Marie Colvin’s death in the besieged Syrian city of Homs was shocking and violent.

Her journalist colleagues have painted a surprising picture of what drove a middle-aged woman to crawl through ditches, drive into pitched darkness with unknown armed men, and join civilians cowering under merciless shellfire in concrete basements.

In a word: anger.

Marie Colvin seems to have had an inbuilt anger: anger at injustice, anger at the wrong meted out to ordinary people in conflicts across the globe, anger at the sheer unfairness of the powerful punishing the poor.   She wanted to tell their stories.

Her last report for the Sunday Times is awash with the stories of ordinary people, mostly told in their own words.  Yes there’s a small section dealing with her dramatic journey to the city, a wistful paragraph on how beautiful the area would have been in different circumstances, but the piece is essentially not about her  (a point missed by many other “celebrity” correspondents).  No, the story for Marie Colvin was about the people she found in Homs, the people whose lives and deaths she wanted the world to know about, because what was (and is) happening to them was (and is) wrong.

As  a society, we’re broadly uncomfortable with the concept of anger.  We usually reserve our own anger for family members, drivers who cut us up, and anyone else guilty of petty or perceived wrongs.

Far more rare, but far more precious, is what Marie Colvin had. A driving sense of righteous anger, a courageous rage against injustice, fury at exploitation of the weak.   Maybe Marie Colvin was quite capable of the first type of anger too, but she certainly had the second.  She made choices to put herself in harm’s way so that the voices of the poor could be heard.

Righteous anger comes at a price. The desire to tell the story of the oppressed cost Marie Colvin first the sight in one eye, and then her life.  We feel compassion for her death because we know something of her, had some basis for empathy and feeling we “knew” her, even though most of us didn’t.  She, on the other hand, seemed able to experience these feelings for people she’d never met, but whose suffering she abhorred.

Contrast that with the man whose own choices led to her death.  Bashar al-Assad chose as a young man to come to London to study to be an eye doctor.  He chose to marry a British woman,  Asma from Acton.  He appeared to choose a life of doing good, of healing.  In different circumstances he would probably be living out that life in London now, and no doubt would have made a caring, compassionate doctor.  He would have appeared to be a good man.  But how many of the people we see as good – including ourselves – have ever really been put to the test?

Circumstances changed for Bashar al-Assad.  The death of his brother Basil in a car crash in 1994 ended his hopes of a life doing good in London: Bashar became the new presumed heir to his father’s power.  Perhaps a stronger man would have refused to go back to Syria in the first place.  Certainly a stronger man would have found a solution to the current uprising other than murder.

His weakness has cost thousands of lives and the toll is mounting daily.  As the conflict started, I found myself willing him (and his British wife) on, to rediscover the values they must have thought they believed in when they lived in London.

But no, it was weakness that won out.   Assad and his regime resorted to military might – and nothing demonstrates greater weakness than using the military against your own people.   The Syrian opposition movement is, I am aware, an unstable cocktail of religious, political and ethnic groups, with even al-Qaeda trying to muscle in, but that in no way justifies what the UN believes are “highly likely” to be crimes against humanity.

And while weakness may seem easier in the moment, strength  is what brings change.   Whole empires can be brought down by the strength of one man. Mikhail Gorbachev may not have intended to end the Soviet empire when he became convinced of the case for “perestroika” – change.   But that was the end result.  A brutal empire built up over decades crumbled and fell because a strong man accepted the need for change.

Bashar al-Assad has demonstrated nothing but his weakness in attempting to use strength to end the uprising in Syria.   Yes he’s accepted limited reforms, and yes he’s surrounded by generals and politicians telling him he has no choice but to act tough. Some see him in effect as a puppet,  who couldn’t change things even if he wanted to. There’s probably some truth in this.  But a strong man would be prepared to be ousted, exiled, even killed, rather than presiding over the massacre of his people.

