Long run of bliss!

Exercise chemicals still currently making me high, but - PEAK HAPPINESS! Got a good long sleep, headed out not long after getting up (it was almost noon by that point) for a glorious sedate beautiful long run along canal towpaths. The weather has been gorgeous this whole week - I was wearing gloves (plus short sleeves) but I really wouldn't have needed them.

Two very pleasant minor exchanges.

First, as I was coming up to 1hr turnaround point and had left towpath for a cycle route through fields, 2 little boys on bikes very politely asked for me to give them space as they passed - as they came up to me, one of them said, sounding extremely impressed, "Have you come all this way? We saw you all the way back there!" It can't have been much more than three miles, but it brought a smile to my face.

Second, when I passed Iffley Lock around the :40 mark, I vaguely noted that it looked like there was a hutch selling drinks and ice cream, and figured I'd stop there on the way back for a cold drink (should really have been carrying handheld, but couldn't quite be bothered). When I did get back there around 1:20, I investigated and realized it was just a sign advertising a pub elsewhere - I asked the keeper of the lock if there was anywhere nearby I could buy a cold drink, and she very regretfully told me that there wasn't, then took me under her wing, brought me to her little private kitchen and poured me a pint glass of water from the tap! So kind - put me in a great mood for the last forty minutes home.

Don't know that I'd dare photograph swans on land as they are a little scary albeit quite dramatic, but here is a quieter snapshot of non-scary bird life in the last stretch back through Christ Church Meadows: