Frost, family and football

An early start this weekend for my journey to Huddersfield, the furthest destination so far on my parkrun tour.

I caught the 5.42 bus to the train station to be met by a strong contender for the friendliest bus driver of the year award - is there such a thing I wonder? If not, there should be as in my experience most of them are fairly miserable. Not only did he give me a warm smile as I got on the bus, he thanked me as I got off which in my experience is unheard of (I thought that was my job) - and all before 6am on a Saturday morning - that man deserves a medal, preferably a gold one.

After a quick snooze on the train I awoke just north of Barnsley to be greeted by a beautiful sunrise which lifted my spirits even further - at that precise moment it felt good to be alive.

My main reason for travelling to Huddersfield was to see my brother who is over from the States visiting family. We had agreed to meet in Greenhead Park and do the parkrun together - sadly on arrival I discovered that the event had been cancelled the night before due to the cold and frosty weather forecast - fair enough. So we did what any sensible parkrunners would do - we ran the course on our own, dodging the icy patches of course, and then followed it up with a hearty breakfast in a local cafe in between visiting our Dad.

The fun continued later in the day with a trip to the John Smiths stadium to watch Huddersfield Town (the terriers) versus Brighton and Hove Albion in the premier league. Walking to the ground with my sister and brother in law we swopped stories about our favourite comedy shows - top of the list were Fawlty Towers, Morecombe and Wise and Peter Kay (does that show our age?). I’ve got tickets to see Peter Kay at the Sheffield Arena, but not till March 2019 - definitely something to look forward to.

On arrival at the stadium we got chatting to a friend of my sister who proudly told us he had been a Huddersfield Town supporter and season ticket holder since the 1970’s and how chuffed he was that premier league football had finally arrived in West Yorkshire. Sadly I learnt later that his wife has MS and he has recently stopped working to care for her. Some people have real challenges to face in their lives don’t they.?

I could never see myself being that passionate about a football team but I understand and respect the significance it has in some people’s lives.

Huddersfield won an entertaining game 2-0 so our friend and all the other home fans went home happy. No bookings, no sendings off, no crowd trouble - instead a warm and friendly family atmosphere which I suspect says a lot about the people of Huddersfield and the way the club is run.

So, no parkrun today but plenty of other positive things to take its place. Life’s not really too bad after all...

Until next time - happy parkrunning..


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