So a weak man has killed a strong woman -  a woman he could easily have known and befriended in London if the Sliding Doors moment in 1994 hadn’t taken his life in another direction.

Thanks to the courage and sacrifice of one woman, the world is more aware than ever of the brutality and cowardice of what’s happening in Syria.   The life of Marie Colvin was of no higher intrinsic value than that of the French photographer Remi Ochlik who died with her, or the dozens of other people killed in Homs on the same day, or the estimated 7,000 unnamed Syrians already killed since the uprising began in March 2011.

But let’s hope the shocking loss of such a prominent figure may prove some kind of turning point, and that in death Marie Colvin achieves what she sought so courageously to achieve in life.

The allotments were still snuggling under their white duvets, laid neatly end to end as if in some giant dormitory.  The lane was part mud, part compacted snow and part ice-rink.  The fields and paddocks were pristine white. The gates to the big house were open, presumably to guard against snowdrifts.

Down the track to the picturesque neighbouring village I pounded, imagining the jellies in the houses of the elderly wobbling like something out of Jurassic Park as the seismic event unfolded outside.

Into the churchyard, scattering a flock of pigeons and rooks behind the ancient yew tree.  Down to the still-frozen millpond, the boathouse looking lovely under its snowy roof.  I wondered how the resident great-crested grebe had fared in the cold snap, but I didn’t stop to look for it.

Last time I ran this route I set a Personal Worst time (in my defence I was probably already in the early stages of the Deadly Virus).  I would beat that today, surely?  I couldn’t possibly run even more slowly, could I? Could I???

My original plan was to lose all the excess weight before resuming running, to save my long-suffering knees from possible further damage.  In the end it became clear no significant weight loss was likely to occur UNLESS I started running.

Here are the horrid stats:

• One month of illness and Christmas eating resulted in an extra quarter of a stone being piled on to an already well-nourished frame.

• One month of vegetable stir fries and walking resulted in a single pound being scraped back off again.

• Two months of non-running sent my resting heart rate from the low 50s to the low 60s.

Not that I was completely idle in my two month lay-off.  There was a lot of walking, some cross-country skiing, one episode of Scout’s Pace, and a bit of jolking (a combination of jogging and walking, moving your arms like you’re running when you’re actually still walking).  Other people may call this Power Walking but I prefer to think of it as Jolking.  As in:  “Did you say you were going out running?” “No I was only Jolking.”

I jog on.

Then the moment, the moment you hope for in running where everything suddenly comes together.  I’m running uphill, heading home, and the next song on the playlist is Coldplay’s The Scientist (which includes the special jogger’s line “running in circles”).  The rhythm fits perfectly with mine, and suddenly it’s as if the whole universe has clicked into place.  It’s like picking up a comfortable old friendship with someone you haven’t seen in years: it feels as if you’ve never been away.

Running and rhythm, music and mood, scenery and senses. It’s all perfect.

And to add to the perfection:  Dog count 0, People count 0, Temperature +2C.

And the time? Ah yes, the time. Well some negatively-inclined people might see 34 minutes and 55 seconds to run approx 2.5 miles as a new Personal Worst.  Technically it could be viewed in this harsh way.

But given the ice, the snow, the two-month lay-off and the extra quarter of a stone, I’m not having that.  No, I’ve invented a new category so that this return to running can count as the triumph it deserves to be.  It’s a new Personal Best – Considering Current  Circumstances (PB-CCC).  I plan to beat it next time.

In south-west London this morning, a man was walking self-consciously along a major road, clutching a giant teddy bear which was itself clutching a bunch of red roses. I hope the intended recipient appreciated and deserved the gesture: it came at a cost, and not just the financial one.

At the florists, everything is red roses and high prices; restaurants are offering special deals for that special couple; even the visit of the Chinese vice-president to the US is seen as having Valentine’s Day potential.

And a church somewhere in Englandshire has organised a couples-only Valentine’s Party  – apparently unaware of the delightful irony of holding a church event from which Jesus would have been excluded. 

