Autumn is coming......

I didn't do any races this week, so I thought I would focus on admiring the changing seasons instead. Yesterday, I ran in Victoria Park. The weather was dreadful, but I managed to run between showers, and running through the leaves blowing in the wind was refreshing, and felt like it blew away some of the worries from my head. It was mild, and in the breaks between the wind everything felt still. It sounds ridiculous, becuase when running you are moving pretty much as much as you could be, but running is the only time I really feel still inside. Much like I imagine it must feel to be able to meditate (which I can't).

Anyway, I was running along, and saw the British Military Fitness session going on. The instructor was shouting, and looked super fit, and it all looked really hard, and I thought, he's probably looking at me thinking I wasn't really running that fast or dropping down to do press ups in the mud every 10 strides, or anything. I ran a few more steps, then thought, well maybe, but I can run 100 miles, that's not too bad right? Then I thought of the three 100 milers I've done, and then about ones that are coming up, and then I remembered, The North Downs Way 100!!! Entries opened this morning and sell out quick! I was meant to enter it first thing! I ground to a holt, startling a nearby squirrel...

...and surrounded by leaves blowing all around, and the squirrel giving me reproachful looks for standing in it's patch, I managed to enter.

Phew. I carried on, and enjoyed the Autumn leaves. 

I found another squirrel to practise my photography on...

Which took a bit of practise...

But in the end I got there...

I thought, well, nature is so tranquil, even in the city!

Then I thought, it's not though is it? Nature is horrific. This week, while walking to work, and I'm not kidding, I saw a crow swoop down, pick up a tiny mouse, and fly off with it in its claws, the tiny mouse squeeling away. It was awful. 

Then, there's the problem of the giant spider living in the garden. It started out with a small web, but now it goes from one side of the garden to the other, and it's impossible now to get to the bottom of the garden without getting tangled in its web. Everything else does, and in a week the spider has doubled in size. Today it ate a wasp. A whole wasp. It did.

It's horrific. I'm not sure what to do about it. It's about three times bigger than my spider catcher allows for. I'm thinking to hit it with a stick into the canal, but I don't think I'm strong enough to hold a stick big enough to have any impact on it, and if I failed and got trapped in its web, I have no doubt I would be dinner.

I shiver to think of it. I wish that crow would fly by and sort it out. Other than that, I have no idea how to conker it.