Out of the Way Places

Sometimes when I'm travelling I get up early, put my running shoes on and just jog for fifteen minutes or half and hour, stop, look around at where my legs have taken me, then run back the way I came.  This habit has taken me to some interesting places.  If you start in a town you'll often end up in some quiet, out of the way spot in the country.  Some of them have really stuck in my mind - a rice padi on the island of Langkawi, a misty rural canal in Northern France.  Now I take an iphone around with me I can even take a photo and spot my exact location on a map.

I'm staying in digs in Lincoln for the next three weeks and this morning, before dawn, I put on my running shoes and headed out of the city down the Nettleham Road.  Even at 6.30am there were lots of commuters driving into town.  It was colder than I'm used to in Italy and so I ran a bit faster than usual, trotting through the outskirts of town past cut-price gyms and Pizza Huts in modern industrial buildings and out into the country.

I ran through the pretty little village of Nettleham, complete with country church, graveyard and sparkling stream and out into flat, open fields and a big sky.  Then after thirty minutes I stopped and took this photo.  As I listened to the silence and watched the sky begin to lighten I thought about what I'm doing here in this cold northern city.  I find it hard to explain, to myself and others, especially my Dad - "I'm trying to set up a funeral celebrancy practise, it will never make much money, but it's what I want to do to give shape and purpose to the last years of my working life.  It's a noble cause and I have a peculiar mix of skills that means I know I will be good at it."  Then I panic and wonder whether my own ability to create narrative has meant I've talked myself into this peculiar spot and that like my outing this morning I will have no choice but to turn around and run back again.

Bari airport

Waiting for the Ryanair flight to Stansted. It's dark a baby is crying.  I got to Bari on my motorbike riding through olive groves and vineyards in unseasonably warm weather. I did a deal with a car park in Bari to keep my bike there for a month at 3 euros a day. I was treated like royalty and guided to an underground parking space next to a Chevy Corvette. On the way to the airport the courtesy minibus driver talked enthusiastically of his time in Brixton.

I'm off to the UK to attend the Humanist Celebrants' conference and to start putting myself about for celebrancy work.  Also to see Dad before I disappear to asia for three months and to catch up with old friends. I feel a bit scared a bit excited and a bit tired.

Climbing Out of the Pit

With Sue away in Borneo and me not working, the time can weigh heavy.  Especially on a grey, wet day like today.  Like so often in my life I feel in a kind of limbo.  In ten days I'm heading for the UK for a month to try to get my career as a humanist funeral celebrant up and running.  In two months I'm leaving for Asia to spend several weeks with Sue.  And, in less than a year we will have our occupational pensions and financially our lives will be transformed. 

Normally I would go for a run or a bike ride to get my daily fix of exercise, but pressing my nose against the window and looking at our damp and chilly terrace I decided to go for a walk instead.  I took the car and parked on the steep escarpment that leads down to the Adriatic and then walked a circuit I often did with our little dog Milly.

The walk takes you up a steep fire-break and along the top of the pine-fringed ridge to the hotel Lo Smeraldo ("the Emerald" in English).  The fire-break is muddy and it's hard work trudging up the wet and slippery slope.  Milly always used to trot ahead and look down impatiently at me, unaware of how much more difficult the incline is without the benefit of four legs.  More than six years ago now I used to do this climb two or three times a week as part of my struggle to lose weight, improve my fitness and overcome depression.  It was like I was dragging myself out of a pit.

My mood may have changed since that dark and difficult time, but the country hasn't.  Even in this cold and dank atmosphere it is still magnificent - a product of thousands of years of building and cultivation.  As I stood on a carpet of lichen and wild flowers at the top of the fire-break and looked out over the coastal plain with its ranks of ancient olive trees,  I realised that this country too played its part in helping me climb out of that pit.