8th & 10th Nov.
I was going to skip past these 2 outings as they were pretty rainy and gloomy. Then I thought I should post them as they are a reflection of what it is like in November about half the time (even if the photos are a bit dreary.)
I always find the Winter hard going. On grey days there is little to inspire getting out. Taking photos is hardly worth it. There is no light about. I fall into gloom and despondency and want to eat and drink loads, all the time. It usually takes all Summer to get down to a respectable weight/size. And about 2 weeks of Winter to put on half a stone. I have to remind myself to pull my socks up and get out the door - that often getting a run improves the day massively; and staying in reading moronic comments on social media DOES NOT.
Sunday 8th we met Nick and Graham. Lots of chat and banter and the miles disappeared. Pretty grim weather and so much rain I took the waterproof camera. Which means even crappier pics.
It is reassuring to skip back to Winters from year's gone by and read in my blog just how shit I was feeling then. Reassuring because I can see it is the same most years and the answer is to try and remember that these months will pass and soon it will be warm again with butterflies and insects to photograph. Last December's Tenerife holiday (obvs not available this year) was a brilliant escape as this paragraph from a midwinter 2019 blog proves....
"Winter in Scotland. Dull dull dull. These pics taken on jaunts around the 22nd, 23rd and 24th November. A daunting and depressing time to be alive. I know I should be grateful I have my health, I can run, and there are no majorly bad issues in my life. But I find the business of the getting through the dark months of drizzle very difficult and unrewarding. Taking photos, one of my favourite things, is reduced to 50 shades of grey. Not sexy. And my optimistic outlook(!) nose dives into a grumbling morass of complaints and bad moods. It seems to get worse year on year. An occasional sunny day can lift spirits but even when the sun comes out (about once every 2 weeks) there is still little in the way of wildlife and I do feel I am wasting months of my life waiting on the return of Spring and the creatures I love to photograph. For a while I thought maybe I needed a new hobby - something to fill the Winter months - but it turns out I just need a new venue. The Tenerife holiday, from which I just returned, proved that."
Another entry, this time December 2018
"I have run every day of December but am reluctant to label it a Marcothon since I don't really buy into that any more than Christmas; I am doing it for me and my waist and because I have been mostly avoiding work. My business (monkey business says Mary) broke up for Christmas early on in December because, well because it is such a crappy time of the year that I can't be doing with working as well. So there is more time for running. Running daily is only just keeping my head above the waters of depression and seasonally affected cranky bastard syndrome. Also I really need to work off the beer-love-handles which were getting far too well established for this early in the winter. Time to get out there and beast myself. Because my inclination for red wine isn't going away any time soon."
"I have run every day of December but am reluctant to label it a Marcothon since I don't really buy into that any more than Christmas; I am doing it for me and my waist and because I have been mostly avoiding work. My business (monkey business says Mary) broke up for Christmas early on in December because, well because it is such a crappy time of the year that I can't be doing with working as well. So there is more time for running. Running daily is only just keeping my head above the waters of depression and seasonally affected cranky bastard syndrome. Also I really need to work off the beer-love-handles which were getting far too well established for this early in the winter. Time to get out there and beast myself. Because my inclination for red wine isn't going away any time soon."
Blog from Late Nov. 2018,
"Ever since the clocks changed there has been a feeling of terminal gloom squatting on my shoulders. That we have a few months to get through before it lifts, including the horrors of December, fills me with dread."
"Ever since the clocks changed there has been a feeling of terminal gloom squatting on my shoulders. That we have a few months to get through before it lifts, including the horrors of December, fills me with dread."
Blog from Dec 2016
Regular readers will know I despise the mid-winter stupidity of December; a heady brew of overindulgence and mawkish sentimentality. A lovely finish to a pretty crappy year. And I'm not just talking about the eternal (self-answering) question "why do old performers who have lived the rock-n-roll lifestyle suddenly die in their 80s?" (And 70s and sometimes 60s.)
Back to 2020... Well now, with the recent death of Maradona (the footballer), this has raised its head again. Oh how sad that someone who has been snorting cocaine since his late 20s has suddenly died at the ripe old age of 60. I am affronted that the TV and lots of folk who should know better are labelling this arsehole as a hero. Yes he was better than most at kicking a ball about in his 20s but his behaviour since has been appalling. He turned from a fit and cunning footballer (who else has got away with handballing a goal quite so blatantly), into a drug crazed whore-mongering fuck-up. Following in the rich legacy of the likes of George Best, Amy Winehouse and even Elvis Presley. People who had the world on a plate in their younger years due to a god-given talent. That is: it didn't seem to be earned through hard work and dedication. Then made a series of really poorly judged decisions and lifestyle choices when they could have done pretty much anything under the sun. All of them had the world at their feet and made a pigs ear of it. In fact they could hardly have behaved more poorly if they tried. They had every success and squandered it, not like a hero but like a spoiled child. They shouldn't even be mentioned on the news except to say look at that gold-plated fuck-up, did you ever see a young champion become a more ugly, sad, addled waste of space. Maybe I just don't appreciate the beautiful game.
