There comes a time in every woman’s life when the gods appear to be kind. In your late forties you suddenly feel vital, able to take on the world!  Post-children your hormones make one last bid for youth and delude you into feeling fit, attractive and confident again.  Enraptured with new-found zest you take up running.

A fellow Hampshiremum and I felt inspired to pound the picturesque lanes around our town of Alresford.  She has a husband who is an ‘Iron Man’ who dives head long into a bowl of muesli every morning before cycling 15 miles ……. maybe more; thus we felt compelled to get fit.

So one Sunday we park the car at Itchen Abbas village hall and embark on our favourite 5-miler.  En route there were raindrops large enough to drown a pigeon splattering intermittently on the windscreen.  “It won’t come to much,” we agreed knowingly.  Despite the advancing precipitation we jog off, me repeating my mantra ‘nine stone, nine stone,’ with rhythmic heavy breathing.

From the village hall we stagger down to the gates of Avington Park chatting as we go. A cursory glance skyward reveals storm clouds of biblical proportions; we turn left towards Ovington and ‘the blue bit’, resolving to ‘run through the rain‘.

But this is no ordinary rain.  This is Hampshire rain fresh from the Atlantic. To our left is a pastoral scene with horses and sheep sheltering beneath low branches and to our right three intrepid golfers stand huddled having forgotten all those early science lessons regarding metal and conductors of electricity; they look on incredulously as we pass with a cheery wave.  Suddenly, right over our heads rips fork lightning, and an almighty clap of thunder, enough to make the four horsemen of the apocalypse don oilskins and wellies.

The ‘blue bit’ was long gone and the road flooded we decide to run as far as the farm, then

BANG, CRACK !!!! Followed by screaming in unison, (I know very girlie). Elect to turn back and head for home!

The £85 running shoes are now seriously taking on water and the rugby shirt, (worn on ‘fat days’) has the appearance of a lead weighted diving suit and has moulded itself to my flabby contours, all streamlined elegance  lost as I wade through water, the wind and rain stinging my eyes. I now resembled a swamp monster, but short of cadging a lift from a passing ark one just had to keep going.

Now my chum is renowned for her speed and had gone into sprint mode leaving a wake any powerboat would have been delighted with.

Over the little bridges and on toward ‘The Trout’ I suddenly got the desire for a large brandy but felt sure there’d be a sign saying ‘No Dripping Joggers’.  Finally, with the storm at its height we reach the safety of my chum’s aged Golf. As we head back through Itchen Stoke the windscreen wipers decide to pack up, so we now have a touch of Ellen McCarthy in the Southern Ocean about us!

Bid soggy farewell to not so fair weather friend, only to be greeted by husband and two children in collective hysterics: ”We thought you’d get a bit wet!”

They’ll be sorry when I’m fit and gorgeous thought I, reaching for a chocolate croissant.