Mum and Dad are Tesco shoppers and so the selection of ginger beers and ales that they’ve kindly got in for me when I’ve been visiting this year have mostly been from Tesco. I’ve had this ginger ale a couple of times this year, most recently when I was visiting en route to Shetland last month.
Tesco Finest Ginger Ale.
It’s quite nice, but it’s a little plain-tasting for the calories – I’d rather have a nice flavourful diet ginger beer and not have to syn it!
Still not a bad option, and I expect I’ll be drinking a bit more of this around Christmas time.
I had a little more admin to do than I would have liked today (mainly related to upcoming writing competitions that I’m entering – there are a lot of them going on at the moment), but I’m done now and heading back into my videogame world before a busy week ahead!
I am quite looking forward to a solid, productive week of writing though.
Not quite an OOTD (although I do wear it every day): I’m still buzzing to have found my missing Pandora charm! Now planning my next addition 🙂
Today’s earworm playlist:
Boney M – Daddy Cool OneRepublic – Counting Stars Duran Duran – Friends Of Mine The Midnight – Vampires
I’ve had a week to digest this year’s Great North Run now!
First of all, it feels like it was absolutely the right decision for me to make the Great North Run the final race of my running season for 2019. I’ve finished on a high, at a point when I’m still really enthused about running, so I really feel like I have a good chance of avoiding the winter running slump this year, as I won’t be burning myself out training for races later in autumn.
The weather was ridiculously hot for the fifth year running. What is up with that? I first noticed it in 2015 when it poured down as I was doing the Great North 5k on the Saturday and then got stupidly warm in time for the main event on the Sunday. It’s the north-east of England – it shouldn’t be guaranteed hot weather in September!
However, it was the first time I felt properly in control during a half marathon. I went out too fast in the first two or three miles – probably due to starting in a faster wave – and I did slow down a little during miles eight to eleven, but I had planned for that, and I knew I was still on track for a PB. In the end, my time was 2:36:32, which was four minutes and seven seconds off my previous best. I was really happy with that! Next target: sub 2:35.
This one gets a little weightier and more colourful every year!
I will definitely be back next year for the 40th Great North Run!
Post-GNR parkrun this morning was highly successful! I managed to hang onto the pacers long enough to get my best time of the year: 31:36. The autumn project will be to get back down to sub-30!
Geth and I stopped at Sainsbury’s on the way home, which was the point when I decided it was time to have another go at owning a basil plant…which may be a mistake. We’ll just have to see how long I can keep this one going.
I then went into town for a trip to the much-anticipated vintage fair, followed by some slightly more boring shopping for leggings in Primark. I had planned to follow this with a wander round GAME in an attempt to get some Streetpass hits on my 3DS – but sadly I found that the GAME in central Newcastle has actually been shut down since June. There’s a lot of hints on their Twitter page that a replacement store will be opening at some point, but until then I will have to trek to Sunderland if I want to browse through videogames in a physical shop!
However, today’s slightly strange highlight was finding a PANDORA clip charm that I thought I’d lost. Back in April, on the train back from London after the marathon, I noticed that one of the clip charms was missing from my bracelet, and assumed I must have lost it in London over the weekend at some point. However, I was clearly mistaken, as this evening it showed up on the floor of the garage in front of the freezer. It’s a bit bashed up, so it must have been getting kicked around in there for a while without us noticing – and I don’t actually need it as a clip anymore, because I bought a replacement shortly after it went missing – but it’s nice to find that I didn’t lose it after all! I’ll polish it up at some point, but for now it’s very happily back on my bracelet as a regular charm.
A quieter day tomorrow, which will probably involve a lot of videogaming!
As I may have mentioned once or twice this week, today I was able to go to a vintage fair for the first time since February! It was nice to walk through the doors of the Civic Centre again, hear the ’50s pastiche performers singing and look wistfully at all the delicious cake that I never have enough syns left over for.
I just bought one piece today, as I’m still sticking to my clothes shopping limit for 2019 after the post-weight-loss-free-for-all that was 2018. It’s something I’ve been looking for at the last few fairs but not managed to find until now – a comfy casual ’80s day dress. This one is perfect for winter as it’s made out of wool and sequins and looks like an ’80s jumper…except it’s a dress!
All the sequins!
(The lady at the stall asked if I was going to take the shoulder pads out. Uh, NO.)
I also priced the denim jackets that were available, as that’s going to be my purchase at the next vintage fair – I’m looking for a good quality vintage jacket (preferably in stonewashed denim for that late ’80s vibe). The stalls today had all sorts available – some repurposed with designs on the back, some sold as original – so I expect there’ll be a similarly good selection at the next fair. Which is next weekend! I’m excited already.
I’ve spent all day doing editing work for clients, but I am done now and looking forward to the weekend! Going to have a relaxing evening with my videogames, then tomorrow Geth and I will be at parkrun early for the traditional Newcastle parkrun Great North Run t-shirts photo. Then there’s a vintage fair in town (I could not be more excited – haven’t been to one since February), and I will be meeting up with Geth after his Open Day work duties to do some more regular high street shopping as well!
Hoping to get some writing in this weekend as well. Should be a good one!
Not an OOTD: the trees in Gosforth are turning beautifully. Nice to get out for a brief walk this morning as well.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Duran Duran – Friends Of Mine Koji Kondo – Super Mario Bros. Theme Kelly Rowland – Stole Spandau Ballet – Gold Anne-Marie – 2002 Pet Shop Boys – On Social Media Trevor Something – Miami Nights
A few weeks ago, I tried out Leazes parkrun for the first time, on what was only its second event. It’s so nice to have an extra parkrun in central Newcastle!
The park is beautiful.
Leazes is a three-lap course around a leafy park with a pretty lake, so in terms of parkruns I’ve done before it was kind of a cross between Perry Hall and South Manchester. The lap has a steep downhill at the start (so it’s very easy to go off too fast) and a steep uphill at the end – it’s a shame it couldn’t be the other way round, but you have to make do with the park you have!
I’ve had a good productive day catching up with a lot of the admin tasks that I’ve been falling behind with over the summer. I’m very nearly caught up with everything – fingers crossed for next week.
Geth is still away at his conference so I’m just curling up with videogames again this evening. A busy day tomorrow, and then I can enjoy the weekend (there may be a vintage fair for me to go to for the first time in seven months!).
OOTD: IT’S ’80S JUMPER SEASON AGAIN I AM SO HAPPY. Jumper unknown brand (vintage 1980s, bought at vintage fair 2017), skirt H&M (thrifted from Steff 2016), tights Primark (2017), shoes BHS (2016).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Michael Land – Woodtick Lana Del Rey – Video Games Duran Duran – A View To A Kill Duran Duran – Hungry Like The Wolf Jane Wiedlin – Rush Hour Timecop1983 and The Bad Dreamers – Back To You Arcadia – Say The Word Heaven 17 – Come Live With Me Bill Withers – Ain’t No Sunshine
This lovely row of four phone boxes extends along the southern stretch of Parliament Street. If you follow their path north you will end up at the pub where I stopped for a rest after finishing the marathon – but that’s jumping ahead, and there are still a few phone boxes to see along the final mile!
After Geth and our houseguest Erik headed off for their conference in York this morning, I spent the morning catching up with work. The Hermes driver finally picked up my MusicMagpie order that I put together last month (it’s taken a few attempts), so I don’t have boxes clogging up the hall anymore (and I am NOT thinking about the contents that I struggled to let go of…I am NOT…).
In the afternoon, I got on with some ukulele practice (class starts again next week!) and then went back to my videogames.
