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.