X marks the spot

I left Willand just before 0700 with newly acquired LED headlamp installed to ward off vehicles, it being dark at that hour. The weather was thankfully warm and dry just as forecasted the previous evening.

My track: 14.3 miles average 5.22 mph

The reason for the lower than average average speed was the ascent out of the Exe valley which was mostly at walking pace on account of the state of the path, the gradient and my limited zeal.

First sight of Tiverton

Grand Western Canal basin with ducks

Although dawn started to happen soon after I left, it was still fairly dark when I reached Tiverton, witness the above pictures. For those interested the canal terminates in Tiverton in the basin shown. It is still navigable along this part of its reach and there are occasional house boats moored.

Detail: X marks the river Exe

The X marks the chosen goal - I have no photographic evidence of this river as this would have required clambering down between trees and it was enough just to get there. So you will just have to take my word for it. That - I DID RUN FROM WILLAND TO THE RIVER EXE AND BACK! All by myself.

Here I left the Exe Valley Way

The Exe Valley Way follows an existing road southwards from Tiverton to this point where I turned off it: the river itself is the other side of the fields in this picture. My chosen route followed a muddy bridleway ascending steeply across farmland.

The ascent was stony and not kind to bare feet

Looking back over the Exe valley

Looking forward to the dawn

This communications mast was at the highest point in my run (marked 236m on the map) making it worthy of a picture. But I could not stop to investigate - I was already running late and had to get back and be washed and breakfasted before the gang arrived.

Mast at summit near Gogwell farm

The reason for the run was because I had a quest. The reason it had to be early morning was in the knowledge that the the rest of the day would be taken with a Cox family reunion. Coffee and cake at Knightshayes, lunch at home, afternoon chit-chat in the Grandma's lounge, all topped off by steak and kidney pie à la Alison followed by ice-cream and chocolate sauce (also à la Alison).

Family reunion at Knightshayes coffee shop

A quest for X

26th and 28th December runs

On a previous visit my quest was Culmstock Beacon. Is it, of course, good for one's psychology to have a goal and, this time, I have chosen the Exe: that river that flows of course through Exeter. Its nearest approach to Willand is at Tiverton so, if you will, Tiverton is the goal. We drive there often for shopping (no expedition with Ali would be complete without frequent recourse to shops) but I have hitherto assumed it was beyond my running reach.


26th run - clockwise in blue on my map - 9.55 miles.

Actually the X goal had not yet quite resolved itself and I set out rather to explore high ground to the west of Cullompton, returning via Brithem Bottom (all roads around in the locality appear to lead there) and Halberton. It rained for the whole duration of my run, steadily increasing in intensity. I was glad to get back. In fact I cannot think of a time that I have not been glad to get back after a long run.

Beacon lane

descending Forges Hill

rain on Halberton duck pomd

Yesterday's run - anticlockwise in red on my map - 11.14 miles, average 6 mph.

This time I wanted to explore the track of the GWR railway between Tiverton and Willand, as cycle way. Regrettably not metalled I found I was running on the remains of ballast, not comfortable barefoot. Sad that the railway no longer exists but good that at least a small stretch has been preserved as a cycle way. I met several dog walkers, two boys who commented on my feet, though no cyclists. You'd need a mountain bike I think.

Grand Canal at Halberton

joining the cycle way

once steam locomotives thundered here

where I left the cycle way for smoother ground

Tiverton

Grand Canal near Tidcombe Hall

The second canal crossing marked the furthest extent of my run. The return was, of course, via Brithem Bottom, and the roads were still icy in parts where the winter sun had not yet reached.

PV array between Willand and Cullompton

the day is dying

The river Exe remains my goal. Whether I make it on this trip I know not but, if and when I do, it will be significantly longer than yesterday's run, maybe 15 miles. Which is kind of scary.

Willand is good

First run 9.3 miles

Trial run exploring some footpaths around Kentisbeare. 9.3 miles.

On my right at a T junction two youngsters were approaching leading a strange animal. I turned left, then stopped to consult my map and decided to go the other way. Now passing this entourage, after exchanging pleasantries about my mistake, I saw the animal was in fact a very shaggy Shetland pony. One of the youngsters asked, in a boy's voice, whether I always ran barefoot. I assured him that I did, always, and he responded with the single word "good" - not in a snide way but as if to say "I approve". Instantly I fell in love. Not that I could see his face (they both had woolly hats on). Fell in love with what, you ask? Possibly it was the voice (I had expected a girl's). More likely it was the sentiment. After all, how does one fall in love? Is it a pretty face? I think not. Rather it is a uniting of hearts, a common but private mutual understanding, often happening in a moment of time.

