On dashing through Oswestry

I love mornings. I have fond memories of my seven-year old self tearing gleefully around our garden in the Singaporean jungle at five 'o clock on Sunday mornings. By the time Mummy roused herself and laid on brunch, I was ravenous and her gingerbread pancakes were ambrosial. How I miss those gorgeous, leisurely Sunday feasts with Daddy buried in the papers and the four of us around a table groaning with food... But my enthusiasm for the dawn is still with me. Yesterday I threw up the sash window of my hotel room in Oswestry, in Shropshire, and breathed in a fine new day. I could have done with an extra hour of sleep but my trainers were calling to me, so I pulled on the usual gear and stood on the hushed pavement outside the hotel for a moment, wondering where the good running was at. Everywhere, as it turned out. Oswestry is a little town in pretty farmland, but the quiet cobbled streets of the town centre boasted elegant shop fronts, curry houses, a few larger grocery stores and a sweet town square presided over by a bronze statue of a farmer with his sheep. Every street seemed to end in a park, or a graveyard dreaming quietly beside an ancient stone church. (Or ancient to me; I still see English history through South African eyes, where old means three hundred years.) Rising out of a well-manicured bed of geraniums was a stone monument to the men of the town who died in the South African war. How different the red earth heaped on their graves must be to the dark loamy soil their families lie in. The town seemed to shake itself as the church bells tolled eight and ladies in tracksuits began to collect outside Greggs, the baked goods chain, awaiting the key holder. Back at the hotel, I hit the shower before grazing my way through the muesli selection of the buffet. Nothing tastes as good as food you've earned with your trainers on! I was sorry to leave the place. Perhaps its a good area to go for a quick cycle tour some summer weekend...