Love is of course a great thing. So is romance, so is coupledom.

But I’d like to big up singleness too, on this one day of the year where the rest of society seems to conspire to make singles feel like failures, outcasts or misfits.

Some of the loveliest, most together, wisest, smartest, funniest and funnest people I know are single. Some of them are happy with being single; some are not. All of them are getting on with their lives, living them positively. The ones who would have loved to be in a relationship are, to coin someone else’s brilliant phrase, living well in their second-choice world.

Others of the loveliest, most together, wisest, smartest, funniest and funnest people I know are in relationships. Some of them are happy with it; some are not. Many of them are also living in a second-choice world. Some are finding it a struggle. Some in both categories suffer depression. 

In other words, the two groups are essentially indistinguishable in terms of who they are and their values and struggles through life.

So why does society broadly remain suspicious of single people, broadly feel sorry for them and broadly think they need looking after and, well, pairing off.

Do people think all singles must be secretly gay? Or are secretly after my wife/husband/me*? (*delete as applicable). Or secretly in a relationship? After all, they can’t possibly just be, well, HAPPY? Can they?

Being comfortable in your own skin and in your own company are gifts that we would all do well to discover, whether single or partnered-up.  Singleness usually means more solitude, and solitude I firmly believe to be good for the soul. Aloneness and loneliness are very different things. You can be very lonely in a relationship.   Aloneness – in the sense of separateness, of self-worth that does not depend on the affirmation of another person – is something to be nurtured, not feared. 

And let’s face it, in the long run we’re all single, to misquote the economist John Maynard Keynes.  In other words, most couples will end up with a single survivor.

Singleness can mean greater financial struggle, and practical problems when ill-health or problems strike.  But there’s no need to compromise over who uses the bathroom first or gets the car or chooses the channel. It has its huge advantages as well as its down sides.

Coupledom brings both comfort and conflict. It can cost people their identity or make them too lazy to ever bother looking for it. It can make you cosy and insular, turn you into the Smug Marrieds of Bridget Jones’ Diary,  or bring unimaginable pain if it breaks down. It can also bring lifelong joy and comfort.  In its best form it probably beats being single – but being happily single definitely trumps being unhappily coupled. 

I’m absolutely not arguing against coupledom: merely trying to redress society’s default position that singleness is inherently a worse state to be in.  And in these days where the unclear family has replaced the nuclear family, singleness can also be a state that comes and goes more readily than once it did.    

So Happy Valentine’s, whoever you are and whatever your state of attachment.  Celebrate love if you have it, but either way celebrate life.  Single or married, gay or straight, your value as a human being is equal, whatever society, the church and big business might try to tell you.

(a) get out and move it.

(b) find another parking space.

(c) use your car as a battering ram to knock the trolley out of the way so it rolls into someone else’s car.

Well the answer, of course, is (c).

Or it is if you’re a 60-something-year-old man in a certain South Coast town, driving a nice big shiny car.  You successfully knock the trolley out of your way and into the parked car, you get out and you stride purposefully towards the supermarket without so much as a backward glance.

So here’s the next scenario.  You witness the above incident while taking your elderly mother shopping – indeed there was a 50-50 chance that the car hit by the runaway trolley could have been yours. Do you:

(a) do nothing.

(b) shout abuse at the fleeing driver.

(c) run after him, abandoning your elderly mother swaying beside the car, and respectfully suggest that he moves the trolley away from its resting place against someone else’s car.

Well the answer is again of course (c).  Not necessarily a wise or smart response, but it’s what happened.

“Wouldn’t it be a good idea,” I asked Trolley Man, grinning inanely, puffing from the effort of running after him, “if one of us moved that trolley back off the side of that car.”

“It wasn’t me who left the trolley in the middle of the car park,” came the indignant response.

“Well no indeed,” I say, still smiling, blood pressure soaring, “but you did knock it out of the way with your car so that it ran into the other car.  I just think one of us should probably move it. To be fair to the other driver.”