I could have stopped and asked what he meant. But I missed the opportunity and then it would have looked odd to change my direction a second time. Besides, prolonging the exchange might have destroyed the magic.

Whilst running I occasionally get comments about my feet, like "Hey, mate - forgotten your shoes?" or "Fair play on you" or "Aren't your feet cold?" (and neither are my hands nor face). At home folk are used to my strange ways and thus I suppose I am labelled somewhat odd though, hopefully, harmless.

But I think in all the years that I have been running barefoot there has never been such a positive comment as that brief word. Which is why it did me so much good.

SkyTrace

Here's how it started at Newcastle airfield. Then came Exeter, Aer Arann, Waterford, Cork, Galway, Dublin, Isle of Man, SkyWest, Virgin Australia, Lily, Auckland, Jetgo, Zurich, Guinea pigs... Whatever next?

Community is...

...enduring unsatisfactory mugs and glasses.

Behold a selection. On the right we have two specimens that I cannot get my hand (wrapped in a tea-towel) into to dry. Next a mug with an inside profile that is nigh impossible to clean witness the brown ring. On the left a mug with a - well I do not know what it is - on the rim. Thankfully not quite where one puts one's mouth. A tall glass that even stuffing a twisted tea-towel inside will not touch the bottom thus nigh impossible to dry.

And I have seen worse specimens. Thankfully mostly owned personally so rarely seen on the kitchen shelves. For example the sort that have a glazing issue on the inside. Those that have an unclean-able dimple on the inside opposite the handle. Or trick mugs with a frog inside.

Why can't all mugs, cups and glasses be sensible and easily handled, washed and dried (like me) ?

Killiney

Killiney run, just over 6 miles

I took a friend to a hospital out patients' appointment and had a few hours waiting, so donned my running stuff and set out to explore Killiney. The obvious starting point was the coast, and the obvious culmination was the Obelisk on Killiney hill .

Looking north towards Dalkey Island

Looking south towards the sun!

Can't avoid railways

Evidently some sort of maintenance train

I ventured into ankle depth

Here's where I left the shore

Over the line and up Killiney hill

The Obelisk

Stunning view over Dublin

and to Dalkey Island

and to the south

Beerwah and modern technology

1/4 way up Beerwah

A few minutes ago my daughter Facebook'ed me from a quarter the way up Beerwah, one of the Glasshouse Mountains. And yesterday she sent this sunrise picture from the top.

 

Dawn at summit

She had to get up at some unearthly hour to achieve this. You will appreciate that she has a craze about mountains as her blog testifies.

Pretty amazing that the average person (although K is hardly average) can send a photograph in real time across the globe and right into my lounge. To suggest such a feat no more than 20 years ago would have been science fiction and hardly believable.

I didn't quite catch what you said

“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,

“And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head –

Do you think, at your age, it is right?”

“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,

“I feared it might injure the brain;

But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,

Why, I do it again and again.”

If deteriorating eyesight and hearing means that I am old, then so be it. Ali has finally convinced me to get a hearing aid. We found a local company that has very reasonable prices and so now I (sometimes) have a Widex Dinamico 15 in each ear, and I can return them for full credit within 6 weeks if I don't get on with them. And I don't get on with them yet, but I have been told to persevere. Whenever else have I persevered, I ask?

Without doubt these yokes make things louder, and there's the rub. Not only those folk with feint voices, but also the kids screaming and the dishes clanging.

What nobody (including the "MSc qualified audiologist" who kindly tested my hearing "for free") seems to appreciate is that, for me, loud noises become distorted, and that only makes things worse and indeed verging on painful. When I have the hearing aids turned on it's OK as long as folk are not noisy. But that's a tall order in a community of 30 or so people including young children.

The other day I was running to the chalet to do some repairs and one hearing aid almost fell out: that could have been a very expensive loss. I am more careful now but it also means I do not use them when I am running or any sort of building work. Which means that the times I do use them are getting fewer.

The jury is out...