Antibiotics and/or Fresh Air

 

Loch Ard Trail

There were only 14 of us at the weekly exercise class instead of the usual 20 or so. It was autumn and the first wave of viral infections was wafting in. Three days later, I succumbed and spent a day indoors coughing and wheezing. I thought the answer was to get out and help with the monthly path maintenance in the village, which I had done for the past seven years, though not much in the last year. Hedges were cut, grass was trimmed, and auld acquaintances were renewed; I was reinvigorated by the fresh air, or so I thought. A night of coughing and spluttering and little sleep told me otherwise, and it was Sunday. 

After a repeat in the next 24 hours, I cancelled my exercise class and called the pharmacy. The friendly pharmacist examined me and told me I looked terrible. He prescribed some antibiotics. I gave them a couple of days to kick in and decided on a walk in the Loch Ard Forest, where I had run almost every day for thirty years. I was walking easily and called in on a couple of old neighbours to catch up on life and swap stories about ailments. One had had a stroke, and another was about to have an exploratory operation. One couple had bought electric bikes and downsized their dinghy. Both households were repairing and preparing their houses to stave off the threat of care homes. I was inspired by their fortitude.

But the antibiotics didn't seem to be having much effect; I was still wheezing instead of sleeping. I was stuck in the house being sensible; I had binge-watched the new series of Blue Lights, and even tuned into Celebrity Traitors, not really my thing, but the way they edited Stac Polly, 55 miles away, into the episodes proved that the editors were traitors. The next day I went to watch Gregor run in the Trossachs Half Marathon. I enjoyed the walk along the River Forth to Lemmahamish Pool near the start and finish of the race; a route I had run every Sunday morning for many years. 

Gregor was leading the race after two kilometres but took the wrong turn onto the Ultra event route by mistake and had to loop back to the start, adding an extra 3.5 kilometres. He was at the back of the field. He decided to make it a training run and to see how many of the field he could catch up with. At the finish, the organiser expected the winner to finish in one hour 22 minutes; the route of the trail had changed since Gregor had won it a couple of years ago in one hour 16 minutes and now included 300 metres of climbing. The first runner arrived in one hour 24 minutes; Gregor finished 5 minutes later.  Allowing the extra 3.5 kilometres at an even pace, this would have given him a time of one hour 16 minutes. He elected not to go through the finish line; he said it was his mistake and just wanted to do his warm-down.

The next day,  I spent two hours clearing the burn of rubbish, a stone dam and dismantling a beaver dam that had been built by local children using branches that had been dumped on the slopes by a local landscape contractor.  I had finally eliminated all the Japanese Knotweed on my side of the burn and was preparing the banks to plant some meadow grass. Gregor came round to watch Liverpool v Manchester City (0-3); the weekend was ruined, and I coughed the night away. I went to the exercise class the next day; my cold had stopped, so had the cough, and the course of antibiotics was complete.  I was feeling better; the antibiotics and/or fresh air had worked. Perhaps I should focus on the latter.

Fungi

Reflections with Friends

Mouth Of Loch Ard

Trail along the River Forth

Lemmahamish Pool