I was a bit nervous about drinking something that tastes like wine (sparkling wine is different, because I only ever had a glass or two to toast something when I was a drinker, whereas regular still wine was generally a fairly dangerous thing for me to drink). While it did taste lovely, and very light and refreshing, it felt a bit too close to the real thing for comfort. I’m okay with using alcohol-free red wine for cooking and so on, but for actual drinking I’ll stick to the fizzy stuff.
Following the 2016 Great North Run, I was keen to set a pattern of running two half marathons a year – one in the spring and one in the autumn. With the exception of spring 2018 (a heady era of moving house in the middle of the Beast from the East and not running very much… so I did two in autumn 2018 instead!), I have managed to stick to this pattern, even during the pandemic; my most recent half was the Virtual Great North Run in September 2020 and my next will be the Virtual Edinburgh Half Marathon in May 2021.
I had liked the atmosphere of the Sunderland 10k the previous year, and Geth wanted to do it for his first 10k race, so I signed up for the half marathon distance and started training in earnest for it that winter. My training paid off and I took 38 minutes and 14 seconds off my GNR time, bringing me closer to the three-hour mark; I also managed to run the whole way without any walk breaks, which always feels like an important achievement.
Lumbering towards the finish. Photo from Events of the North.
I’m glad I did the half marathon distance at Sunderland once, but I’ve always stuck to the 10k distance since and will continue to do so in future. The first half of the half marathon route goes through a fairly dull part of Sunderland and it’s difficult to get your bearings, while the second half is the same route as the 10k, which has lots of interesting things to see. It’s also a relatively flat course that provides a great opportunity for a 10k PB once a year, and I don’t like to miss out on that.
The event is scheduled to go ahead in a COVID-safe way in June. I’m really looking forward to it!
We’ve had beautiful sunshine all week here, but it’s been cold in the mornings. I’ve been thinking a lot about beaches and coves and other nice explorable coastal places (and hoping that I might actually get to go to some of them this summer!). This photo from May 1987 is where I want to be right now – watching a pretty sailboat while standing on a beach. Even a pebbly beach like you often get in this part of the world!
Mum’s funky necklace is a bonus in this picture. ’80s jewellery is the best.
This week has featured a lot fewer deadlines and manic last-minute things than last week did, so I’ve been able to get back to some semblance of normality in terms of the house upkeep and the exercise/training programme. It’s been especially nice to get back out for my walks, as it’s been really clear and sunny all week. This has meant that early morning runs have been a bit chilly, but afternoon walks have been the perfect temperature. Hope the sunshine continues.
As often happens when I release a game, I feel a bit bereft of my project and am already eagerly planning out the next one. This covers many things: the long planning document acts as my project for April’s Camp NaNoWriMo, and the new game itself is the full version of the excerpt I released for IntroComp 2020 and will also be entered into ParserComp 2021. Planning out the puzzles is fun, but I can’t wait to dive back into coding. I’ve got two and a half months to finish the game, so an important mission is not to get distracted by anything shiny in the meantime!
A blissfully quiet weekend awaits. Looking forward to finishing off the last of the other games from the jam (I’ve been playing the Spanish ones this week and it’s been a really fun way to get some language practice in) and also getting in some time with my much-neglected Switch Lite.
Spring is behaving this week.
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
Dee Cooke – ‘Control Room’* The Crüxshadows – ‘Dragonfly’ Dee Cooke – ‘Intro And Exit’
Sunday
Dee Cooke – ‘Path And Tree’ Michael Land – ‘Governor Marley’s Mardi Gras Fish Fry’ The Beatles – ‘Ticket To Ride’ Dee Cooke – ‘Control Room’ Lily Allen – ‘The Fear’
Monday
Michael Land – ‘The Barbery Coast’ Lewis Capaldi – ‘Someone You Loved’ Soft Cell – ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ Dee Cooke – ‘Control Room’ George Fenton – ‘Bergerac (Main Theme)’
Tuesday
Dee Cooke – ‘Control Room’ Soft Cell – ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ The Crüxshadows – ‘Ariadne’
Wednesday
Joe Hisaishi – ‘Kokoro No Kakera’ Michael Land – ‘Scabb Island Overview’
Thursday
Michael Land – ‘Scabb Island Overview’
Friday
Dennis Martin and Takeo Miratsu – ‘If You Still Believe’ Michael Land – ‘Scabb Island Overview’ Dee Cooke – ‘Intro And Exit’ Lisa Lougheed – ‘Run With Us’
*Like last week, I have spent an embarrassingly large chunk of the last few days with my own compositions stuck in my head after making them for my game. Given that music is planned for most of my future game projects, this could become a regular occurrence.
Dad sent me a picture of one of the Grassmarket phone boxes he’d taken while out on a walk around Edinburgh recently. I miss Edinburgh so much and can’t wait to go back once we’re allowed to travel up again! I first logged this phone box here (now updated) and am happy to see it’s still thriving.
Red phone box, Grassmarket. Edinburgh, 9th April 2021.
I love my Monkey Island soundtrack playlist with all the original tracks from the games, but it can sometimes get a bit distracting when a more upbeat tune comes on and I’m trying to work. However, a couple of weeks ago, The International House of Mojo linked to some chilled-out ambient versions of some of the tracks on YouTube, and they’ve been my work soundtrack ever since. Great stuff.
Each of the Monkey Island ambience videos lasts about an hour, but the themes around Scabb Island in Monkey Island 2 are probably my very favourite out of all the music in the games. An hour is nowhere near long enough for me to get fed up of it!
I never usually buy fresh pesto from the supermarket (I like to stock up so the stuff in jars works better for me), but on this occasion fresh was the only option available!
Sainsbury’s Fresh Basil Pesto.
I know this is meant to be better, but it just didn’t taste right to me – it was too buttery and creamy for my palate. I’ll stick to my jar hoarding!
In 2017 I did the Great Winter Run for the second year running, as Geth was by that point in his first year of running and wanted to try out all the races I’d done the year before. I was quite a bit slower than I had been in 2016 – I didn’t have a total running slump that winter, as I was still doing parkrun every weekend (our custom was to get up, go out to the Town Moor to do a freezing cold parkrun and then come home and ‘hibernate’ for the rest of the day!), but I wasn’t really doing any additional running and so definitely wasn’t as fit as I could have been. I was also back up at my heaviest, as I’d decided to have one last ‘fat Christmas’ of eating and drinking everything in sight before starting Slimming World in the new year…
Post-race happy faces! (c) John Cooke 2017.
This was the last 5k race I entered, as you don’t really need 5k races when you have parkrun providing the same thing for free every week. 2017 would end up being a great year for longer races, though!
