Happy New Year!
We’ve had a great Christmas break with a restorative balance of quiet reflective time and really fun time spent with friends and family.
We took in the amazing Lost and Found Orchestra which is a riotous kaleidoscope of percussive sound and vision. Originally designed by STOMP for the 40th Anniversary of the Brighton Festival in 2006, it has since toured internationally to wide acclaim. Brighton is home to co-creator Luke Cresswell (who I went to school with in the late seventies & early eighties) so the performances here hold special significance!
We also saw the amazing film Life of Pi which is a beautifully produced and really thought-provoking tale of survival.
After days of dark, wet weather, 2013 dawned bright and clear so it seemed only right and proper to get out for a run. I quickly realised that the rain had left its mark with puddles and fluid mud everywhere.
I first headed out to Ditchling via Oldlands Mill, which sat facing the Downs in almost springlike sunshine.
Normally dry paths were waterlogged and those that are often wet were completely under water… there was little point in shirking the mud, though I kept generally to the edges.
One garden I passed en route had filled up to become a small lake… maybe a 150 feet long and easily 20 feet deep! The water sometimes fills the width of the garden but I’ve not ever seen it this high and close to the path before.
The normally slippery chalk up the Beacon path had been washed clean and was abnormally grippy, especially compared to the slippery ground around it.
As I neared the top of the path, the view to the left was more warm March than soggy January… apart from the extent of the midday shadow!
The top had a range of similarly beautiful views accompanied by a chilly breeze, especially where I was standing… on the trig point at the highest point in Sussex.
After slip-sliding down the Beacon again, I ran past Sporting Cars, admired the beautiful houses through Ditchling and then climbed back up to the Oldlands path at the end of the village.
Where I had been relatively circumspect on the outbound route, I now just headed through the middle of most of the big puddles… and there were a lot of them! By the time I reached the Keymer road again I was dripping wet and coated in mud.
My first task upon returning home was to stand in the garden and wash off the worst of the mud with a scrubbing brush and hosepipe… which also usefully cooled down my tired leg muscles.
So ten miles in a sploshy 1:55 and a GREAT start to the New Year.