Silence.  Trolley Man has no words.

“I’m happy to do it,” I say.  “I just think one of us should.”

Huffily, grumpily, he stomps back to the trolley and doesn’t just move it from its resting place against the car, he actually wheels it all the way back to a trolley park.   Wow! Such public-spirited behaviour!

The act of challenging such divas (or right Toscas, if you prefer) is probably a bad idea.  If Trolley Man had been younger or scarier I probably wouldn’t have bothered or dared.  Anti-social behaviour is often best left unchallenged, if only for self-preservation purposes.

But the incident got me thinking how certain groups of people get classified according to their worst-behaving members, while others don’t.  For example: one teenager behaving badly will broadly be seen by most people as evidence that the youth of today are all dreadful.  One person from an ethnic minority behaving badly will be seen as proof that they’re all dodgy (especially to Daily Mail readers, who come with that view as a factory-fitted mindset).  One court report involving a traveller family will be seen as proof that all travellers are lawbreakers.

But one retired, white Englishman behaving badly? Well he was probably just having a bad day, or in a hurry, or something.  We draw no broader conclusions at all about the behaviour of his ethnic group, his age group or his gender.

A few days after the Trolley Man incident, I overheard some schoolboys in the same town issuing their farewells in the street, as their bicycle routes diverged.  “F*** you,” shouted one.  “Yeah f*** you too.”  It continued in that cheery vein for a few minutes, before the group split up.  One boy cycled off singing a song which certain sections of society would have found highly offensive.  Proof that the youth of today are terrible? No, proof that those few boys have a rather limited vocabulary and world view.

I hope Trolley Man thinks twice before he commits potential criminal damage (trolleycide?) again, but I wish too we’d all learn to stop classifying entire groups on the basis of the behaviour of the worst few.

This is cross-country skiing at its finest, and right on the doorstep, right here in south-east England.  The snow started at seven on Saturday night, with fine flakes that twirled and swirled and began settling in the sub-zero temperatures without any ado.   By midnight more than two inches lay sparkling on the ground and the snow was falling with even greater urgency.  By the morning it was six inches deep and most of the country appeared to be at a standstill.

The launch of a cross-country skiing expedition takes only three simple steps:  (1) into the loft to retrieve the skis (2) into the back of the bedroom cupboard to find the boots (3) and into the running gear that’s lain unloved since the Deadly Virus hit in mid-December.

And then it’s off, down the high street.  I’m not sure why, but people’s faces light up at the sight of a cross-country skier like they do for a baby on a Tube train.  I step gingerly across the bald patches where the early risers have already dug a path to freedom.  Then across the virgin territory of the recreation ground, struggling to cut a path into the deep snow.  The snowplough has beaten me to my planned route round the local country estate: the driver and I exchange cheery waves and I head for the woods instead.

A Landrover has compressed a handy trail down to the Hansel and Gretel house deep in the woods: perfect!  For more than half a mile, gravity does the work.  All I have to do is watch the view glide past: the snow-covered trees, the holly bushes brought so low in places you have to duck to get by, the animal tracks.

Down at last to the frozen hammerpond. Ducks are walking on the water, or sculling around in the small corner that remains unfrozen, quacking indignantly at the unfairness of it all and the lack of bread-bearing children.

On to the meadow, where more virgin snow remains to be cut through.  In cross-country skiing, as in running, you seek the perfect rhythm, where breathing and the movement of arms and legs flow together and everything else becomes distant.

When it happens it’s pure joy.

I finally stop to take in the sounds where a stream runs into the hammerpond down a series of pools and waterfalls.  High above, in the top of an oak tree, long-tailed tits flit from branch to branch, sending down mini-avalanches to the ground.  A blackbird has taken refuge in the ivy high up in another tree.  This is the kingfisher’s normal terrain, but there’s no blue flash to be seen amid the winter’s snow.

