Park
I went running this morning. I don't tend to call it jogging since a friend once convinced me it was somehow a deameaning way of describing this activity. On reflection - jogging more accurately describes what I do, as my heavy body jogs from aching leg to aching leg. It really needs another word altogether - something between waddling and lumbering. How about "wumbering"? That'll do.

Anyway - this morning I changed my usual wumbering route. (When I say usual - I have done it six times before this year. I can tell you this because I have a little chart on the wall next to my computer where I tick off excercise activities. It is a behaviourist method aimed at being more conscious of what I do. It has been there since 12th May and remarkable seems to be working.)

Getting fit isn't an area of my life in which I feel confident. There is evidence to support my lack of self belief in that I am forty two and nothing I seem to have done in the past to get fit seems to have worked. For this reason, I seem to be more open to taking the advice of others in this matter. Conversely - in areas of my life in which I feel confident- I don't take easily to other peoples views. This is arrogant and clearly a character flaw - but will remain so for today while I return to my wumberling.

The advice I took was to try running on grass instead of tarmac. It was given by a friend (really a friend of a friend) with whom I have lately taken to playing table tennis. He didn't actually give it as advice - just told me that he ran in the local park. Waking irritatingly at 7am as I'm prone to do on a sunday I decided to give it a spin and took my nearly new running shoes, (You can't get shoes specificaly for jogging or wumbering), my sons MP3 player and my spirit of adventure to the park. I decided to drive as the fifteen minutes walk to the park seemed a bridge too far.

I was a bit worried about running in the park at seven in the morning as I didn't know who would be about at that time. The first person I encountered said hello. I recognised him as a man I had worked with in a bail hostel about eleven years ago. I see him around a bit walking his dog. This is what he was doing today. He was also walking a can of high strength lager. (Why to high alcohol drinks have energetic names like Turbo, Ace and Lightening. Those who drink them are often less than dynamic.) I would be surpised if he recognised me and his greeting was more likely an attempt at human contact. I wumbered on, noticing the grass to be wet and the water to be soaking through to my socks but found the grass less painful on my hips and shins than the tarmac of the cyclepath. . I abandoned the MP3 player as the left phone of the "In ear" headphones I was using repeatedly failed to live up to its name. I spotted a man sleeping in the shelter. He didn't seem to pose any danger to me - being asleep - so I wumbered on. As I approached the swings - three lads were sitting on the climbing frame drinking cans. I diverted my route and my eyes. I saw a squirrel without a tail and later the man with the dog and the lager dosing on a bench. I expect he has a tale.

Making myself wumber on until my watch indicated twenty minutes I reached the best bit - allowing myself to stop. I waddled to the newsagents to buy the Observer.
"Feel better after your jog?" said the man behind the counter.
"Not yet", I said, "But I expect I will in an hour or so."