As I rounded a corner on my run this morning I caught a glimpse of the marina I now call home, and thought how close it was; a moment later I mused that in fact it was still three kilometres away.  Which actually isn’t all that close.  I then raised my eyes across the sea beyond the marina to the horizon, five miles away.  It’s a quite spectacular thing to be able to see so far, and something I haven’t yet started to take for granted.  In the City your horizon is the end of the street, or indeed the building opposite, or if you’re really lucky the other side of a park.  Those who know me will appreciate how I used to gravitate towards open spaces on my days off, but I’ve never felt quite as happy as when I can see the water.

Something which continues to surprise me is the fluidity of the view from my apartment.  Not something I’d realised before, but I almost regarded looking out a window as an introspective experience.  You know what you’re going to see and it focuses the concentration for a moment before you turn back to your computer, your document, or whatever you have been grappling with.  Here I live in an ever changing environment – I swear they even moved the marina entrance lights whilst I was away – not only does my view change, it moves; I’ve lost count of the number of nights I’ve regained a full state of awake whilst darting through my study, convinced my yacht has dropped its lines…..

Distances – as I have touched on before – have reduced for me.  I used to think little of running six, eight or ten kilometres from the office to meet friends in the pub of an evening: now I walk eight kilometres to the supermarket, and popping sixty miles to see friends is nothing.  I never considered my world small, and it’s bizarre to think that whilst my world out here is more petite than the one I left behind, the world itself has become smaller to me.  I miss friends, but no-one seems that far away; if we can traverse 2,000 miles in a 46 foot yacht, it’s easy to cross continents with planes at your disposal.

I guess what I am trying to say is that however far apart we are geographically I feel close to you all, and I am able to see further than ever before.