More mini-avalanches start plunging from the treetops and the scrunching sound under the skis has changed.  Temperatures are rising and the beginnings of a thaw are setting in: time for the long uphill ski home.  A wren flies across the path, a tiny speck in a sea of white.  I glide back up the Landrover trail, and along the high street, struggling through the murky brown drifts kicked up by the snowplough.

Motorists are making their way gingerly along, dodging the abandoned vehicles.  The urge to dig has taken hold now, and many people are excavating their cars and clearing icy paths with plastic shovels.   There’s an air of fun and festival about it all.

Snow brings out the best in a village.  One couple abandoned their car in the middle of the road early this morning to get out and push another stranded motorist to freedom.  Other adults were snowball-fighting gleefully in the middle of the road at midnight, or pulling their children towards the woods on sleds straight after breakfast.

As predicted, the snow has brought transport mayhem:  people stuck for more than seven hours on the M25, planes cancelled, trains and underground services badly affected.

I sympathise with all those caught up in the chaos, but I’m feeling grateful as I glide right back up to the front door after a two-hour workout, my mind full of images of snow-covered woods. I’ve only fallen off three times, and broken nothing.  The annual skiing holiday has taken place, and right outside the door.

By this afternoon, the clear blue sky will have filled with snow clouds as biting temperatures arrive from the east.  From Russia, with gloves.  The Met Office has splodged an orange warning across much of Englandshire.   The snow seems to be a known known.   Up to 10cm of snow will fall, and here in the village, on the top of a run of hills, we can confidently expect more.

Equally predictable is the disproportionate chaos that a few centimetres of snow will bring.  Railways will grind to a halt, buses may remain in what I love to think of as their despots.  Frozen, stranded travellers will huddle under their hats and tut about how the Swiss would still have things running.

But for all that, I love snow.  I know it brings chaos and even catastrophe to some, but to me it’s always something magical and beautiful.  I love watching it falling silently at midnight in the orange glow of the streetlights, as a child would.

I love it for another reason too: I can clamber into the freezing loft and retrieve the cross-country skis.  It seems that every winter enough snow falls for at least one expedition.  I can ski from right outside my front door, glide up the high street, complete a three-mile circuit round the country lanes, and end up right back at the front door.

Cross-country skiing is such a glorious pursuit that I am genuinely puzzled it’s not more popular.   Thousands head for the slopes of the Alps and elsewhere to plunge down crowded slopes, queue for lifts and risk being taken out by complete strangers. I tried it once and loved it apart from the constant feeling that I was about to die. This was not helped when an out-of-control novice skied into a group of us, standing at the bottom of the slope, causing heads to clash together like skittles and the woman next to me to fall down unconscious.

Cross-country skiing, on the other hand, is relatively unlikely to cause severe injury.  I had the privilege of learning in Norway, where tracks are carved into the snow through miles of undulating countryside outside the capital, Oslo.  You take the tram to the outskirts of the city, strap long thin skis onto boots you can actually walk in, and off you go, cross frozen lakes, hillsides and through snow-covered trees.   Out in the middle of nowhere you ski up to a cafe and enjoy a hot chocolate. It’s exhausting but exhilarating.

Since then Richmond Park, Aviemore, the South Downs and the village high street have provided fine alternative venues.  You need only an inch of snow and the gear.  If you love walking, it’s hard to believe you wouldn’t love cross-country skiing.  The solitude can be glorious.  I can remember skiing to within 30 yards of the deer in Richmond Park and us all standing, looking at each other, weighing each other up.  And skiing to the sound of the skylarks on Ditchling Beacon (as mentioned last week) will take some beating.

Yes it’s hard work, and you need the basic techniques: gliding forwards, pretty much like ice-skating;   herring-boning, with the skis pointing outwards at the toes, to go uphill; diagonal skating (highly likely to end in disaster), to pick up speed on good ground; and snowploughing to go downhill – extremely difficult to achieve in cross-country as only your toes are fixed and your heels are free-floating.

