A Quick Run in Suffolk: Minsmere Sluice

Pretty much wherever you are in the world, you can put on your shoes and  head out for a run. I had to drive to Suffolk and back from London today, so to reward myself when I got there I squeezed in a quick 6k trail run in the midday sun. I parked in the car park of the Eels Foot Inn in Eastbridge, and then found the start of a public footpath to Minsmere Sluice (come out of car park, turn right, path sign is on left just down the road). 

It was a very pleasant summer run accompanied by multicoloured dragonflies and the odd swallow. The only hazards were some brambles and gorse on the narrow path at the start of the run.

The outward run finished for me on the pebble beach by Minsmere Sluice. If I'd had time I would have explored the wider area, which includes the RSPB's Minsmere wildlife reserve, but I had to turn round and run back.

Sizewell Power Station.

'I set off to walk the county of Suffolk, in the hope of dispelling the emptiness that  takes hold of me whenever I have completed a long stint of work. And in fact my hope was realized, up to a point; for I have seldom felt so carefree as I did then, walking for hours in the day through the thinly populated countryside, which stretches inland from the coast... in retrospect I became preoccupied not only with the unaccustomed sense of freedom but also with the paralysing horror that had come over me at various times when confronted with the traces of destruction, reaching far back into the past, that were evident even in that remote place' (W G Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, 1995)

On the way back I drove past the London Olympic Stadium, came home and watched the excellent David Rudisha documentary, 100 Seconds to Beat the World, and I am now settled in front of the Commonwealth Games opening on TV with glass of wine. I am now officially on holiday.