Muddy Mayhem and Leaping Salmon
Last Saturday I woke up happy. Something in the air told me the day was going to be fun. Of course Saturdays are generally fun by default anyway. They mean that work is over for the week, and there's no need to race off to somewhere you don't want to, feeling anxious and irritable before you've properly woken up. You can linger over coffee as you anticipate the day of freedom ahead. And in the evening you haven't got to worry about getting up the next morning. Even when my team loses, Saturdays are just great. Luckily for me, 10 more months and every day will be Saturday. Probably by then I'll complain about Saturdays in the true style of every self respecting pensioner because everyone else will be off work and getting in my way. Sorry about that.
Last weekend was set to be especially enjoyable though, as it was due to begin with an eight mile trail run on Goss Moor with Emma and Sheona. I don't have many close friends. Don't fear, that wasn't a request to drag your violins out. It's just that I like my own company and space; it works well with landscape photography, so friends can be a bit peripheral in life. There's Lee of course - you've got to get on well with someone you've cycled halfway across France with, hiked 100 miles across Scotland with, and most challenging of all, shared a VW camper with for a 6 day tour of Iceland. Five of those days had elapsed before we got to a public shower. There's my partner Ali, who is also my best friend. Even after all these years she can still make me laugh so much with as little as a single facial expression that it hurts. She's even more antisocial than I am though. Then there's Emma, who I worked with for almost 20 years until recently. Ever bossy and always there with a hug and a coffee when she was needed, often lecturing me about my running technique. She's a qualified mountain biking instructor so I refuse to go cycling with her. And then there's Sheona, who came crashing into our lives only 4 years ago, Yorkshire born, hilarious, loud, inappropriate and with a vocabulary which would make a gang of railway navvies blush. These are the people I can't let go of in life.
The three of us have become a sort of running rump, the remains of a larger group that has gradually thinned as these things often do. We meet every other weekend for a morning run, which is generally followed rather more enthusiastically by breakfast and coffee that usually runs into the early afternoon. This time it was Sheona's turn to be our host, leading us around her local circuit. Halfway along the route she decided to throw in a short cut that she'd taken before. We needed to get to our pre-ordered breakfast and we were already late you see. What followed was half a mile of ankle deep mud and puddles and a lot of bad language from my favourite human swear box - especially at the point that she lost a shoe in the bog beneath her feet. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard when I've been out running, although it didn't seem quite so funny when her no so short cut added a mile to the route. We were twenty five minutes late for breakfast. Fortunately she is famous for being late for absolutely everything, so they'd kept our breakfast warm in the knowledge that we'd arrive eventually.
And so I moved on to the second adventure of the day. Four hours of Golitha Falls, The car park was almost completely full and the heady aroma of fried onions tumbled out of Inkies, a renowned cafe in these parts. Next time I need to make sure I haven't just eaten a full English Breakfast when I arrive.
The world may have slowed down this year, but the River Fowey obviously didn't get the memo, racing down the gorge away from Bodmin Moor in a hurry to reach the sea. As I stood watching the water, my camera bag unopened, a salmon leapt the first tier of the waterfall in front of me. I've seen this on television plenty of times, but nothing prepared me for the excitement of seeing the spectacle in real life. For a long period I stopped and stared, wondering whether I'd see another one follow it. It never happened, although ten minutes later, what I assumed was the same fish leapt the second tier. Nature is so wonderful. I'll never tire of it. I continued along the rocky river bank, pursued by my only irritation of the day, a young pair I will refer to as the "Coffee Cup Couple." Everywhere I went, it seemed they followed me, holding grimly to their two disposable cups as they tried to navigate the narrow path of mossy rocks, forcing me forward when I wanted to linger and then eventually passing me and loitering in the middle of the composition I'd come for, Eventually it seemed their cups needed refilling and they left me and the salmon alone to plot our respective paths along this stunning stretch of water in peace, and finally I started to pick out the compositions I was hoping to see. I smiled and settled myself and my tripod beneath the trees and took my time, thinking to myself, this is just as all Saturdays should be.
And guess what? Tomorrow it's Saturday. What more could I ask for?
