today. Cold, wet, grey. Rain spreading from the west in the second hour.

I’ve felt slow, sluggish and lack-lustre in this worryingly intermittent campaign. I wasn’t sure of the reason, since my weight appears to be under control.

Nevertheless, the inability to squeeze into 36L trousers at the sales this afternoon tells its own story. I do need a bigger size than 5 years ago, mostly because my thighs have grown with all that power muscle (ahem) so that I appreciate a more roomy cut. However, this does not usually extend to not being able to do the darned things up.

The truth revealed – that my weight has recently found a new home just above my belt.

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106. A Highland reel – Pitlochry, Perthshire

pitlochry-mountains-snow-perthshire-scotland.jpgTwo thousand miles
Is very far through the snow
I’ll think of you
Wherever you go
The Pretenders – 1995

It wasn’t all of Chrissie Hynde’s two thousand miles, not quite, but it felt like a very long way as I drove back from Pitlochry last week.

Five hundred and eleven miles. An intriguing distance – more or less an entire marathon training programme, packed into eleven hours. And covering a similar range of emotions, perhaps.

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