Return to the Farndon River

My running has been a bit rubbish as of late, for reasons I can't quite get to grips with, although cold windy weather with a little bit of laziness thrown is is Betfair's favourite.

Well today was different. After yesterday's rubbish effort, or indeed no effort, I decided to go for a big one today, across the Grange Road fields to Hawton, then across to Farndon, and back in along the river. This, is regular readers will know, is a favourite route of mine but I've barely run it for months after having played so much cricket at the weekends.

The last time I ran it, it was probably warm as well, unlike today where the was a cold northerly wind and a lowering sun by the time I got out after the usual faffing - Hello Bank! - and waiting for my posh mushroom lunch to go down.

It turned out to be a really nice long run, 13.5km in an hour and a half, with some really nice lighting making the river glow gold and the gulls in the sky glow. My hopes of finding winter thrushes in the fields, or pink footed geese skeins in the sky, were thwarted, and there were no interesting waterfowl out and about. But there was a great encounter with some kind of hawk or falcon that decided to ride the wind very high - unusual for a kestrel I'd have thought - and soar up above a flock of circling gulls.

You'd think after a long time out, I'd struggle a bit, but I paced it rather nicely and only stopped to take photographs. Radio 6 was great listening, I'd warmed up against the cold, and I felt fit again.

Slightly.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.11.16