KYQ4: Thank God its almost March

Joan Eardley - Glasgow Children

Things change and never more than in the last couple of years. After retiring I found February one of the best of months: cold sunny days, no longer the annual nightmare of budget meetings, winter hillwalking and the prospect of Spring. This year has been the worst of months: climate change resulting in perpetual wet grey days, three named storms bringing gale-force winds, never-ending changes to COVID restrictions, a failed charlatan as PM and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The sense of pending doom has never been so apparent.

Apart from the odd visit to the supermarket, my first visit to a barber for 2 years and a dozen early morning jaunts up my local hill, nothing has happened. I have watched the daily litany of obfuscations from the PM, the dismissal of the Met Chief Constable, the unbelievable incompetence of Liz Truss and the inhumanity of Priti Patel with ever-increasing anger. Some good TV, notably 'This is going to hurt', the Winter Olympics and some football games have lifted the spirits. Wordle and a daily Sudoku exercise the grey matter.

The last few days of February provided a dump of snow, a trip to Perth and then to Falkirk to watch Gregor compete in the National XC championships. Four inches of snow added 4 minutes to my regular walk-up Lime Craig. I was pleased that the ugly telephone mast erected at the exposed summit last autumn was felled by Storm Dudley, the mast is irreparable. The power for the mast was provided by two solar panels but as the sun became a reluctant source of energy a diesel generator had been installed. A 4x4 truck was driven up the track to refuel the generator a couple of times a week and in the process created a mudslide on the track. It resulted in a nasty fall as I was running down in December. I was sent for an X-ray on my arm, it was not broken but the rotator cuff tear has made sleeping a challenge for the past three months.

We went to Perth for an outing and visited the Joan Eardley exhibition in the excellent Museum and Art Gallery. Her portraits of children from Townhead in Glasgow captured the reality of child poverty in the 1950s. Her seascapes and landscapes of Catterline on the Angus coast were painted on board and the oils were mixed with mud, grass and ship's paint. There were a significant array of these impressionistic paintings on display, she had harvested the wild winter landscapes and seascapes with cold hands and stiff brushes giving the pictures a rustic reality.

Perth town centre was much the same as Stirling, largely empty of people although traffic volumes seemed back to normal. The loss of department stores like Debenhams in both towns has left physical and expenditure voids. Together with the loss of smaller shops, there is a sense that town centres will struggle to regain footfall although this has been amplified by a large proportion of office workers still working from home. Public transport has been reduced as there is a reluctance to use the bus by many folks. Car trips are taking precedence as people head to out of town retail parks and refrain from crowded transport modes.

It is over thirty years since I last competed in the National Cross Country championships. It was usually a slog in cold weather over muddy ground whether in Irvine or Falkirk. When I began to cut back on racing, cross country races were abandoned for hill races, the longer format and more relaxed atmosphere was far more enjoyable. However, the National is still a tremendous spectacle with 650 runners competing this year. The collective energy and competitive spirit between the clubs create an atmosphere that bonds the participants into the mutual friendship of the running community.