Thursday 18.11.2010

The thing is, you don`t necessarily have to be out in the wilds with a strong pair of boots strapped on to enjoy a good walk. Dog had to come to work with me today and at lunchtime we walked up into town and then took a detour through a housing estate, nosey-ing (sp?) into people`s gardens and back along the ring road with a good view of Bennachie in the distance and a nippy wind keeping us trotting along at a brisk pace.
And the afternoon went a lot better for it.

Yesterday I was out in the wilds, or at least the woods, with the strong pair of boots on and against all the odds it was one of the best walks I`ve had lately. After a morning spent with one of those lie-very-still-under-a-blanket-until-it-goes-away kind of headaches I crawled out to peer at a grey,very windy and postively inhospitable looking day.
The trick at this point is to tell yourself you can always turn round and come back.....so I donned woolly hat and jumper - and the boots - and once we got going it was, well, fantastic.
The clouds were grey alright but above them were shades of blue and pink and coral. The trees were tossing and thrashing about, the wind in them sounding like the roughest of seas. The pylons too were singing their own particular song and then the light began to fade and simultaneously become strangely translucent.
The night before I`d heard someone describing why they liked living in Manchester despite - or rather because of - the weather. They ended up using the word `vital`. And that`s what it was all about yesterday: vitality, exhilaration...in fact let`s hit the Thesaurus:
"a rush, animation, cheerfulness, delight, elation, electrification, elevation, enlivenment, euphoria, exaltation, excitation, firing, gaiety, galvanization, gladness, gleefulness, head rush, high spirits, hilarity, inspiration, invigoration, joy, joyfulness, liveliness, mirth, quickening, sprightliness, stimulation, uplift, vitalization, vivacity, vivification "
Stand at a window in a warm house and look out at that sort of weather and you`d not think it but get out in amongst it and, as some wise person once said, "At least you know you`re alive."