Catching a time trial by chance

Long story short is that my mom went adventuring to Morocco to climb up Mt Toubkal, a 4,200m summit in the Atlas Mountains. A non-technical climb, this was perfect for my mom. Unfortunately she took a fall on a scree slope on their first afternoon, fractured her ankle and had to sit out the rest of the climb. We got her back on a flight a day early. I fetched her from the airport on Thursday last week and we spent the night with my uncle to go to her Friday morning orthopaedic surgeon appointment.

On Thursday evening I took Rusty for a run in the gated suburb near my uncle's place. I've run there often, when ever I stay over. We must have been about 1km in when I saw a bunch of runners and figured that it must be a time trial - and it was. So I hitched a ride and followed their route, which turned out to be fabulous. As luck would have it I'd joined the Rand Road Warriors about 300m from their start!

I know that neighbourhood quite well but as there are so many road closures there are a number of roads that I haven't gone near. This was a merry jaunt through the suburb.

I was back in the area on Sunday evening - to get mom to hospital today for an 8am operation on her ankle (it went well and the road to recovery begins).

I decided to run the time trial route again, following the arrow markings on the ground. Paying more attention to my surroundings than keeping an eye on the runner ahead of me, I took great pleasure in the purple flowers of the jacaranda trees and the deep colours of the bouganvillea in full bloom. Rusty's pose wasn't very good, but you can see why this one caught my eye.

We're in JHB again tonight so that mom can sleep off the effects of the anaesthetic and pain meds. Rusty and I ran a different gated suburb and found this pretty display.

Towards the end of November the Pride of India (Crepe Myrtle) trees should get their flowers - they are magnificent and they turn Parys colourful. Time for me to work on Rusty's photo poses.