Back to 2020... Well now, with the recent death of Maradona (the footballer), this has raised its head again. Oh how sad that someone who has been snorting cocaine since his late 20s has suddenly died at the ripe old age of 60. I am affronted that the TV and lots of folk who should know better are labelling this arsehole as a hero. Yes he was better than most at kicking a ball about in his 20s but his behaviour since has been appalling. He turned from a fit and cunning footballer (who else has got away with handballing a goal quite so blatantly), into a drug crazed whore-mongering fuck-up. Following in the rich legacy of the likes of George Best, Amy Winehouse and even Elvis Presley. People who had the world on a plate in their younger years due to a god-given talent. That is: it didn't seem to be earned through hard work and dedication. Then made a series of really poorly judged decisions and lifestyle choices when they could have done pretty much anything under the sun. All of them had the world at their feet and made a pigs ear of it. In fact they could hardly have behaved more poorly if they tried. They had every success and squandered it, not like a hero but like a spoiled child. They shouldn't even be mentioned on the news except to say look at that gold-plated fuck-up, did you ever see a young champion become a more ugly, sad, addled waste of space. Maybe I just don't appreciate the beautiful game.
perhaps he should be
Next run was Cramond / Dalmeny on the 10th More grey weather and grey photos.
Blog Nov 2016
The pumpkins and fireworks have come and gone, the sun goes down before 4.30pm, there is 'flu everywhere, there is ice forming on bird baths and I am hungry ALL of the time. Must be November. On the upside the low sun makes for interesting photos as it crawls above the horizon, then later, slinks off back down again.
Blog Nov 2016
The pumpkins and fireworks have come and gone, the sun goes down before 4.30pm, there is 'flu everywhere, there is ice forming on bird baths and I am hungry ALL of the time. Must be November. On the upside the low sun makes for interesting photos as it crawls above the horizon, then later, slinks off back down again.
Blog Dec 2015
Tis the time of year for December Dread. Weather is crappy and there are any number of arseholes in town staggering drunk or doing xmas shopping. Office parties and chumps abound. Man it is thoroughly depressing.
Tis the time of year for December Dread. Weather is crappy and there are any number of arseholes in town staggering drunk or doing xmas shopping. Office parties and chumps abound. Man it is thoroughly depressing.
whale of a tree
Blog Dec 2014
Then today after a grey start the sun came out on the drive along to Gullane and it turned into the fab day we had been promised. It really lifted my spirits which were a bit subdued after quite a lot of work and not much running and the hellish spiritual squalor of the run up to christmas. Lower case c. It is just a terrible time of the year. In the past I have put this down to my financial inadequacies at this time of the year, however that not being the case this time I realise I have a deep set hatred of this epi-centre of materialism and the pretence we are celebrating something other than shopping and cheap sentiment, rich food and hangovers and precious little that will do us good. With a soundtrack of meretricious nursery rhyme earworms as pleasant as (though less sophisticated than) the splashes of vomit peppering the streets. It is like the whole world is on stupid pills and if you don't play along and shove tinsel up your ass you are frowned upon.
Then today after a grey start the sun came out on the drive along to Gullane and it turned into the fab day we had been promised. It really lifted my spirits which were a bit subdued after quite a lot of work and not much running and the hellish spiritual squalor of the run up to christmas. Lower case c. It is just a terrible time of the year. In the past I have put this down to my financial inadequacies at this time of the year, however that not being the case this time I realise I have a deep set hatred of this epi-centre of materialism and the pretence we are celebrating something other than shopping and cheap sentiment, rich food and hangovers and precious little that will do us good. With a soundtrack of meretricious nursery rhyme earworms as pleasant as (though less sophisticated than) the splashes of vomit peppering the streets. It is like the whole world is on stupid pills and if you don't play along and shove tinsel up your ass you are frowned upon.
This from my first ever blog in 2013!
Then there are the streets of dog turds. Round here the locals stop picking up about late November. Presumably a combination of bad weather, hangovers and their mutts eating then re-creating Iceland chocolate logs from mid-November. I bought a newer brighter head-torch for runs after 4pm.
Then there are the streets of dog turds. Round here the locals stop picking up about late November. Presumably a combination of bad weather, hangovers and their mutts eating then re-creating Iceland chocolate logs from mid-November. I bought a newer brighter head-torch for runs after 4pm.
And it's dark as the middle ages. Some days the sun just doesn't bother getting out of bed and I feel much the same. Then the crappy weather of drizzle and damp and dark brown skies. Not to mention the office parties and the zombies christmas shopping: armfuls of shit nobody needs. And lying in bed listening to the drunks staggering home, fighting and shouting in the street. A pox on it all.
And all the murdered trees taken indoors for a fortnight then dumped back out in the street like unwanted friends. And the TV. What mental deficient plans the tv schedule? We REALLY DO NOT NEED more “celebrity” chefs instructing us how to put on weight. Have they not looked at the public out there. They do not need more delicious food. If it's one thing they do not need it is encouragement to make and eat more delicious food. This cannot be overstated. Am I the only person that sees all this stuff and finds it intolerable?
And all the murdered trees taken indoors for a fortnight then dumped back out in the street like unwanted friends. And the TV. What mental deficient plans the tv schedule? We REALLY DO NOT NEED more “celebrity” chefs instructing us how to put on weight. Have they not looked at the public out there. They do not need more delicious food. If it's one thing they do not need it is encouragement to make and eat more delicious food. This cannot be overstated. Am I the only person that sees all this stuff and finds it intolerable?
Well if that hasn't put you in a Christmassy mood I'm not sure what would. It is some consolation that there is a pattern and that every year I feel the same gloom and start putting on weight as if I was going into hibernation. And generally feel downbeat and angry. Mary bought me a daylight therapy lamp which is supposed to help. It might help a small amount, certainly no cure-all. The sunny days help. At least this year work (and life) has not been too badly interrupted by the virus, the way it has for many. So I shouldn't really be complaining. But I am. Too bad. Last year's trip to Tenerife mid-December was the best cure ever. Presuming we return to normal by December 2021, that will be the way forward from then. Meanwhile batten down the hatches. Although I did hear a rumour about Christmas being cancelled this year! 😂 Onwards and upwards!
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