Second Wind: Official Exercise Programme Launch Time?

Second training run in two days! Five miles and no stresses and strains. Could this be the start of something big? Or rather the opposite as those stubborn pounds fall off. Just three months and a week to debut in M50 racing category.

Only downside of zipping rather than strolling through the countryside is less wildlife observed. On Tuesday on Chorlton Brook I saw the same brilliant kingfisher (pic: Paul Gale) on six successive stops on his beat. Two of the stops fully ten feet above the water; which was unexpected. Electric blue and rust made rare-ish house wren and grey wagtail pale into brown and yellow insignificance.

Way back when I painted a kingfisher for Art O Level to the theme "Gone fishing". Had to do it at lunchtimes as "academic" kids couldn't take art otherwise. We were supervised bizarrely by a PE Teacher and successful Rugby Coach name of Jock Learmonth. Coarse scrummaging he knew well, but art and birds?

He suggested one day that I might have worked out the plumage detail from looking at a picture rather than from life. This was of course true. And Chorlton Brook kingfishers are no different from the rest of them. Not good portrait sitters.