Uplifting

So today was SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Well, it is to your life. It is reasonably commonplace in mine. Imagine your job, whatever you do. You probably have to go to a place of work at a set sort of time, regularly. Me too. Usually. But, because I'm a specialist in woodland ecology, and my area of expertise covers England, now and again, I get called on for advice. And that's what happened today. So today saw me get up at 6 am (although not for a run) and pack, because I didn't really finish last night, feed the cat, and remember that I'd forgotten to arrange cover for my not being there, over-feed the cat, and have a panic about the batteries in the cat-flap, and change them, and then walk to the station, making a mental note to text Maggie when it was a reasonable time. The train, which left at precisely 7 am, had me on it, and was heading south, indirectly to Southampton. This involved, because it was a booked rail ticket, an unmerited 45 minute wait in Waterloo station, where I enjoyed second breakfast, and a fascinating insight into what commuters wear on their feet to work. In all honesty, I tried to get a picture of some lurid green heels, but the lighting was wrong, and they wouldn't come out.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, the site manager of one of our National Nature Reserves asked me if I'd take a look at this wood, and we'd set this as the date. Actually, I think it's been in the diary a long time before the "Every Day in May" has. I didn't know how big the wood was, before I went down, because it is part of a site that is much larger than just woodland, being part of an estuary. But I thought there'd be a fair amount of walking involved, surely? I was picked up from Brockenhurst, and we went to the office first (TEA... ) and then to the wood, after I'd had a rummage in the site files, and resisted sending Keith about 35 texts.

As soon as we arrived on site, I set runkeeper, being careful to select the correct activity (I hope Fiona appreciates) as "walk" and slipped it in my pocket. It wasn't that I thought we'd actually gone very far, but I checked it a couple of times during the day, and was reasonably shocked at what a short distance we'd covered. I now knew the woodland was 55 ha, which I thought was respectably large, but half way through the visit, we'd covered a paltry 1.9km.

The woodland was beautiful, in a way that you can only appreciate if you love ancient woodlands especially when it is springtime and everything is poking through the ground as fast as it can, and furthermore, somehow, against all odds, it being quite late in the season and everything, you managed to pick pretty much the first day for weeks where it was actually sunny and a bit warm (even though that should be a given for this time of May).

It was also desperately confusing: not only were the arrangements with the owner very complicated, but the main interest was butterflies, not woodland ecology, and there was a lot of stuff not going on that could have been - but more importantly, my survey hat hadn't really warmed up yet. Lots of questions burned through me, the main one being "why don't I own a wood like this?", and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to sort it out. I text Keith 6 times on the way home, which I thought was quite modest. I wished I'd had Ian's Keith mask in the woods, that would have sorted this wood out in a trice.

When we arrived back at the car, I was at 4.8km, which was absurd, and while my colleagues were chatting, I did a quick sortie around a glade, and made the distance up to 5km. I uploaded it, and before I'd got delivered back to the railway station, H had posted "does walking count". I retorted that it does if Sally says it does... fortunately she concurred, because by the time I next logged in, it was half ten at my parents's house, and there isn't too much street lighting for night-time sorties. Also, I only have my bare-foot shoes, and I wasn't sure I wanted to take them out at night. I had a nightmare trying to get from Southampton to the folks' house... it started with a signal failure at Southampton, that delayed my departure by 18 minutes; and then some various other failures, that prevented it arriving at Three Bridges until it was 25 minutes late; the train I should have picked up there, however, was also late, and the next one cancelled altogether, but there seemed to be an alternative. The whole time I was trying to figure out my options, my phone was on *low battery*, leaving me fearing I would leave mum high and dry waiting for me, but it seemed to last for enough.

I'm not making excuses, really, if I'd needed to, I could have done the running, but it seemed to me that the rules said I could walk it if I wanted. But where would I find the time to do that on a daily basis? And this was one walk that I knew I would really enjoy! And also, that after i had gotten home (especially if I'd had to get back to Peterborough - fortunately not) I'd have already done more than a 12 hour day (in fact, I had by the time I got to the parents'), and I didn't think it was that called-for to run at that point. So all in all, I was pleased to have spent an uplifting day that also accomplished my 5k.

Just hope Frank forgives me...