There is noth­ing like a half hour run to start the day full of ener­gy. The sun peeks through the low hang­ing clouds and the sky looks dif­fer­ent every morn­ing. At moments like that I am total­ly in touch with my pri­mal feel­ings: run­ning across the savan­nah instead of star­ing at a com­put­er screen.

My enthu­si­asm for sport is a wave move­ment, a cou­ple of months on and then some months off. Here in Gilling­ham I seem to have struck a rou­tine, per­haps main­ly due to Parkrun. This is an activ­i­ty orga­nized through­out Eng­land, and also in our town. Every Sat­ur­day morn­ing you can join a 5 km run, where every­one starts at the same time. At the fin­ish, your time is reg­is­tered and you can see your progress on the web­site. This cer­tain­ly trig­gers the small amount of com­pet­i­tive instinct that I pos­sess. Dur­ing the week I often run with a colleague.

In my work I am also start­ing to warm up. For the last three months I have worked as a research assis­tant at the insti­tute where Fred­dy is doing his PhD. My tem­po­rary con­tract expires after today. But yes­ter­day I was offered a per­ma­nent posi­tion as a Research Fel­low. A fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty: a job in my field, at 20 minute cycling from our house! The research they do here is about devel­op­ment, espe­cial­ly in small-scale agri­cul­ture. It has a strong prac­ti­cal ele­ment because the insti­tute also con­ducts and eval­u­ates projects.

With this new step, the way for­ward is becom­ing more clear. I would like to quote Bil­bo (Lord of the Rings) on this:

The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must fol­low, if I can
Pur­su­ing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larg­er way
Where many paths and errands meet
And whith­er then? I can­not say.