Our recent trip to London yielded a fair few phone box finds. This first one was right behind our hotel! I grabbed a photo of it before we’d even made it to the lobby to check in haha.
Red phone box, Cloister Walk, London, 30th September 2021.
Phone boxes in London are generally well-kept (I think the councils there understand that they’re a good tourist attraction) and this one is no exception, even though it’s tucked down a dingy underpass behind a hotel. The gold crowns have been painted over in red, probably fairly recently.
More London boxes to come over the next few weeks!
I am very nearly finished putting up the Hallowe’en decorations. Photos to come at the weekend once I’ve finished posting all of last Sunday’s cakes!
This fancy dome was actually a rhubarb and custard cheesecake! I was sort of scared to cut into it because it looked like some sort of strange alien egg.
I know I said I’d start the next food log series this week but I’ve decided to have a week’s break before we move onto the 2021 series. This week is all about Sunday’s cakes, anyway!
Geth bought the ‘four fancy cakes’ package for lunch on Sunday so that we could both try a bit of each. This pecan cake was very nice, though I’m not normally much of a nut fan.
My course has started. It was pegged as sixteen hours a week but it actually looks like it’s going to be a bigger time commitment than that if I do everything properly! As such, I’m being strict over the next few months with my schedule so that I can fit everything in. It’s going to take a bit of work to balance everything but I’m already enjoying the course so much.
This week might mostly be illustrated by post-race pictures from yesterday. There are a lot, mostly of cake.
The fancy café where we ate all the cake also had a fancy jazz band that played in the background. Very swish!
I hadn’t done the North Tyneside 10k before, but it was a while coming. Geth and I originally booked our places nearly two years ago for the 2020 race (it normally takes place on Easter weekend), but of course the race got postponed… three times. Anyway, we finally got to run it today, eighteen months later than originally planned. I wouldn’t normally schedule a 10k race a fortnight after a marathon (even though it did work out quite well once before), but due to all the COVID postponements and reschedulings, race season was not planned out this year – everything just had to fall where it fell.
There was a lot of hanging around before the start as the baggage had to be checked in really early!
On my gentle jog to parkrun volunteering yesterday, I found that my sciatica was playing up badly for the first time in years. (I was told years ago that it wasn’t sciatica, but earlier this week a doctor described it as such, so I feel vindicated… anyway.) I hoped that it was just a one-off as I have been absolutely religious with my post-run stretching and daily foam rolling for weeks and weeks now. However, I slept badly with it last night, and woke up with a fairly useless leg that could barely bear weight, so I was more than a little worried about today’s race. I took an ibuprofen just over an hour before the race, and that seemed to ease it up a bit.
My form doesn’t look too bad here considering how much my leg was collapsing under me! Photo from Coastal Portraits by John Fatkin.
The first mile or two were fine, but over the course of the race, my leg got weaker and weaker and I am amazed that I didn’t fall over at any point during the later stages. I used to call this ‘collapse-y leg’ when it happened a lot before I lost weight, because that really is what happens – my upper leg just starts to collapse under my weight. I generally avoid falling over by quickly shifting to my other leg, but obviously this isn’t great for my form or my leg health. I am hoping that a combination of losing the lockdown weight, physio treatment and an ongoing hospital referral will help to mitigate this issue.
I finished in 1:20:18, which is my slowest 10k time in years – but that’s fine given today. I do feel like I could run that race a lot better, so I expect I will try it again sometime – when I’m in better shape and not coming straight out of a marathon training block!
The monthly parkrun volunteering slot happened to coincide with Jesmond Dene parkrun’s second birthday celebration this morning! Geth and I were marshalling, and I found myself at yet another marshal point I hadn’t done before. Gotta catch ’em all… and there are a lot of marshal points along the Jesmond Dene course.
We had attended the inaugural Jesmond Dene parkrun two years ago (it’s our closest parkrun so attending the inaugural was acceptable within current parkrun etiquette), but of course there was no first birthday celebration as parkrun was still on COVID hiatus this time last year, so it was lovely to attend an anniversary event. There was cake at the end! Geth and I only stopped for a quick piece, though, as it was a very cold morning and I wanted to get home in time to attend the afternoon sessions of the TechUp opening day.
