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sometimes (when the sun is shining) this is the most beautiful country in the world

I’ve just been out on a five mile run  to celebrate taking a half day of toil post playing a gig which didn’t finish until 2am on Sunday morning and then an 8am start the next day for Bubble Rush (which was brilliant and we got the charity on ITV – horah!)

I’m still sat in my (sweaty) running gear because I don’t want to break the spell. I can’t remember if I’ve said before about how the process of writing works for me but there is something magical about how words and phrases form around me as the world goes in my eyes, gets under my skin and seeps inside. I have to hurry up to catch them whilst they still float and swoop around me, before they disappear.

I didn’t have my phone or a camera with me as I ran, and it seems like some kind of travesty not to share, so I’ll tell you in words instead.

Those who have run the route out from Buntingford, might know the arc of trees as you get past the 30mph sign into Westmill? In the bright summer sun I hear the buzz high in the trees overhead and I think how sensible they are to make a nest here, just before all the people’s houses start. There are little bugs dancing in the sun’s shadow and then back into the dappling light reaching through the dense leaves.

I admire the square straight haystacks at Westmill, turn the corner to be greeted by four cascades of purple flowers (they look like purple foxgloves if those exist?). I cup a bunch of their faces with my right hand (like you would a pretty child), tell them they are beautiful (because, well – why not, no-one is watching!) and run on.

I turn around to head back and there’s the muted thud of a feathery pigeon’s wing above me and two white butterflies (cauliflower butterflies? Again  may be making this up) dance around each other unwittingly competing in a beauty contest against the whispy clouds surrounded by a sky blue as the midday Santorini sea.

A man at the end of his drive way says “You’re brave” (and I’m sure he’s also thinking ‘or stupid’) and I don’t have the breath to tell him that I had to run today – the world was pulling me towards itself. ‘But it’s not hot here in the trees’ I want to turn around and shout at him, but I don’t. I just enjoy the cool air all to myself as it rushes beneath my armpits and strokes the backs of my arms.

It is the most beautiful day. I had to run out and appreciate it. #IcansoIwill

One Comment Post a comment
  1. Andy #

    Saw a few of your final yards as you dashed past the bar…. you looked like a very happy runner and now I can read that you were….

    July 18, 2016

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