Muddy Mayhem and Leaping Salmon
Last Saturday I woke up happy. Something in the air told me the day was going to be fun. Of course Saturdays are generally fun by default anyway. They mean that work is over for the week, and there's no need to race off to somewhere you don't want to, feeling anxious and irritable before you've properly woken up. You can linger over coffee as you anticipate the day of freedom ahead. And in the evening you haven't got to worry about getting up the next morning. Even when my team loses, Saturdays are just great. Luckily for me, 10 more months and every day will be Saturday. Probably by then I'll complain about Saturdays in the true style of every self respecting pensioner because everyone else will be off work and getting in my way. Sorry about that.
Last weekend was set to be especially enjoyable though, as it was due to begin with an eight mile trail run on Goss Moor with Emma and Sheona. I don't have many close friends. Don't fear, that wasn't a request to drag your violins out. It's just that I like my own company and space; it works well with landscape photography, so friends can be a bit peripheral in life. There's Lee of course - you've got to get on well with someone you've cycled halfway across France with, hiked 100 miles across Scotland with, and most challenging of all, shared a VW camper with for a 6 day tour of Iceland. Five of those days had elapsed before we got to a public shower. There's my partner Ali, who is also my best friend. Even after all these years she can still make me laugh so much with as little as a single facial expression that it hurts. She's even more antisocial than I am though. Then there's Emma, who I worked with for almost 20 years until recently. Ever bossy and always there with a hug and a coffee when she was needed, often lecturing me about my running technique. She's a qualified mountain biking instructor so I refuse to go cycling with her. And then there's Sheona, who came crashing into our lives only 4 years ago, Yorkshire born, hilarious, loud, inappropriate and with a vocabulary which would make a gang of railway navvies blush. These are the people I can't let go of in life.
The three of us have become a sort of running rump, the remains of a larger group that has gradually thinned as these things often do. We meet every other weekend for a morning run, which is generally followed rather more enthusiastically by breakfast and coffee that usually runs into the early afternoon. This time it was Sheona's turn to be our host, leading us around her local circuit. Halfway along the route she decided to throw in a short cut that she'd taken before. We needed to get to our pre-ordered breakfast and we were already late you see. What followed was half a mile of ankle deep mud and puddles and a lot of bad language from my favourite human swear box - especially at the point that she lost a shoe in the bog beneath her feet. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard when I've been out running, although it didn't seem quite so funny when her no so short cut added a mile to the route. We were twenty five minutes late for breakfast. Fortunately she is famous for being late for absolutely everything, so they'd kept our breakfast warm in the knowledge that we'd arrive eventually.
And so I moved on to the second adventure of the day. Four hours of Golitha Falls, The car park was almost completely full and the heady aroma of fried onions tumbled out of Inkies, a renowned cafe in these parts. Next time I need to make sure I haven't just eaten a full English Breakfast when I arrive.
The world may have slowed down this year, but the River Fowey obviously didn't get the memo, racing down the gorge away from Bodmin Moor in a hurry to reach the sea. As I stood watching the water, my camera bag unopened, a salmon leapt the first tier of the waterfall in front of me. I've seen this on television plenty of times, but nothing prepared me for the excitement of seeing the spectacle in real life. For a long period I stopped and stared, wondering whether I'd see another one follow it. It never happened, although ten minutes later, what I assumed was the same fish leapt the second tier. Nature is so wonderful. I'll never tire of it. I continued along the rocky river bank, pursued by my only irritation of the day, a young pair I will refer to as the "Coffee Cup Couple." Everywhere I went, it seemed they followed me, holding grimly to their two disposable cups as they tried to navigate the narrow path of mossy rocks, forcing me forward when I wanted to linger and then eventually passing me and loitering in the middle of the composition I'd come for, Eventually it seemed their cups needed refilling and they left me and the salmon alone to plot our respective paths along this stunning stretch of water in peace, and finally I started to pick out the compositions I was hoping to see. I smiled and settled myself and my tripod beneath the trees and took my time, thinking to myself, this is just as all Saturdays should be.
And guess what? Tomorrow it's Saturday. What more could I ask for?