Category Archives: winter

138. A winter Sunday on the North Downs

Posted on 5 February, 2007 by | 12 comments

It was a perfect winter’s morning as I headed across the hills from Guildford towards Newlands Corner yesterday. The weather was just perfect for running, even if the combination of sun on frosted Chalk downland proved a tricky one.

The cinematographer duly went for a purler, very shortly after filming this clip. Fortunately, both plodder and camera emerged unscathed, if distinctly muddier.

Related articles:
58. Running in the North Downs
112. Forests of fire and iron – Surrey Hills 1
83. Seven Bridges Road – the Wey floodplain
113. The Pilgrim’s Progress – Surrey Hills 2
123. Bridge on the River Wey

2007_02_newlands-corner-006.jpg 2007_02_newlands-corner-007.jpg

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Posted in 2007, Guildford, Surrey and Sussex, winter

135. Backs against the wall – Footdee, Aberdeen

Posted on 26 January, 2007 by | 4 comments

union-terrace-aberdeen.jpgBefore taking on the four-minute mile, Roger Bannister and his Oxford colleagues most famously abandoned their training to spend three days climbing in Scotland.

Widely considered a reckless decision at the time, in fact that unwise trip unearthed the missing mental sharpness which proved so decisive at Iffley Road in May 1954.

I’m far from certain that the same approach will work for me in the Almería Half Marathon this Sunday, even though I’ve had my own personal kind of mountain to climb this week.

A trip to Scotland with my back firmly against the wall.

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Posted in 2007, life and times, Scotland, training, winter

133. Tomorrow – Avril Lavigne and global warming

Posted on 5 January, 2007 by | 31 comments

2006 is over, and it’s more than high time that I penned an update to my articles from 2004 and 2005 on global warming and the energy crisis.

Science content is a key component of this site, and I may yet return to write that article, but in truth I’ve been struggling with it all week.

As I ran today, my iPod was set on shuffle, taking me to places that I rarely go. And finally it struck me that instead of writing, I should just leave you with this simple message, delivered directly and emotionally by one young singer-songwriter.

It sounds like a conversation on the environment, from my daughter’s generation to mine.

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Posted in 2007, A1 - the best of roads of stone, environment, global warming, life and times, music, peak oil, science, winter

132. Newburgh – an Aberdeenshire morning

Posted on 21 December, 2006 by | 7 comments

river-ythan-and-the-sands-of-forvie.jpgAn Aberdeenshire dawn. In deep December. At eight o’clock it’s still almost dark here in Northern Scotland, but I’ve been awake for a while.

A gale has been howling across the sand dunes all night, rattling the windows of my hotel room, whilst the branches of the tree outside are still swaying as if in the aftermath of some apocalyptic explosion.

I grab my windjacket, and head downstairs, past the hotel bar and restaurant where we ate so well last night. I nod in deference to this holy shrine – the hallowed tables where they serve the most famous sticky toffee pudding in all the world.
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Posted in 2006, golf, Scotland, training, winter

114. Mont Blanc morning – Flaine, France

Posted on 19 April, 2006 by | Leave a comment

mont-blanc-from-grandes-platieres-flaine-sixt-glacier-des-bossons.jpgHigh upon the Grandes Platières ski-lift, the French resort of Flaine recedes quickly behind us, the colour of the concrete fading fast into the grey of the rocks, and the outlines of the Bauhaus school buildings blending with the cliff faces just as architect Marcel Breuer had hoped that they would.

It was two Swiss friends who discovered the delights of the Flaine bowl whilst ski-touring in 1954, eventually recounting their find to geophysicist Éric Boissonnas in 1959.

And it was Boissonas who took the bold step of commissioning Breuer to design a ski station in its entirety, that brief encompassing everything from the village layout to the hotels, and even all the furniture within them.

It was a huge undertaking, which had to begin with the blasting of a switchback road out of the mountainside just to reach the site. But by the end of the sixties the resort was essentially complete, and love it or hate it, Flaine is listed as a site of architectural interest today.
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Posted in 2006, France, history, winter

111. The plan

Posted on 18 February, 2006 by | Leave a comment

running-schedule-and-kit-2006.jpgThe glass of the second bottle felt moist and cool in my hand. Inviting.

5.30 pm at an exhibition in Earl’s Court, London’s very own suburb of Melbourne. It wasn’t an Australian beer in my hand, this time, even if three of those had slipped down effortlessly the evening before.

One more had disappeared just a moment ago, subsumed in seconds and without a thought. As they always are, at the witching hour which closes any trade show.

It was hard to believe my eyes, really, but it was happening. The bottle, so helpfully handed to me just a moment before, was moving back towards the table. My papers were gathering themselves into my bag.

Time for a decision. I collected my coat, mumbled a few feeble farewells, and headed out into the dusk and the rain, raising my collar and shuffling forwards along the wet pavement towards the tube station.
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Posted in 2006, the marathon journey, training, winter