Au naturel

Or in flagrante delicto, perhaps.

Yesterday evening I was out running in the hills near here. A stupid thing to do, I know, but I've got to lose some weight somehow and sweating it out seemed like a good idea at the time.

It was a fine evening, sunny but with just enough of a breeze to make physical exertion bearable. Or possibly even pleasurable. Not for me, though. I was toiling sweatily uphill towards the local viewpoint, ipod on loud to drown out the noise of my rasping breath.

At first I thought it was someone stopped for a picnic. A pick-up truck was parked in the middle of the forestry track, facing me, and beside it someone had put out a couple of fold-up chairs. You can see Plynlimon, Snowdon, the Lleyn Peninsula and Bardsey Island from the viewpoint on a good day, so it's a nice enough place to have a picnic.

Then I noticed the couple. She was bare-shouldered, the rest of her body obscured by the bulk of the pick-up as she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the tailgate. He was bare-chested, standing very close behind her. She had a curiously distant look in her eyes and didn't notice me as I ran towards them. He seemed somewhat pre-occupied as well.

All this happened quite quickly, but I wasn't born yesterday. Even with my brain addled by the evening heat and the two hundred and sixty metre climb from my house to the viewpoint, I could tell what was going on. But before I could turn around, just as I was about to, the man noticed me, stopped his rhythmic motion and crouched down low behind the pick-up. The woman took a little longer to realise what was going on, scrabbling in a hurry to pull some clothes back on. But I had been spotted, and anything I did was bound to make the situation worse. So acting like I thought they were twitchers, I carried on running as if nothing had happened.

Now, normally when I go running around here I stop at the viewpoint to get my breath back. It's a good halfway point and after a few stretches, I turn around and run home, downhill all the way.

Not yesterday evening.

I carried on past the couple, eyes averted, giving them a cheery wave but not looking at them. I felt bad enough at having ruined their tryst so far - at least if I hurried off out of their way they might be able to rekindle their passion. But now I was faced with a dilemma.

It's only another half mile or so to the windmills at Cefn Croes, so I ran to the nearest turbine before collapsing in a sweaty heap. Then it dawned on me that I couldn't go back the way I had come. It's possible that my appearance on the scene had ruined the moment completely for the couple and they were even now packing up their pick-up and leaving. But equally they could have been spurred on by the guilty thought of discovery. And returning, I wouldn't have the bulk of the pick-up to spare me from the graphic details.

So, as Supertramp* would have it, I took the long way home.

* - not on my ipod at the moment. One to dig out of the vinyl archives.