So I’ll welcome the Siberian snow, and the chaos it brings. It’ll remind me that we’re not masters of our universe, and it’ll give me the chance to strap on the skis again.

The blue tits are perched on the edge of the frozen bird bath, peering at it in utter amazement.  They peck and peer, and peck and peer again.  You can see their tiny bird-brains trying to puzzle out this whole “the water’s gone hard” thing.

I’ll replace the water but fully expect it to refreeze within an hour.   Yesterday that happened twice. A growing pile of ice discs, like frozen Frisbees, is piling up on the patio, unmelted from the last few days.

The robin is patrolling its territory as normal, feathers puffed up as if it’s auditioning for a Christmas card photoshoot.  The blackbirds are also looking puffed up as they forage frantically for food under the shrubs.  Dunnocks are there too, hopping around in the winter-flowering honeysuckle by the house, looking quite unperturbed.  Clearly it takes more than a Siberian cold snap to unsettle a dunnock.

So far the only new birds driven to the feeders are great tits, which sometimes show up anyway.  (News just in on Friday: chaffinches have now arrived too).  And there was a classic LBJ (Little Brown Job) clinging to the vertical willow stems at the end of the garden, unidentified by the time it flew away.

In last winter’s harshest extremes, bullfinches came to feast on the Himalayan honeysuckle berries right outside the kitchen window. No sign of them yet, although the goldfinches were hanging around even before this cold snap.

The buddleia leaves, which should have fallen off weeks ago, have recoiled into a vertical position and are now frozen in horror.  The new growth which shouldn’t have been there on the angelica is also a green statue, frozen for now but almost certainly doomed when the thaw comes.  There’s a feverfew in flower which must be wishing it hadn’t bothered.

But the cold air is so dry that the car windows don’t need scraping and the frost on the field is barely visible.  The bitter north-east wind freezes your cheeks but doesn’t feel as evil as a traditionally damp English cold day might.

Since the Siberian blast of winter hit earlier this week, temperatures in Englandshire have been down to -3 or -4C.  That’s nothing compared to the deadly -30s in Eastern Europe, which have killed dozens of homeless and vulnerable people.

There’s worse to come over the next few days, with an even deeper freeze and the risk of snowfall on Sunday.

So my earlier theory about nature cutting down to three seasons a year in The Mystery of the Missing Winter appears to be wrong.  Spring started before winter had arrived, that’s all.

We still have all the right seasons, but, as Eric Morecambe might have concluded, not necessarily in the right order.

A few of the necessary calories were expended lifting the telephone and dialling two local gyms to discuss current offers.  A few more were burnt off chopping extra vegetables.

But there’s been no running and no allotmenteering, so the only activity contributing to the lost pound has been walking.  I’ve covered 60 miles in the last three weeks (obsessive stat-counter, moi?).  This means, I have realised, that to lose half a stone I would have to walk nearly 500 miles. So walks are not a very efficient method of losing weight.  I could so something simpler, like eating less.

But what walks they’ve been.

Ditchling Beacon has been resplendent in January sunshine, with ravens croaking and skylarks singing and only the kindest of winter breezes blowing.  To the north, the Sussex weald stretches for miles into the hazy distance, with its towns and villages laid out like Legoland models amid the fields and hedgerows. To the south, the green waves of the South Downs fold downwards to the sea.

The ravens are a new arrival – huge and black, and engaging in impressive aerial combat with gulls and any other bird willing to take them on.  Like buzzards, they’ve established themselves in areas of Englandshire once off-limits.  I have no idea what impact they’re having on the ecological balance, but it’s a bonus to see them without having to yomp up a mountain or pay an outrageous fee to get into the Tower of London.

The skylarks are much older-established residents, trilling away in the clear blue sky about the joys of life and, quite possibly, about the loss of much of their habitat elsewhere.   A couple of years ago I had the possibly unique experience of cross-country skiing on Ditchling Beacon to the sound of skylarks singing – priceless.  On our 11-mile trek this week, there was no snow, just wall-to-wall sunshine and birdsong.

