Run to the Border

It has been, you might say, a weekend of two halves.

Saturday was one of those miserable grunchy days where nothing goes quite right. Nothing disastrous, nothing to cause howls of despair and anguish, just a succession of low level frustrations that left me feeling anxious and grumpy by the evening.

However Sunday was long-run day but not any old long run, my absolute favourite – the run to Borders. This is an institution that helps my wife and I keep our communication channels open and clear. Every month we have a meeting at the Starbucks inside the Watford Borders. It gets us out of the house and any of pressures of having other things to do. We are relaxed and let our minds wander quite widely and associate freely. However we do keep notes so we can return to what we decided in the last time and see if there has been any progress. Sometimes yes and sometimes nothing has happened but there is never any recrimination, we only trying to look clearly at what we are doing.

Borders is about 10 miles away and I run there, mostly along the canal, whilst my wife drives the car and brings some clothes for me to change into. The stimulation of the run invariably puts me in the right frame of mind but yesterday was particularly good. After tightness of Saturday it was as if a weight had lifted. Instead of feeling ground down I felt as if I could stand relaxed and upright.

Sometimes you just know why you run.

It was also a good meeting. We talked about our main theme for the year – decluttering. We are going to go through all of our possessions and judge them against three criteria: are they useful, are they beautiful or do they have sentimental value? Every week we will make sure we have looked at something. Last week we sifted through kitchen cupboards and threw away bowls and tins that we had not used in years. This week we start on the books – something that is rather urgent as we have more of them than spaces to put them. By the end of the summer we should be able to get into the garage!

After that we tried to think of ways we could reduce our environmental footprint – save energy, recycle more, grow some of our own vegetables. There is a certain irony in driving ten mile to have a conversation about this but nevertheless we were showing intent. We were trying to take control and we made some progress.

So there you have it a weekend of two halves - with running having an important role in the turnaround.