Glad I'm back home

Eternal blue skies, hot weather, brown grass and fake skies be blowed - I'd rather have Ireland any day, even though it's perishingly cold at the moment. My usual circuit plus a bit of the lake today, bare foot of course.

Busy busy

All work and no play makes me not write blog posts.

I'm teaching three mornings a week now, plus the necessary marking and preparation time, doing less but still some electronic design, working on various building projects in the house here, and various other calls on my time including my regular barefoot runs. And things like eating and sleeping. And thus the week fills up. Not that I'm complaining - I prefer being busy than idle. Or maybe the reason for no posts is lack of muse. Or is it just this cold and wet time of the year? Or is it due to recovering from a combined cold and flu thing that has lasted almost four weeks?

But I'm off to Africa on 1st March - to visit my daughter and son-in-law who are there for an extended period setting up a church-sponsored pre-school.  That should provide some blogging material if nothing else does! Although barefoot running is not recommended in rural Africa due to nasty worms that burrow into and live beneath the skin. On the whole then, cold and wet as it might be just now, Ireland has a lot to offer. No snakes, no dangerous animals, no malaria, and plenty of mountains, lakes, rivers and beaches where you'll meet only the occasional and like-minded person, if anyone.

Back home first run

Just the 4.3 mile loop - and Meg came too. There is a smattering of snow and the temperature is just above freezing. And debris on the roads because of the recent heavy rainfall. Not nice running. The higher humidity makes the temperature here feel no better than in my Artic Run post and I would prefer running on compacted dry snow than freezing wet roads any day!

Football

What football team do I support? The closest I can get to answering this is to claim Newcastle or Man. United on behalf of avid supporters I happen to know for whom it is perfectly normal to say "we scored" or "my team". To be truthful I neither support any team of any sport nor can I quite comprehend the concept of doing so. Mind you, I have played football and even enjoyed it in between loosing concentration and hitting the ball the wrong way or becoming thoroughly bored, but I did it solely for the sake of the others.

And yet... "Football is associated with passion, emotion, excitement and dedication across Europe. References to extreme emotional experiences at football games characterised all aspects of discussions with fans – some referring to the 'pure joy' and exhilaration of being at football games. Such is the intensity of the experience that two thirds of fans have cried at football matches – mostly through joy, but occasionally because of despair."  (SIRC)

Doubtless that makes me odd (along with running barefoot), but I learnt to live with that accolade from an early age. But is it so different from me insisting that barefoot is the best way to run, yellow is my favourite colour or claiming that Bruckner's 8th is the best? Is it just that we all like to carve an identity, to try to define "me"?

Some find their identity in patriotism. I used to think that "the English are best" - as so cleverly caricatured by Flanders and Swann -

until I moved to Ireland and heard their side of the story. I still love the people of and places in England, but then I have come to love Ireland too and what could be better than to live within walking distance of forests, a lake, a  river you can swim in, and mountains?

So who am I?