Tag Archives: social change

Healthy lifestyle, lifestyle, sport

Olympic fever?

Have you noticed? There is a lot of illicit exercise going on in the United Kingdom.

If you venture out when the streets are supposed to be empty, just after dawn you will be baffled if not run over by track-suited parents in trainers, jogging up and down, getting out before the kids are up — mustering their endorphins to face the day! Elderly gentlemen in shorts and cricket hats flash past you as you try to photograph a timid warbler. Ladies on bikes, dragging reluctant dogs, get tied up in leads and bump into post boxes to the alarm of the knitted figures sitting on top. Bicyclists shoot across in front of you as you wonder if you can make it through the lights on amber.

I guess it all started during Covid and has been exacerbated by the Olympics– it must be a good thing.

But what’s this? Lady in a wet suit in a park in St Neots — a long way from the sea.

Hang on — here are some more, bobbing around in the river.

Someone blows a whistle and they are off!

Suddenly, all thrashing about — like spawning fish in an upland pool, but they are whizzing along — after about 400 yards they all turn round and come back again. Only when they reach the shore can I categorize them — mainly young men, well young to me, but some young women and one man with a long white beard struggling as he runs along, to reach a string swinging down his back to unzip his wet-suit.

There is someone I know, in transition — nothing to worry about — just changing into her bicycling gear.

Only 25 kilometers — not even enough time for me to get a cup of coffee. Lots of riders struggle to get their feet attached to the pedals while riding as fast as they can up hill, one man in splendid electric blue shoes falls into a bed of nettles — that will sooth the pain in his joints.

After a 5 kilometre run Fran is triumphant!

In remarkable shape on the hottest day of the year, best times ever, and looking forward to the next sprint-triathlon! I feel fitter just from watching!

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Urban environment

Follow the Music Man

in time to the throb of his African rhythm.  He’s tall and lean, stylishly frayed, fist bumping the man in the sleeping bag propped against the wall by the old cinema and the girl sitting cross legged on the pavement – but on he swerves, swinging – things to do – people to see.  He looks ahead but sees all around. The large plastic bag, for-life, slung over his shoulder matches his trainers.  The rest of him is swathed in black and he rocks… Side to side he rolls to the beat. 

Past the logjam of bins, suddenly he’s gone – slipped down the alleyway behind the restaurants. 

This town is changing quicker than I can keep up — a grown up female of ample proportions holds forth through the plastic hole at the post office, hair jet black and dyed, held back by an Alice band sporting kitten ears on which the queue behind her fix their impatient attention.  At the other till the woman with a tattooed face tries to answer unanswerable and unconnected questions from a customer who must have ADHD.  Outside a striding woman screams obscenely into her phone to the accompaniment of a placatory man, conveniently on speaker, but to no avail. I open the door to the chemist for an elderly couple to dash in with their buggy, taking their grandchild out of this uncertain world – we sigh.  I browse £400 tooth brushes – one has Bluetooth – I wonder why.

Homeward bound, Edward East, famous son, RA deceased, raises an eyebrow from his plinth.   The chewing gum has been cleaned from the pavement outside his gallery, long closed, but he is as bemused as I…  And now, behind I hear the music too – it follows at an uneasy distance.  I can’t outrun the music man – I am old – he is the future.  His music drifts forward from the other side of the street and is getting louder.  I look straight ahead but see all around.  I keep to the pace of his rhythm and when a lorry passes, I slip down an alleyway like a fox.

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