happy hormones

Well, if I'm not very much mistaken, Spring is upon us at last. I took advantage of today's positively balmy conditions by taking Molly (the by-now very scruffy cairn terrier) over to Leyburn for an easy 7-mile walk through Wensleydale. Not the most spectacular part of the Dales, I grant you, but lovely in the sunshine nonetheless... rolling green pasture with newborn lambs frolicking - that kind of caper. All very good for the soul, as was the well-earned pint of 'Sheep' at the end - made at the brewery just down the road in Masham.

Feeling a touch weary now and a little weird. Can't be a case of Sunday night blues 'cos I'm still well and truly off work until my recovery is assured. More likely to be fatigue after the exertions of the day, which included a 10-mile run up & down the Ouse (and then up & down again) before breakfast... sounds a bit hardcore, but it was such a gorgeous morning that it was sheer joy to be out there. Saturday morning's running club at the gym, however ('Sweat Equity'), was most certainly hardcore: I don't think I've done a proper hill session before, but this was a killer. I held my own OK, but my calves, hamstrings and arse muscles ('glutes' to those in the know) were aware of having been severely punished.

I'm looking forward to the week ahead, which is not a feeling I've had for a while, so this can only be a good sign. It feels like there's change afoot in my life, but that just makes me want to do and explore everything, right now! Not possible, of course... keep things steady, Stevie, and continue the gradual ascent back to health.


LOVE AFTER LOVE

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

DEREK WALCOTT