El bloguero britanico....

 Running into the headlines.... (Click pictures to enlarge)

   It's been a shock for my old bones, the temperature dropping around 20ºF since that 2½ hour flight from Menorca to Manchester, but summer is hopefully just around the corner. Despite some sneaky nithering winds it's felt good to be back running in familiar haunts, locally along bluebell paths, through vanilla scented gorse, by trees ladened with apple blossom.  Or, on mornings when running didn't feature on the agenda, to hear curlews lilting over the fields, pheasants crowing down the lane and doves cooing in the laburnum, all from the comfort of a warm bed .

Back on a familiar path up Castle Hill with gorse in bloom....

 My errant Achilles tendon has been slow to heal but is behaving itself a little better now. It stiffens and aches if I rest for any length of time (like 10 minutes) but quickly loosens again when I run. To my shame I only ran 59 miles throughout the whole of May, but that was 15 miles more than in April after I'd been ordered to rest. Since then I've been gradually ramping up the miles to get back to my pre injury average of 21 per week.

...and back to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales

 Last week I stuck in an extra run that took me to 26 - which probably accounts for me feeling like death warmed up today and toying with the idea of an afternoon nap rather than typing this! After three early morning runs amounting to 15 miles, Saturday's 5 miler was a real battle against a goodness knows how many miles an hour wind that buffetted us all over the place en route to Grassington Bridge. But oh what a joy it was to have it behind us on the way back. I felt I was flying.

Collapso.....on Sunday's orchid run

 Sunday's 6 mile run, in search of orchids, seemed to have far more of the uphill stuff than it did last time we ran it. My bloated nether regions weren't too happy about it either, which made for some uncomfortable interludes. But the sun shone, birds sang and the sought after purple orchids burst upon us in all their glory, as did bird's eye primroses and tiny yellow tormentil.

Bird's eye primroses...

Oh, I almost forgot (liar!), shortly after arriving home from Menorca an interesting email plopped into my inbox from a gentleman called Carlos Quetglas who'd read my blog report and passed it on to the editor of his local newspaper in Menorca. Result was, I hit the headlines whilst my wonderful partner and I both featured in a full page article inside illustrated with five photographs. It was all written in Spanish, of course, but Carlos kindly sent us a rough translation for our amusement. I'm not sure my octogenarian antics will do anything to boost the local tourist industry!