Category Archives: 2009

205. Take back the city – Snow Patrol live at London’s O2 Arena

Posted on 19 March, 2009 by | 9 comments

snow-patrol-live-at-the-o2-london-march-2009-c-gigwise-comI love this city tonight
I love this city always

It bears its teeth like a light
And spits me out after days
Snow Patrol — October 2008

A Northern Irish band playing London — on the night before St Patrick’s Day. It really has been been quite a week.

In Snow Patrol’s home town of Belfast, as in Omagh all those years ago, an outbreak of mindless violence has lent passion to the public desire for peace. Shootings carried out by dissident republicans of the ‘Real IRA’ and designed to break the peace process have proved to have the opposite effect.
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Posted in 2009, concert review, history, life and times, London, music, united in a future

204. Sand, storm and shingle – from Rye to the sea

Posted on 27 February, 2009 by | 11 comments

the-levels-at-dawn-rye-east-sussex-england-by-roadsofstone“All this area was once under the sea, you know” — old famous greeting, familiar to any geologist.

Dawn on the levels. Running across a grey, cool morning, stepping slow behind the heels of winter. And today, for once, that quote is really true.

A plan formed deep in the forests of night. To run from Rye to meet the sea.

merchants-houses-in-church-square-rye-east-sussex-england-by-roadsofstone

I trot out from the hotel and head up the cobbled street. Beside the half-timbered merchants’ houses on Church Square, past The Flushing Inn and the old sweet shop, through Landgate’s arch and down to The Strand.

And that’s where the uncertainty begins. A channel lies in front of me, and the flat far horizon ahead. But which way should I run? Does the river flow east or west to the coast?
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Posted in 2009, geology, history, Surrey and Sussex, winter

203. Dream beneath a desert sky – Pechina Canyon, Almería, Spain

Posted on 21 February, 2009 by | 12 comments

desert-palms-sierra-de-alhamilla-above-pechina-almeria-spain-by-roadsofstoneLos Baños de Sierra Alhamilla stands grey and forlorn beneath palm trees in a February mizzle. It’s Hotel California, on a rainier day.

There’s a faded, nonchalant elegance here in this mountain spa. On the main street, a goofily smiling old bloke sits outside the baths, trousers rolled up and feet dangling in the hot stream. We smile and wave, because frankly, we’re more mad than him.

canyon-run-sierra-de-alhamilla-almeria-spain-by-roadsofstoneThe unforgiving Andalucían desert stretches far and wide below us. Scattered plantations, yucca, palm trees. Grey gravel, scrub and miles and miles of waste, magnificent in their desolation. Far in the distance beneath low-hanging cloud lies the city of Almería and the steely Mediterranean Sea beyond.
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Posted in 2009, environment, Spain, winter

202. A snowy sunset on St Martha’s Hill

Posted on 11 February, 2009 by | 10 comments

snow sunset st marthas hill chilworth guildford england feb 2009 roadsofstoneThe snow was half a metre thick in Guildford when I returned from Spain last week.

That’s the most snow we’ve had in England for twenty years or more, and easily the thickest fall I can remember anywhere outside the Alps.
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Posted in 2009, Guildford, Surrey and Sussex, winter

201. To hold the hand of Spain – Almería Half Marathon 2009

Posted on 6 February, 2009 by | 18 comments

tarde tormenta cabo de gata lluvia almeria spain trebola flickrA cool, soft and forgiving kind of Spanish rain is falling.

I drift down the hill, easing into my pace and gently exploring that warm sense of anticipation which the early miles of a race can sometimes bring. There’s elation beneath my feet today. It’s hard to explain, but it fills the morning all the same.

This is the longest race I’ve run for two years, and my preparation has been meticulously disorganised. Steady, shortish lunchtime runs through Horsham. A nine miler every fortnight throughout the autumn. A 10km in November. Eight miles of the hilly Hogs Back Road Race in December. A two hour outing across the sunny Surrey Hills just two weeks ago.

My journey to the start line didn’t bode too well. A far too lazy start yesterday morning, followed inevitably by a wheezing mile-long dash hauling a heavy holdall at full pelt across the park at 5am to catch my airport train.

night-of-love-on-the-promenade-almeria-spain-by-roadsofstoneA long walk into Almería last night to buy the running socks I’d so rashly left at home.

At one time, I’d surely have worried about all those things. But today it doesn’t matter. I’m here to run, but it’s not about the running.

I’ve come to hold the hand of Spain.
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Posted in 2009, racing, Spain, winter

200. Welcome, President Barack Obama

Posted on 20 January, 2009 by | 20 comments

mountaintop-by-david-fitzsimmons-the-arizona-daily-star

By David Fitzsimmons in The Arizona Daily Star, 18 January 2009.

It’s a long road to the top of the highest mountain. So today, let’s enjoy the view.
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Posted in 2009, divided by an ocean, history, politics, united in a future