samedi 31 mars 2012

Brighton, in the morning

This is hardly a new observation - many people, including me, have made it before, but it never fails to make me smile.

I live in Brighton.  This morning, having a free Saturday, I pulled on my trainers and headed out for an 11-mile run at 07:45.

At that time of the morning, particularly on a weekend day, every single human being you see is guaranteed to fall into one of the following categories:
  1. Runners.
  2. People on their way home from last night.
  3. Cyclists.
  4. Dogwalkers.
  5. People doing community service litter-picking.
  6. Occasional metal-detector.
A note about each of these:
  1. Lots at the moment, as there are only two weeks to go until the Brighton Marathon - I got overtaken a lot more than usual.
  2. Usually sweetly bemused (a girl this morning, beautiful, teary, chewing her face off, luckily being cuddled by her boyfriend); occasionally aggressive in a 'you-think-you're-so-superior-don't-you' sort of way (this morning, a drunk and leery fat couple - for some reason, the man saw fit to walk in front of me and grab his lady companion's tits as I passed).
  3. Often friendlier than the runners (although there is a pretty excellent ratio of 'good morning' all round).  Also, some fabulous bikes on occasion - a man on a penny farthing, one who carries his ferrets in the basket, a lot of gorgeous Dutch bikes).
  4. Usually little poofy dogs, only very seldom a big one - I think this is due to a combination of general taste and that most of us here live in small flats.
  5. I'm so glad they exist - you should see the state of Brighton seafront at around 4am before they descend.  Such a symbiotic culture here.
  6. Always a joy.
Also joyous is the fact that, with around a mile to go on my way home for breakfast, I get to see this:

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