Charity runs and Croci (Crocuses if you didn't do Latin.)

The keen ones racing around the final bend

The first Sunday in April, and the energetic are out this morning: hundreds of runners are pounding past my front door in the Lincoln "Active Nation" 10 kilometre run for charity. They estimate up to five and a half thousand participants. Some are national-class athletes and most are so lean and fit that it makes me tired just to look at them. 

Royal Air Force veterans warming up before the start

There are a number of wheelchair participants, whether in 3-wheeled Olympic class racers or in standard issue National Health Service 4-wheelers (like these ones, similar to the one Dad had in his later years,) being pushed at a jog by a supporting partner.

Dressed for the occasion

And then there are the people who cannot resist the opportunity to dress up, though if you ever try and get them to a Fancy Dress Ball, they will always find an excuse to stay away.
Even in this wintry weather, I am sure these men in green Morph suits must have been uncomfortably warm by the time they reached the finish. 

I'm sure this participant will also have ended up in a bit of a sweat, and he certainly deserves congratulations on the seasonal attire! (- or maybe he was just Welsh? )

The emphasis behind the event was on getting out and getting some exercise (he writes, as he taps at the keyboard and sips his G&T,) and I do feel I have been letting the family down while my son in Canada has been mountaineering on ice; and my daughter in Oxford and son in Rhode Island are both in training for local charity runs. 

So, time for a resolution, and after seeing the number of participants striding along as Nordic Walkers with their hiking poles, I could be tempted to get some rubber tips for my poles and join the next event, later in the year. 

I enjoy Nordic Walking, but when I used my hiking poles in Italy I received puzzled looks from locals who asked what I had done with the skis.

Spring flowers in a corner of my garden

Meanwhile, the garden is waking up and the Spring flowers are pushing through. 

I can once again walk across the front lawn when I come back from the cathedral, and feel that wonderfully springy turf of grass that hardly feels a footstep from one year to the next.

The boys and girls of the Cathedral School are now on holiday, so we had a guest choir today, singing the Haydn Little Organ Mass. For the anthem  they sang the Easter Carol "This Joyful Eastertide" in a beautiful unaccompanied harmony.

It takes many months to become part of the cathedral community, but I feel less of a visitor now and I'm less hesitant when It comes to chatting to people over coffee. I shall once again miss the community as I fly off this week to visit my daughter in Hong Kong, 

...and I really must clean and tidy up before I leave!