Blue Moon Fever

...is a song by Nine Below Zero, but that's not important right now.
It was my turn to work in the office on Sunday afternoon.
No problem there. There's a rota. It's all fairly shared out. Besides, everything went smoothly and on time. It couldn't have gone better.
It's just that the best afternoon of the whole autumn was going on outside. It was crisp and cold and clear, with the sun burning down from a cloudless sky.
Earlier in the day when I walked Reg it looked like this.


There were a million things we could have been doing out there.
So by the time work was over the for the day I knew I had to go for a run.
So I did the Churston Flyer route in the dark. A great yellow moon rose out of the fields and at the far end of the course, at Battery Gardens where the road careers headlong towards the clifftop before jerking to the right at the very last minute and opening up the whole of the bay and Brixham harbour to view, it was just breathtaking.
Strictly speaking it's a blue moon, of course, because it's the second one this calendar month, but it was a honey yellow colour when it rose out of the hedgerow.
I suppose they call that kind of moon a hunter's moon, but I like my wildlife alive and kicking, so let's say it's a runner's moon.
You could see lights all the way up the coast and tick off Dawlish, Exmouth, Sidmouth, Lyme Regis and various other clusters of lights all the way up to Portland Bill.
Three red lights stood up high above the coast - a mast of some sort, probably Stockland Hill over by Axminster.
I didn't stop to admire the view, though, and carried on through the streets and back into the moonlit lanes.
Some dog walkers were lying in wait for me. I didn't see them until I was right on top of them, while they must have heard me coming from a mile away. How they laughed. How close I came to soiling myself.
I finished the whole course, right down to a sprint through the underpass and a dip across the finish line in the school car park. No-one was looking, and I hadn't even bothered wearing a watch, but I had to do it.
After that, I felt like we had earned a chippy tea.
It's nearly Halloween, by the way, and Dracula has taken up residence in our chip shop.

Good running

GOOD running last night, with laps of the 460-metre loop in Youngs Park as darkness fell.
It's never easy, but having nearly 30 runners there made it better, because there was always someone to chase, or try to stay ahead of.
Rowdy Robbie made the night's headlines when he encountered a collie dog up on the prom. Rowdy Robbie was going flat-out when the collie crossed his path, and he went flying.
Fortunately the dog was unhurt, as was Rowdy Robbie, although he and the dog owner were both mighty cross.
We were pleased there was no repeat of the last time someone got in Rowdy Robbie's way on a fast run. Then, he barged past two gentlemen of the fairground, picked up the mobile phone one of them had dropped and threw it across Paignton Green.
The two gentlemen of the showmen fraternity would have killed him if they could have caught him, and Rowdy Robbie's likeness still hangs on hoopla stalls the length and breadth of the land so they can get even with him if they ever do see him.

Where do tea huts go in winter?

They wind up in the corner of a car park, waiting for another summer of fun.

Autumn Armagnac

I was going to blog about the end of summer and the onset of autumn, but it doesn't seem so bad.
Ray Davies said tea, and toasted buttered currant buns, can't compensate for lack of sun, and he was right of course.
But this evening I drove home along the sea front with the window down, sunglasses on and 'Harvest for the World' playing on the car stereo.
I exchanged waves with Moses at Hollicombe, too.
Autumn seemed all right, really.
The picture above shows the Gulf of Morbihan, as seen from the campsite on which we spent a very happy week. it seems a long time ago now.
Since then we've had a marathon, Goodwood, various university trips, races, beer festivals and all sorts.
More of some of those later, no doubt.