the accidental girl

I crashed a life drawing class with my mummy this evening..
Here's my feeble offering. I haven't done life drawing since my art a-level, many moons ago now:

One thing I always take when I travel away from Edinburgh is my sports gear. I am a runner.. I like the freedom of being outside and able to run up or down or everywhere.. I run, I challenge myself as to the length of time I can run for rather than the speed and feel euphoric when I find a steady, long lasting lope comfortable after an hour. I've been a runner since the age of 7 although then it was mostly for track training. Being the size of an 11 year old at 7 meant I was encouraged to enter all the sports teams etc.. it resulted in me competing in 200m sprints for my school and for a short two years at 15, for southwark. Anyway, when it finally transpired that I wasn't particularly fast (a love affair with cake put that to rest) and not much taller or stronger than the other 15 year olds, I stopped and took up long distance running instead.

So I was running today in the woods near my house. It's nothing when compared to the majesty of the mountains in the east of france where I run during visits to my grandmother, where everything is super-sized pines, loamy paths and colourful backdrops or even when compared to Athalassa park with its reds, dry greens and warm eucalyptus scent with the cicada muffling your footfall. It is, however, lush and cool and running through the winding tracks makes you feel a little less in London which is always nice. It does sometimes remind me, though, of how perverted England is compared to Cyprus.
I used to walk home from school through a tangential path to the woods and aged 13, this walk was always overshadowed by a man who used to walk his dog near the exit. Everyday he'd be there, everyday he'd try to chat to me. What my name was, how old I was, if I fancied going out with him. We're talking a 20 something year old man chatting up a 13 year old girl. Even after I told him my age he wouldn't leave me alone. I told him I was 12 to press the matter home that this wasn't an appropriate situation but he still insisted. I wouldn't tell my parents as I feared they'd disallow my walks home which I secretly enjoyed if only for the fact that I walked past my brother's school where I might bump into one of his friends.
Anyway, he only desisted once I forced my brother to accompany me home a number of times. I saw a few years later with a woman, she looked more his age. I think he recognised me as I walked past, although I wasn't in my school uniform. The path still gives me the creeps somewhat. More so because there was a regular wanker behind one of the trees on the way up. I mean wanker literally, he used to hide behind a tree hardly wide enough to cover his form, all you could see as you walked up past the tree was a hand furiously pumping backwards and forwards from the trunk. If you looked back over your shoulder, you could catch him looking at you with determination as he skulked further behind the greenery. They were all over the woods though. Various hotspots you'd know not to linger in if you were alone. The number of times I'd crash through the paths only to disturb these men (always men) mid-stroke. You'd think it was a convention. The woods are far too populated to make it a dogging area so I have no idea what these men are up to.. maybe they want to be caught by a young woman jogging. Who knows.

Today would have been a bad day for them. As I ran, glorying in my solitude and the peacefulness of these old green woods, I suddenly found myself overtaken by a sinewy, greying 70 year old who casually apologised for overtaking and was gone in a jerk of his spindly, time worn legs. Once the disbelief had subsided, I then realised I was surrounded by runners. All jogging in time like a Midwitch Cuckoo marathon, their efficient breathing the synchronised whooshes of digital printing presses. I couldn't stop as I was scooped up in their elegant strides. I felt like a gazelle running from a lion, until I changed lane to a quieter path and Lo! Another stream of runners came from no where and then I felt rather more like a fox on hunt day. I was being hounded out of all my serene routes, forced to smaller tributaries where the wankers live. Thankfully the combined pounding of a million pairs of feet drove the perverts out. Perhaps the dynamic movement (akin to the Arup wobbly bridge) made the woods shake off its hangers on, those who dared not follow the rhythm. I suppose that's the point of masturbation, you find your own rhythm. Having it dictated by a hundred, olympic inspired dulwichites isn't anyone's idea of romance.

I survived my run unscathed. Although I was a bit rattled by the sudden migration of the Dulwich middle-aged. I've also developed a particularly unsightly eye infection. Good timing!!!