And – my eyes met Ash’s – neither would I.
Epilogue
‘Morning everyone. I’d like to welcome you to our one hundred and fifty-eighth parkrun. Today’s our third anniversary.’ I paused and sought Ash out in the crowd. ‘Hopefully it will mean that someone will never forget the date.’ I shot him a meaningful look and a loud cheer went up followed by a storm of clapping. Ash, in a black ‘100’ T-shirt, grinned back and Poppy, now nearly fourteen, in a red ‘50’ T-shirt, clapped him on the back and gave me a grinning thumbs up. At the back, in a tail-walkers hi-vis vest, Ava was hanging on to a straining Bill and waved madly at me with her spare hand, while next to her Hilda was busy chatting to Harold. The two of them, very much an item – although she’d decided that she quite fancied living in sin rather than making him husband number five – were taking it easy today and were in charge of cutting up the multi-tiered cake that Hilda had spent a couple of months planning, baking, and decorating in her newly modelled kitchen in her maisonette just around the corner on Abernathy Road.
We took it in turns to have tea at her house or at mine on Saturday afternoons, often joined by Farquhar and his girlfriend, Antonia. They were a perfect match, and she had an even more cut-glass booming voice than he did. I owed Farquhar a huge debt that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to repay. He’d helped me through the endless paperwork to ensure that legal responsibility for the girls was mine and would remain so until they were eighteen.
Both girls saw their mother on the fleeting occasions she returned home. She was now an experienced yoga teacher who taught at the retreat in India. Ava, being younger and of a more laid-back, sunny disposition, was more easily reconciled to the ever-youthful Peter Pan figure who turned up unannounced every six or seven months. Poppy was troubled by her mother’s infrequent visits but a good counsellor, recommended by Ash’s sister, was gradually helping her come to terms with the rejection she felt. Ash and I did everything we could to make sure she knew she was loved unconditionally by us.
Today we were having a bit of a celebration in the park after the run. Not that the last three years had all been plain sailing. We’d had to reroute the run a couple of times in the winter because ankle-deep mud and running are not happy partners; there’d also been a couple of dicey moments when complaints from the general public about us using the park free of charge had set off a spate of emergency council meetings, but thankfully Neil Blenkinsop continued to champion us and, with the help of his dad, had dug out some old covenant which revealed that the park had been gifted to the town by one philanthropic Victorian, Thomas Outhwaite, who happened to have competed in the first Modern Olympics in 1896 in Athens in the 100m race. With far-sighted design, he had stated very specifically that the park was to be used for the promotion of a healthy lifestyle.
Good old Neil Blenkinsop. I sought his tall frame out in the crowd. Next to him was the auburn-haired girl from my old commute, Sally. I’d got to know her a lot better over the last three years and she had got to know Neil a lot better too. They were now engaged and officially our first parkrun couple.
I wondered if on the morning of her wedding she’d also be crazy enough to do the run in a second-hand wedding dress. I smoothed a hand down the gauzy fabric of the ballerina-length white dress, the floaty fabric creating an interesting juxtaposition with my pink trainers.
Charles wrenched the loud-hailer from my hand, forcefully taking over his role as run director, and I worked my way back through the crowd, receiving lots of congratulatory back slaps and smiles, to join Ash and Poppy.
‘Ready, Mrs Ashwin Laghari to be?’ Ash’s magnificent eyes twinkled.
‘Yes, although I still wish we hadn’t put that sodding hill in.’
‘It’s been three years; get over it.’ He winked and grabbed my hand. ‘But I’ll help you up the hard parts today, and the easy bits, and the not-so-straight-forwards bits.’ I smiled mistily at him. He wasn’t just talking about the run.
We’d decided to do the parkrun hand in hand today and to celebrate with all our friends in the park after the run before going home to change (into a straight sheath number that there was no way I could run in) to arrive at the registry office for two this afternoon.
‘You’d better. That hill never gets any easier.’
‘It will be today. I’ll pull you up.’
‘And I’ll push,’ chimed in Poppy.
I smiled at the pair of them. ‘I guess when you have the support, it’s like life: it’s easier with family and friends.’ I looked around at the nearly three hundred people waiting for Charles to send us off. Some I knew, some I didn’t, but they all belonged to the Saturday morning parkrun and we were a community. I smiled at Ash.
‘Three, two, one. Go.’
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THE END
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Don’t miss Jules Wake’s next heartwarming novel, The Spark, which follows the tempestuous will they-won’t they rivalry between Sam and Jess as life and a disgruntled ex try to keep them apart.
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You can get your copy right here!
Acknowledgments
You might have guessed I’m a bit of a Parkrun fan, although I definitely fall into the category of plodder rather than runner. I’m never going to beat any records or impress anyone with my times but it’s become an essential part of my weekly routine and even on those days I come home dripping with wet, the colour of my trainers scarcely discernible under the inches of mud, I feel a huge sense of achievement and, moreover, that I’m part of something.
The sense of the community that I describe in The Saturday Morning Park Run mirrors that of my own local Parkrun in Tring but isn’t unique to that event. I’ve found the same wonderful welcome, friendliness, inclusivity and belonging when visiting other venues, as a ‘tourist’, whether at St Andrews, Delamere Forest, Luton or Aylesbury. There are over 700 Parkruns in the UK all of which are ‘free forever for everyone’ thanks to the teams of volunteers that turn out every Saturday. Parkrun is a fabulous organisation which has done a wonderful job in encouraging more people to improve their health and well being by taking up running and I could bang on about it for some time but do check the website www.parkrun.org.uk to find out more.
At every Parkrun there are lots of wonderful stories and characters and I’ve stolen quite a few from my own Parkrun, including Jim, the wonderful marshal (sadly the boom box has now been banned) who cheers us on with enthusiastic smiles week in and week out; the amazing Luciana, who really has lost 12 stone and is an absolute inspiration; the former Olympians who flash past in a blur; and the couple who met and subsequently got married. I have to thank my friend Vicki Wilson who encouraged me and my husband to go on that first run, although I’m not sure thanks were at the forefront of my mind when she and I had to take shelter in a bush prior to the start of one of the wettest, windiest runs of the winter last year. On those days I do think I might be a bit mad. But all that is more than made up for by the friendliness of the volunteers and other runners and I have to give a shout out to some of the people who I have mentioned in the book including Luciana Walker, who has inspired me so much and often keeps me going; the lovely Katie Haines, who answered my initial questions; and to Andy Evans, who set up the Tring Parkrun and also helped with my early research.