'Take The Ball And Run With It...
Kathy and I started our day with a two hour hike in the mountains again... The sun rose over their beauteous craggy faces as we clambered up their rocky side...
It streaked through the fir trees as we dropped down into a valley, giving its promise of a bright, bright day ahead...
We ended our walk at Teide restaurant, where we had hidden our journals on the ledge behind the flower pots before we set off...
Antonio, the proprietor ,had promised us last night that he would look out for them this morning and then keep them safe until we returned for breakfast...
We sat down and ordered the same desayuno as yesterday... Fresh apple and carrot juice, omelette, tostadas with tomato and olive oil and cafe con leche... We ate hungrily before 'getting down to work'...
The day has passed in a magical blur... I returned to Anadi in the early evening, and we have just been sitting drinking tea together on the terrace...
'I better get moving' I said, after awhile... 'I am cutting it a bit fine to write my blog before dinner...! '
'You always get it done' he reassured... 'It seems to write itself...'
I received a delightful surprise in my email inbox this week... A message from an old friend of mine called Jo...
She wrote that she has read every single one of my blogs..! Wow...
She told me that I have been her virtual friend for months now as she rehabs from a shoulder operation...
A 'super vet' like me - in fact she arrived on planet earth five years before me - she is now in training for the European Masters championships in May next year...
Jo is a very bright light... I first met her when I was about twenty four years old, so the year was circa 1983...
She had arrived in Bath and opened a fabulous running shop called 'Running Free'... Her energy was a huge tour de force for the city...
Jo created the sisters running network and invited me to give a talk to her group on how to approach competition... I think I am recalling correctly that this was the subject!
I remember arriving to deliver my talk to a huge group of women...!
Jo has an attitude that everything is possible... This is very infectious, and so she gathers people at every turn who are inspired by her and follow her along the road less travelled...
She is happiest in the outdoors; running, cycling, hiking and has set herself many many challenges over the years!
At the bottom of her emails she has this piece of writing which demonstrates her love of the wilderness and wildness...
"What would the world be once bereft
of wet and wilderness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet."
Our paths have kept crossing in unexpected ways over the past thirty plus years, like now... Finding her pop up in my emails...!
I would like to publicly thank her for a huge gesture of friendship that she showed me twenty years ago....
I was in a very destructive relationship which I had decided to leave... I had told the man and was gathering resources to make the leap. I had no money at the time, it was all in the 'relationship pot' and not easy for me to access...
I was with Jo having a coffee...
She suddenly reached into her bag and fetched her cheque book...
She opened it and wrote a cheque, tearing it off, she handed it to me, made out for £1000....
'A months deposit and rent Julia, so that you can get started again....'
I was able to leap immediately and I have never forgotten Jo's kindness and the support she gave me that day, which meant I was able to 'take the ball and run with it...'