Cows had somehow extracted themselves from their miles of boring grassland and broken into the turnip field.  They were still contentedly munching there hours later when we returned.  The grass is never greener on the other side, but sometimes what you find on the other side isn’t grass.

So turnip-munching cows, a kestrel hovering above them, a flock of fieldfares taking flight as we approached them on Blackcap (sadly no blackcaps on Blackcap), the ravens, a yellowhammer perched on a hawthorn: it all added up to a great day’s walking.

But the week’s other walk was arguably even more memorable, a classic tale of pain and gain.  I could tell you we got caught in a sudden downpour and got absolutely soaked, which was true. I could tell you we saw the most beautiful double rainbow, which was also true.  Was the glass half-empty or half-full?

I’d say half-full – the soaking clothes have now dried off but the photographs and the memories of the rainbow remain.  There’s also a glorious liberation in getting absolutely soaked and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it.  And I can now confirm what’s at the end of the rainbow: it’s a horse. A brown one.

So after all this, I’m celebrating my lost pound, but working out how to speed things up a bit.  Running needs to get back on the agenda.  General Sloth and Major Disinclination have prevented its resumption since a month-long virus struck in mid-December.  Sadly it means my last run was my worst one, until I get myself back out there.

Allotmenteering has fallen victim to the same deadly duo of Sloth and Disinclination.  I keep meaning to at least get as far as planning what’s going where, drawing another year’s chart, marking the raised beds, the paths, and the permanent fixtures like the raspberry canes, and then working out how to rotate the crops. It can be done from the sofa. Surely I can manage that? But thus far, it remains stubbornly on the “to do” list.

The next few pounds will, I hope, follow the first one into cold storage, but either way I’ll enjoy the view on the way down. Walking – even in a city – opens up worlds of possibilities, whether it’s the glories of Richmond Park or the fascinating back streets of Shepherds Bush or Clapham.  Not everyone can, I know, but for those who can, it’s fab and it’s free!

You can stand on the bridge and watch it flow.  (OK, unusually for a river, it flows both ways, but every analogy has its limitations!)   Those in the north follow the river south.  Those in the south seek the north.  Everyone wants to be somewhere they’re not.

But at the point where the river first tips over the hillside to begin its waterfall journey downwards, there are now apocalyptic scenes.  A muddy brown scar runs along both banks of the river, littered with tree stumps and pitted with bulldozer tracks.   The river’s privacy has been stripped away, and you can see it twisting and turning down the hill, catching the dull winter light as it goes.   Before the apocalypse, its first turn took it to a hidden place, behind banks of trees and undergrowth, before curving and carving its way onwards and downwards through thick woodland.  It disappeared into mystery.  Now the mystery has been laid bare.

The reason is very simple:  those who ply the route are to be given a straight line down the hill.  They will be able to go faster from north to south and from south to north.  Accident after accident has convinced the authorities that man cannot change for the hillside, so the hillside must change for man.

Only the tree stumps are left now, and that is only for the dormice, apparently slumbering through the apocalpyse at the base of the trees.  Come spring, they will awaken to their savage new reality, and trundle off deeper into the remaining woods.

Man will always tame and rule over nature, I know.  But for a few minutes here and a few minutes there, we destroy so much.

The planned HS2 high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham will shatter lives, homes, hopes and countryside.  For what?  So businesspeople can save not much more than half an hour on their journey.  The spectre of a Thames estuary airport, dubbed Boris Island  after the blond bombshell who runs London, is suddenly stalking Kent and Essex again.  Marshlands teeming with bird life will be compromised if not destroyed.  But “Bugger the birds, let’s do it anyway!” seems to be the prevailing view.  “Think of the benefits, the extra runway capacity, the faster journey times to central London!”