A bit of a chilly morning! We’ll be taking gloves for tomorrow’s race…
We’ll probably be back at Town Moor next week, but don’t hold me to that!
It’s the weekend but it’s going to be a pretty busy one! Geth and I are volunteering at parkrun tomorrow morning, then I’ll be following the opening day sessions for my course tomorrow afternoon, and then we’ve got the North Tyneside 10k on Sunday. Fairly full-on week next week too with starting the course modules, so I expect I’ll be scheduling another Shouldless Sunday next weekend in order to relax!
I’ve been able to get a good chunk of work done on my new game this week as well, which has been great. Coding for that should be done by the middle of next week and then I can get started on the bells and whistles. I need to fit it in with coursework and day job work, but it’s all going really well so far, and I feel like I’ve got a good planned balance for the next couple of weeks. Hallowe’en will be a really great celebration of getting it done… I hope!
Speaking of which, the decorations may be coming out this weekend. I loved having them up for two weeks last year and I think that will become the norm…
My decorated polystyrene pumpkin from last year. I do have the materials for making more, but somehow I don’t think they’re going to get done this year…
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
Sacre – ‘The London Marathon’ Sean Paul – ‘Get Busy’* Mark Knopfler – ‘Local Hero’ VNV Nation – ‘Fearless’ Avicii and Aloe Blacc – ‘Wake Me Up’
Sunday
Sean Paul – ‘Get Busy’
Monday
Avicii and Aloe Blacc – ‘Wake Me Up’ Howard Jones – ‘Like To Get To Know You Well’
Tuesday
Sean Paul – ‘Get Busy’ Hans Zimmer – ‘He’s A Pirate’
Wednesday
Sean Paul – ‘Get Busy’ Yuzo Koshiro – ‘Battlefield: Storm’ Mark Knopfler – ‘Local Hero’
Thursday
Sean Paul – ‘Get Busy’ Bill Withers – ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ Lady Gaga and Beyoncé – ‘Telephone’
Friday
Robert Burns – ‘Auld Lang Syne’ Travis – ‘Driftwood’ Meat Loaf – ‘I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)’ Rod Stewart – ‘Maggie May’ Bill Withers – ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’
*Judi Love and Graziano Di Prima danced to this on Strictly a couple of weeks ago and I have not been able to get it out of my head since 😬 It takes me right back to dancing in dodgy clubs in my late teens.
While this one is a little tatty on the outside, it has an interesting use as an ‘info box’ – there’s no phone inside but instead lots of maps and info sheets about the local area. It’s right in the middle of the village so this will be good for tourists.
On to London next week! I always find a few new phone boxes when I’m there…
Update May 2025: still in use as an ‘info box’ and looking a lot less tatty!
I did promise I was going to tell you all about the software development course I’m doing soon! I have a place on the TechUp Skills Bootcamp in Software Development, which starts next week. I’m going to be learning Python and finding out about opportunities for moving into a tech career, which is very exciting.
Until I started making text adventures with Adventuron just over two years ago, I didn’t even consider that coding was something I could do seriously. I’d made a few simple QBASIC games as a kid but hadn’t even thought about it in years. But I have absolutely loved learning to code and create games – I find Adventuron the most intuitive as that’s how I got started, but I’ve also been enjoying dabbling in PunyInform, as well as a bit of BBC BASIC due to my nostalgia for the BBC Micro.
Learning more standard and modern programming languages is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and I’m so glad I’ve got this opportunity. I can’t wait to get started.
A seasonal illustration from my Hallowe’en game two years ago… because I’ve got a couple more games I want to make soon as well. Naturally. Anyone got a magic ‘time stop’ button they can lend me?
This is the last pesto from 2020. Next week I’ll be starting my 2021 food series. Very nearly caught up!
Belazu Traditional Genovese Pesto.
(Another ’empty jar’ photo. Clearly I was hungry enough to forget to take a picture before I cracked the jar open!)
This pesto had a good taste but the texture was a little on the wet side for my liking. Still a nice option!
Coincidentally for the day I am ending my pesto series, I have been inspired by a cookery show I was watching earlier today to try making my own pesto soon. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make something I like more than my favourite jarred versions, but I’m going to give it a good go!
