unironedman

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future

‘Fly Like an Eagle’
Steve Miller Band

I seem to be having a lot of those moments lately. I have no doubt the canny Germans have sprinkled a little vorsprung durch technik magic dust onto a few words and bolted together something that sums up the feeling thus: when you are well into your fifties and you look around the world and think ‘fucking hell… are we still doing this shit? Really?’

I genuinely (and as it turns out, naively) thought we would have resolved some of the thornier issues of our time by now, such as, you know, slaughtering each other over land. Poverty. Fascism. That kind of thing.

Is it perhaps just another function of later adulthood when your soul finally admits defeat, like opening up presents, hoping for something special, but getting socks? Am I just an idiot? Has anyone else out there come to the same slow but grim realisation that the human race is just a bit crap, really, and that we will never learn?

I understand a reasonable amount of the human condition. One of the features that allows us to survive this strange journey we are all on is the ability to process grief from its many sources, and parcel it away, and ‘move on’. I appreciate the ‘move on’ phrase, used at the incorrect moment will often get you a swift and deserved punch in the face. So I use it judiciously. And in this instance, with the added protection of distance provided by the internet.

But this ability to absorb varying amounts of suffering, I believe, also allows us ignore the suffering of others, and in addition, seems to not have any cumulative effect on the species. In other words, you sail through life, collecting various pearls of wisdom and empathy, and then you reach the end and they mostly all vanish, bar the few you managed to pass on to others through your deeds. The good stuff, in other words, doesn’t seem to translate terribly well into resolving the major problems of our time.

Maybe we just don’t live long enough.

Or, to neatly package this garbled view into a meme, ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ I suppose I could have just said that. It would have been a lot simpler.

As you were.

In the real world, work continues. S has returned from a trip to Crete with some girlfriends. It was all sponsored by Vinted. It was an all-in trip that meant lodging about 165 quid for the last seven months. So S turned her hand to selling some of her many dresses and other items to fund the holiday. Fair play to her; she never missed a payment. And we are off this week to Biarritz again, as it is a fabulously inexpensive holiday. Cheap flights directly from Dublin, and free accommodation near the sea. All we have to do is eat. And perhaps drink. Yes, we may drink a little bit. And hopefully get some sea-swimming in too.

I tried a kettlebells class last week, and it sure put manners on me. I lost about a stone in sweat alone. The idea is to get into the swing of it (OMG! ed.) and put together a programme I can do at home in my workshop. I have the various weights I need; I just have to create a plan and print it out. If it’s not on paper, and stuck to the fridge, it won’t happen.

And today (Sunday), after last night’s rowdy and enjoyable gig in Portlaoise, I slipped on some runners and found my way onto the canal once more. The weather was more than agreeable, and after a few kilometres, the hat came off. My plan, such as there was one, was to get to the old schoolhouse along the Deep Sinking. It’s exactly 7k from my front door to the end of the northside towpath at which point if you want to continue along the canal, you must cross the bridge. The route then gets a little gnarly, so I was happy to turn at this point, but not before I took a few pictures of the old building, which would be an ideal location for a horror movie. For now, its secrets remain securely locked up behind various steel and concrete shutters, all of which adds to the mystery, I suppose.

As I made my way back, I decided to push for a negative split. (For non-runner folk, this means doing the second half of a run faster than the first half). The outward leg had not been too shoddy, so I knew the pace would have to get a little tastier to achieve this. With a figure in my mind from the turn-point, I decided not to check the watch as various bridges and landmarks slipped by, but just keep the head down and try and keep the pace up.

Entering the park once more is the 2k point to home. 12k under the belt. Down the avenue of old beech trees and then the canopied drop down alongside the Liffey meadow where the Highland Cattle hang out. Around by the Queen Beech and push on past the ruined church and the slightly incongruous yet imposing gate designed by Francis Johnston, and the final stretch of the Black Avenue and its last little gift of a slope up to the crest of the hill before the eastern flank of Leixlip Village appears below you and you plunge down towards the Sileachain Stream and the fire station and out onto the Mill Lane.

Home, and stop the watch as it beeps to announce a 14k total. 1.18:46 in all, but over 3 minutes quicker on the return leg. A 5:37 pace too, which is pleasing enough (not least for a grizzly old bollocks who hasn’t been doing enough running of late).