5960/18980
The whole family has been hit with an annoying, though manageable bug which has filled us all with snot and nasty coughs, but thankfully as we’re away with both sets of grandparents (who are so far lurgy-free) , we were able to pass on the kids to the older generation and mainly rest up today. But I did manage to take the dog on a couple of longish walks, one round the reservoir, which as you’ll have noticed, always sets me off about thinking about all the times I have run round it in the last 35 years.
I was a late bloomer when it came to strength, stamina and coordination and the decisions are sort of made about who the sporty kids are quite early at school (just as they are about who is brainy I guess), but when I was 18 I could race round this massive body of water twice in not much more than half an hour, practically lapping some of my pals and beating even the sportiest of them by some good distance. But no one ever really picked up on the fact that I was a decent middle-distance runner at school (it’s possible that I didn’t put any training in until I’d left.
I don’t think I’ve run round the reservoir for the last time yet, even though today’s walk was slow and exhausting due to illness, but won’t be doing it in under 17 minutes again, I don’t think.
I was too tired to join the kids and the grandparents up the gorge, which was a shame as I’d hoped to regale them with stories of my youth, just as my dad would every time we drove through Middlesbrough. We’d moan at him as he told us the same thing for the hundredth time, but we enjoyed the process. It was a joke that we were all a part of and I regretted missing the chance to cement the same trope into the brain of my own kids.
So I’ll just tell you all the same stories instead.
My evening dog walk took me in a loop right through the village, noting which shops were the same (Cheddar Valley Press somehow still running even though no one ever seemed to be in there 40 years ago and the Chinese takeaway still there, though not sure if it’s the same owner who used to scare us and make us laugh by turning his eyelids inside out). Cheddar Library has been so far saved by local campaigns (always involving my community minded father) but Weeke’s the bakers is no more and the video shop that used to have stickers of star signs illustrated with sexual positions in the window is now a TSB. Sadly they haven’t carried on selling those stickers.
The Market Cross still stands despite being perennially knocked down by lorries. But otherwise it’s been there for centuries and no one has turned that into a supermarket.
It’s all different, but all the same. I tried to tell my dog the stories but it wasn’t the same.
And we had dinner with the folks with my parents opening up with stories of the more mildly scandalous things that have happened in our family. My grandma would have been turning 108 this weekend if she’d only eaten more porridge (or whatever it is that keeps people alive for too long), but we’re still talking about you Doris.
