Last night I went on an amazing run. Barefoot of course. Effortlessly along farm tracks, across fields, always a pleasant surface underfoot, with the scarp face of the
Blackdown Hills lightly sprinkled with snow ahead of me on the horizon.
Culmstock Beacon there somewhere but too far away to resolve. Blue skies and neither too hot nor too cold - it must have been Spring. I realised I had insufficient time to make it all the way to the hills so, at the next opportunity and in a small village, I turned right and followed a winding path down hill that I part recognised: a steep bank on my right coming up to chest height and overlooking a decorative lily pond with only a narrow path at foot level to run along. After various turns, this brought me out to the coast road where I turned right and ran on, under a railway bridge, and then slightly up hill. The sea, I knew, was still a ways away on my left - perhaps half a mile. I must have left the road because now I was following and plashing through a cold stream that flowed from the hills overlooking the sea. Suddenly I was brought to a standstill at a precipice with the raging sea hundreds of feet below me. Sandy coves swept away to my left but ahead and to my right were sharp cliffs running down to the sea. I started climbing down with several false starts until at last I was at sea level negotiating rocks and inlets but with fair assurance that the going would get better once I had made it around this headland. For hadn't I been along this route before? But then I woke up.
