I am pleased to see I am not alone at failing to maintain regular blogging – whatever regular might be, as frequency of posting from blogs I follow seems to vary widely. Following a small bout of writers block, I have recently been suffering from another blogging impediment – having too much to do, to write about what I have been doing !
This has to be mostly a good thing, as better to enjoy life than just write about it, and lets not talk about my time management failings just now.
So apologies for the lack of orderly sequence, but the Saturday morning after the Black Rock race , I drove to Cambridge to take my daughter and her belongings home for the summer.
The Saturday drive was painless and I arrived to a sunny Cambridge evening. Having spent over 6 hours in the car, I was itching to get out and as I had missed my Saturday morning run, I laced up my trainers and took to the streets .
Late June in Cambridge as term time ends is a colourful place it is always enjoyable to run through the centre of Cambridge passing the historic colleges and buildings at any time of year, but maybe more so in Summer when you share the pavements with students and academics celebrating the end of exams, dressed in black tie and ball gowns strolling to their events.
I have a short route that takes me from the house I stay in across Parkers Piece down to the river. This evening as I reached the river path, I could hear music playing, and there looked to be some occasion happening on sheep fen. There was a gathering of people in black tie and shimmering dresses, and I did wonder if it was a wedding. It may have been a wedding party but just as likely to be part of a college event.
I was trying to get a better vantage point when right in my path were two swans. I am wary of swans at the best of times, but on a busy path and when they were most likely nesting I was getting a bad feeling. The only problem was there was no way past the swans – as they were pretty much dominating the path.
So I made as fast a dash for them as I could – opting to swerve to one side – only to catch the hissss of an angry white neck, luckily no snapping and one way to increase your stride length !
No time to linger as besides the swans the skies were darkening, so I continued my run, past resting cows and punts on the river.
This loop of Cambridge takes you along the backs – where many of the colleges back onto the river. The evening sunlight with darkening skies was wonderfully photogenic and made the colleges picture perfect with Kings College looking particularly appealing.
I stopped to take some snaps and to catch my breath after my post swan sprint. The heavens opened not long after that, but it was one of those summer showers that just help to clear the air, and are lovely to run through. I continued over the bridge past my daughters college then back across town to finish my loop.
I had only planned on a couple of miles to refresh myself after my car journey, but it was such a beautiful evening I ended up doing 3.76 miles , passing rambling roses cascading over doorways on my return leg. I even managed in a quick stop at the corner shop for milk and bread before heading to the pub.
Sunday
The next day I had planned to run again and take a route in a different direction, but my race night legs and long driving day had caught up with me , so I spent the day ambling around Cambridge at a different pace.
There is something quintessentially English about soft pink and white roses cascading over walls and signs and hopefully points to the start of a long hot summer.
The unfinished sentence... 