After a hectic week at work, is there anything better than getting out in nature?
It was a typical April weekend, with clouds, rain, sun, blue skies, hail and snow, all mixed up good, but I managed to spend hours and hours in the garden, weeding my way through the borders until my fingertips ached at the merest touch. It’s a tough job, but satisfying, especially since the difference is immediately noticeable, and besides, this is my favourite time of the year to be in the garden: everything is in bloom, and birds are chirping everywhere.
From a distance the weeds are invisible. Up close, invincible.
Speaking of blooms, this is also the season for bluebells, and nowhere are they more impressive than in the Blue Forest Hallerbos, near Waterloo, where Mother Nature has seen fit to put on a real extravaganza for about two weeks every spring, when gazillions of the dainty hyacinths turn the forest floor into a carpet of the deepest purple blue imaginable.
We braved the dark skies and went late in the afternoon on Saturday, eyeing the clouds as we drove, but by the time we got there the clouds (and the crowds) had dispersed, and we had the whole glorious display almost to ourselves (Relatively speaking. It’s so popular, and the time of flowering so brief, that there are always people around, but at least we didn’t outnumber the bluebells, which apparently sometimes happens…).
Why it’s called the Blue Forest is anyone’s guess.
Sunday brought more of the same weather – a perfect setting for my first duathlon, a local race in the English park of Chateau La Hulpe in the neighbouring village, and the stately forest behind it that is my playground par preference. A duathlon combines running and biking, and in this case the set-up was two loops of 2k running, followed by two loops of 11k biking and ending with one final 2k loop on foot.
Vertigo is normal at dizzying heights, right?
It was a fun way to switch up my long workout of the week, and my experience left me with a newfound respect for mountain bikers – I don’t recall ever having scared when running, but whilst rocketing down steep, narrow slopes on my bike, with other bikers trying to overtake me, I did consider my mortality, and how the impact of an unseen root or a false move could affect me in that regard. Thankfully neither occurred, and I made it through without incident, although getting off the bike to run the last lap was hard, stiff legs and numb bum and all.
This was my first official foray into combined sports, and although it was hard it certainly wasn’t impossible, so it did whet my appetite for more. A quarter ironman triathlon is 1k swimming, 40k biking (not mountain biking tho!) and 10k running – something to ponder, that.
All in all, not a bad weekend of outdoor adventures – both peaceful and less so – right on my doorstep!