And then this.....

SOMETIMES I despair of Paignton.
Our 'flagship store' is now a 99p store, and the only new business to open in the town centre recently is a pawn shop that does payday loans.
It can be a very depressing place indeed.
And then this....
The morning sun hangs over the bay, framed by a few wispy clouds. The reflection blazes a path across the water.
It's warm again, and there are daffodils, just like in the Enchanted Village.
I get to drive this road to work every day or, if I take the sea-front road instead, the view is even better.
Yesterday I ran six miles with Nanna in the early morning sunshine, including a stretch along the beach. I had a bad boy breakfast with family and friends, met the gentlemen of Fire For Effect, watched a bit of rugby and took Reg and Baxter for a long, muddy walk on the coast path.
The robin was back in Speaker's Corner in the late afternoon sunshine and then we stood in wonder as the International Space Station crossed the cloudless night sky over our house.
Twitter told us it was coming from due west at 7.01pm and, sure enough, Mrs H was first to spot a bright spark coming straight up out of the glow of the street lights. It went silently over our heads, then faded and disappeared over the horizon out across the water.
Ain't that a wonderment?

Energy

A thick mist hung over the houses and wrapped itself round the trees.
The cars were going nowhere as the roadworks slowed them to a standstill.
Reg and I didn't need to use the crossing lights to navigate the main road on our way out or back, and I'm not sure the same cars weren't stuck there on the return journey anyway.
A long line of headlights faded back through the mist.
The air smelled heavily of cigarette smoke and the sickly tang of Red Bull, a sure sign that the trudge to school had begun.
The garage shop does a roaring trade in fags, energy drinks and Haribo sweets.
Doesn't anyone go to school on Ready Brek any more?

Grey

PAIGNTON'S not looking at its best today.
From the dog walking field up above Clennon Valley the sky is battleship grey all the way out to the horizon where you can just about make out the shapes of the tankers waiting out there for the price of oil to rise. Or is it fall?
The wind is picking up and there's a dusting of snow on the ground.
It's not enough to disrupt anything, but it looks nice enough. The hills out towards Totnes look like a Christmas card.
It was hard to see Reg at times, He is predominantly white with bits of black and brown, so he's difficult to pick out in a field which is predominantly white with bits of black and brown.
He behaved in a most ungentlemanly fashion towards an elderly lady labrador, then got asaulted himself by a tiny beagle puppy who just wanted to climb on his back and bite his ears.

The Long Weekend

FRIDAY night was quiz night over at the cricket club, where they kindly hosted a gaggle of runners without a social home of their own.
The rain poured down and gales swept in from the sea, over the headland and across the outfield and the square to hurl drops at the glass doors.
But people came despite the rain, and we were snug and warm inside with pints and Terrys Chocolate Oranges to give away.
The Caerphilly Kid and I set some tough questions.
They were no problem for the finest brains of the running club though, and the scores were high. The chocolates went to the right people, and Bazza did heroically go to the wrong runaround corner on purpose so one of the youngsters could gather the prize.
The big winners were Help For Heroes, who get nearly £300 as a result of the club's generosity.
On to Saturday. An old mate of mine once said there was no such thing as a bad football match as long as you were actually there. The atmosphere, he said, made up for any shortcomings on the field. He was wrong, because Torquay United v Barnet on Saturday afternoon was dire.
Nigel the Magician led his Sunday morning running group out into the wet and windy lanes through the deep puddles and the leaf mulch, and over the course of six-and-a-bit miles we ran off our hangovers and actually started to enjoy ourselves quite a lot.
We must have run right through the 11am silence. We said we would stop when we heard the maroons go off at Brixham but the wind must have been in the wrong direction because we didn't hear a thing.
No disrespect was intended.

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.