A feeling good haiku

Forgotten freshness:
The chill air tastes clean and sweet.
Morning after rain.

Yesterday was a drab non-event of a day, misty and smoggy. But at least we had several hours of fine drizzle - the first rainfall in ever such a long time. Well, snow has been forecast for us a few times this winter, but hasn't quite materialised. There's been a little around the fringes of Beijing, but none in the city itself (except just once or twice when, walking home after midnight, I encountered the beginnings of a mild flurry - but over very quickly, and so thin and wet that it never settled). Apparently - like much of the rest of north and central China this winter - we hadn't had any measurable precipitation in Beijing for 108 days.

[Now there's a significant number! 108 was the number of Penelope's suitors in The Odyssey, all slain by the returning Odysseus at the end of the story. It was also the number of ancient heroes reincarnated as the leaders of the 'Outlaws of the Marsh' in Liang Shan Po - at least according to The Water Margin, the Japanese TV serialisation of the Chinese classic that became a cult hit on the BBC in the 1970s. Numerology is the same the world over. Nine dozens, you see - very potent. But I digress.]

A jog around the lakes this morning with the streets still damp was an ecstatic experience.

Unfortunately my mood is dragged down more than a little by the fact that I've pulled a muscle or tendon in the back of one of my calves quite badly, and covered most of my circuit at a limping walk rather than a jog.

This is particularly galling since we are now entering the brief 'perfect season' for running in Beijing: from mid-February there is a 4-6 week period when the weather is mostly cool but no longer arse-freezing, and occasionally quite warm but not uncomfortably so. By the end of March it will probably be getting just a little warmer than I really like for running; by the end of April it will be starting to get f***ing HOT. And I've gone and crocked myself for, I would guess, at least a couple of weeks. Damn, damn, damn.

It is an absolutely glorious morning, though.