b l u e

I woke yesterday and the sun was OUT. And soon, I was too.






I went for a walk. I felt the sun on my face - and the wind - and enjoyed it so much I kept going from 11 till 5. Stopping only for a sausage butty, and a pee in Highgate public library, where I was distracted for twenty minutes reading the paper and a short story by Chimamanda Adichie. I strolled up to Alexandra Palace, then down through a system of parkland walkways which connect a few of London's big parks down to Highgate Woods and then on to Hampstead Heath past Kenwood House and round to the south of the Heath over Parliament Hill and past the ponds - where the South England Cross Country Championships were being held, and where very scantily clad young girls were running much faster than I could, with numbers pinned to them. Marshalls were keeping them heading the right way and offering words of encouragement in the January cold, "Keep it up Cornwall" "Good running Portsmouth".







Walking through Hampstead I was surrounded by huge houses each with long driveways and a triplet of BMWs or Mercedes or Audis outside. So far away from where I live, all beaten volvos vying for space with rusting hatchbacks halfway across the pavement.







Making my way back as the sun ambered and I needed to re-zip my bodywarmer I stopped into an Oxfam to peruse the second hand books and walked out again with four volumes tucked under one arm. As I crossed the railway station two minutes from home the sun was setting over the first blue skies I had seen in weeks.












It was a good day for a walk.