Hallelujah! - Day 374
"Hal-lelujah... Hal-lelujah... Hallelujah Hallelujah..Hal-leeeelu...jah" What a good ol' singsong we had this evening!
An early start, well, for us anyway. We were doing our second Parkrun, except for some reason my first run was not entered into the database. This Parkrun was the Somerset West course and located on a farm. There was a great crowd of nearly 250 people, and we were the only visitors from overseas, so a big cheer for us, which was nice.
And we were off. Tim ran ahead, whereas I walked. I have a dodgy knee which, when weak, the knee-cap dislocates, and I certainly don’t want that to happen during our travels. The great thing about the Parkrun is that it is for everyone, all ages, all abilities, all shapes and all sizes.
The farm was very flat, which was positive after a slightly hilly one in Hogsback; however, the southeast wind was powerful. Phew, I had to put my head down and plough through it. This run, or should I say walk, I was on my own, so set a few targets. Right, I need to get past the man in orange walking with his dog. Hurrah! Now the lady in the pink top. Near the end, there was two young fit looking boys who had passed me earlier. They were chatting with one another, but still walking at a pace. I noticed that one of their shoelaces was undone. Great! I pointed this out, and as the boy bent down, I quickly whipped past them. Mmm… a good tactic! Haha! I can be so competitive at times. The last stretch a senior man, who was wearing his commemorative red 50 t-shirt, was walking fast. He was stretching the distance out between us. Determinedly, I got my legs going and ran past him to the finish line.
We received our scores online – what a great process. I came 11th in my category (out of 16, I expect the rest were running) and Tim came a very respectable 3rd - Hurrah! Sadly, we both just missed our targets of under 50 minutes for me and under 30 minutes for Tim. Oh well, next time.
We got back to Keith’s, and Tim helped him with a few chores while I did some writing. We did pop out to the shops later as I was resolute to get 10,000 steps in today. I think Keith thought we were mad, as it was rather hot. “Mad dogs and Englishmen” was his comment. The view from his road is wonderful with the magnificent mountains in the background. We saw quite a few birds on our short walk, the funny Hardeda birds with their loud squawk and Guinea Fowl, which for some reason, amuse me. We have included a photo of the cycle lane, one of the best we have seen — an excellent example for other places to follow suit.
Later, we sat and watched some Rugby (Well done England) and then popped over to Cicely’s for dinner. Keith put on a video of André Rieu, a Dutch violinist and conductor, who, from the look of the audience, has a massive following around the world. It was great fun to watch as he and his orchestra and invited singers played well-known classical and popular music. We all joined in singing the Hallelujah chorus – a quick version, and this took me back to when I was in the school choir, aged 16, I had to sing tenor as I went to an all girls’ school.
On our drive home the three of us continued singing, and I was sure that we’d all have Hallelujah swirling around in our dreams in the night.,