I know the desire for exploration and progress lies in the heart of man.  I know if everyone was like me, we’d still be clumping around the cave complex on square wheels and discussing whether there’s more than one way to skin a mammoth.

But I wish there was some sort of happy medium, where nature can be messed with only if there is an overwhelming case for it.   Like the presumption of innocence in a criminal case, I’d love to see a presumption for nature being left alone unless anyone can prove the absolute necessity of its destruction.  It would have to be a better case than: “Well it would shave a few minutes off the journey, wouldn’t it?”  I know it’s optimistic and idealistic, but hey, a blogger can dream.

I don’t think HS2 has an overwhelming case for existing, not even in its improved form with extra tunnels.  Boris Island has even less to commend it.  And I don’t think shaving a few minutes off the A23 London-to-Brighton dash justifies ripping out woodland and messing with the dormice’s heads.

A few days before Boris Island came back to haunt us,  I had driven to the nearby Isle of Sheppey, to a huge expanse of watery paradise that is home to beautiful birds of prey as well as waders and other smaller birds.  A long trek across the marshes on a spookily still, warm January day was rewarded with views of a majestic marsh harrier, and a short-eared owl, cruising across the mudflats in search of prey.

It’s the sort of experience money can’t buy.  Money can buy rail links and airports and faster roads, but it can’t buy back the nature that’s lost in the process. Planes, trains and automobiles all have their place, but to quote another of my favourite poems, “long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”

(C3N26HFNKTH8)

The phone call was a full-blown Negative Memorable Exchange (NME).  The sort that stays with you for hours or even days afterwards, as you try to work out the basic questions: Where on earth did THAT come from? What’s their problem? What parenting techniques were used at the age of two?

So it was, still bruised and battered from the NME encounter, that I pedalled wearily off to the station on my trusty folding bike to catch the train home.  It’s a two-hour journey, so in my sleep-deprived, virused-up, NME-bashed state, survival was my only thought.

On autopilot, I selected a carriage, folded the bike, fixed it in position and slumped into the only obvious seat.  I was ready to close my eyes, to doze, to continue mulling the NME attack, to focus on the glass of wine that would be my reward at the other end of the journey.

“Oh wonderful! It’s always great to see a fellow-cyclist on the train!”  My bleary eyes focused on the hailer.  Diagonally opposite me sat a vicar.   He was smiling, no, beaming at me, with warmth and interest.

Now I don’t know about you, but I make no assumptions about vicars.  I don’t assume they’re good people, or bad people, or even people who believe in God.  I’ve known some great ones and one or two who’ve been the source themselves of NME encounters.  I know one who deliberately started an argument using the unpromising opening line “How much do you know about Harriet Harman?”

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, so a vicar on a train hails an exhausted, sick, wound-up cyclist.  This could have gone one of two ways. It could have ended very badly.

“Ah yes,” I venture.  “So you’re a cyclist too?”

From that equally unpromising start flowed a conversation so utterly delightful and absorbing that by the time I got off the train my day had been transformed.  We’d talked about our shared love of gardening and allotmenteering and their transformative properties.  We’d discussed our different experiences working with damaged young people, and our shared belief that making them partners not victims is, in itself, a healing act.  We debated whether one should ever wear shorts to meet royalty or wear choir robes to sing in church. We talked about theology and genuflection.    And of course we talked about cycling, its perils and joys, and its challenges when travelling by train or plane.

It was the perfect antidote to the NME encounter.  The journey flew past.  We parted with a handshake and a first-name introduction and a promise to keep each other in our prayers.

NME attacks can turn a day into a nightmare.  Positive Random Encounters can turn them back.  I cycled the last five miles a different person from the battered, shattered individual who’d got on the train.  I opened the front door to find a blazing log fire, a ready-poured glass of red wine sitting beside it, and tea being put on the plate.   There are some good people out there, as well as the NMEs.  I hope you meet some this week.  And to the Rev Richard: thank you.