‘ey up and welcome to Angry Jogger.
I’ve been living back in Northern Ireland ever since the outbreak of Coronavirus and I fled the country again in September of last year, I hadn’t left the house in about 3 weeks and was getting panic attacks whenever I did. I was waking up each morning on the verge of tears and it was just a horrible situation.
I booked a one-way ticket from Dublin to Vienna as it was the cheapest place going and brought my work computer with me (I can work remotely so it wasn’t much of a problem). I ended up staying in a health farm in Bratislava before moving onto Budapest for 5 weeks where I started running again (I was doing nightly laps of the Varsoliget park and living in this weird isolated Soviet era apartment complex). I ran every day in October, it was the beginning of my recovery through the most recent awful spell.
I arrived in Valencia on the day of the marathon and stayed for a month in Gandia and then a further month down in Denia. I wasn’t running every day but I was going out on long walks typically along the beach where I was also looking out for seashells, animals and other excellent shit.
I fell in love with a super looking mountain called Monte Montgo and the Costa Blanca in general. The transport network over there is amazing and it’s possible to visit many beautiful resorts within an hour on the train.
Spain brings out the best in me, the people there are relaxed and live life at the right pace. I was suddenly acting like a happy person again and felt that I’d recovered completely from the last year of shit.
I’ve been reluctant to book events here in the UK as I don’t know if I’m going to be staying for long or not. I’ve been training everyday so that I’m prepared for whatever situation arrises and if I do make the transition to Spain I expect my fitness to improve drastically as I love being outdoors there. I can’t do the Irish winters anymore. It’s too fucking cold. I don’t understand why scientists want to colonise Mars when this place is barely habitable for fuck’s sake.
My wardrobe consists of about 25 different oversized football tops from obscure European football teams and I need to move somewhere where the weather suits my clothes.
I sense shit is about to get nasty here politically and I’m at the point where I don’t care anymore. I barely feel human let alone of a certain tribe, I’ve no fucking idea what it’s all about. I want to travel, be positive and NOT be angry. Fuck the Angry Jogger, I want to be zen with a sun tan and a spring in my step. Every day, the intensity of arguments and resentment increases here whilst the quality of living decreases.
People freely wave flags whilst the qualities that the flags are meant to represent are disappearing fast. The health system has gone to shit, it takes weeks to get an appointment for an emergency mental health consultation and yet people are becoming more entrenched and more proud. I don’t fucking understand any of this.
I’ll pledge my allegiance to the first country to offer me citizenship, ideally one that’s sunny with many beautiful mountains and isn’t on the verge of another civil war. If that’s Espana then you can tickle my balls and call me Pedro.
Life is too short for this bullshit and if this makes me a traitor, I’m happy to be one. I’d rather visit lots of countries, see which one makes me happiest and then live there.
Nationalism then stops being an accident of birth and instead becomes an informed choice and therefore much less dangerous.
