Tag: Christmas

Merry Christmas!

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I’ve done my best to clear the decks for a good break this Christmas, so I’m trying to do as little as possible. Hope everyone reading has a lovely festive season!

Pleased to say I survived Whamageddon for the first time ever! This was largely due to a noble act by Geth at parkrun on Saturday morning – someone was playing the song on the start line, he recognised it and dragged me away before I could hear it (his hearing is a lot better than mine), sacrificing himself to Whamhalla in the process. In future years I’ll be taking myself out of the game by playing the song in the early hours of 1st December – the last few days have been a bit unexpectedly stressful! I did really enjoy playing the video on YouTube at 2am this morning though!

A lovely early run with my headtorch this morning to start the day, and soon we’ll be having breakfast and presents with the family.

Christmas

parkrundays: Pendle #426 and Town Moor #604

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A quick parkrunday catchup.

Last week I was at Pendle again while visiting the in-laws. The course was muddier than usual but I was pleased to improve on my September course PB, taking off another 54 seconds with a 28:42. Up until August 2023, 28:42 was my all-time parkrun PB, set in 2018 in much more amenable conditions at Town Moor, and so to equal that on the toughest parkrun course I do semi-regularly was pretty special. I was really pleased with that.

parkrun
Working hard for it! Photo from Pendle parkrun Facebook page.

Today I returned to Town Moor, scene of my new all-time PB a fortnight ago. The conditions were not good at all – 45 mph winds on the Moor – and so I didn’t expect to get anywhere near that time. But somehow I managed 26:10 – so another 13 seconds off the PB! Can’t believe it!

parkrun
Photo from Town Moor parkrun Facebook page.

Next week I’ll be visiting a parkrun I haven’t done for nearly four years! Looking forward to it…

Phone Box Thursday: Wells Road, Malvern Wells

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Still in the Malvern area this week!

Red phone box
Red phone box, Wells Road, Malvern Wells, 18th September 2023.

(Coordinates 52°07’79.3″N, 2°33’23.8″W.)

This one is an information point and book exchange. It looks very well stocked and used!

Anne also sent me a link to this lovely Christmassy phone box image (links to Facebook). Nice to have a Christmas phone box picture!

More from the Malvern area next week.

Merry Christmas!

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I’ve had a nice few weeks prepping for Christmas and am now enjoying the celebrations with family. I hope you’re all having a lovely time too!

Christmas cake

I’ve got some New Year’s Resolutions posts coming up next week, some additional festive parkrunning and some blog plans to share. In the meantime, I’ll be doing a lot of videogaming and sleeping. Enjoy the festivities everyone!

parkrunday: Town Moor #563

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A great parkrun to start Christmas Eve this morning. I managed a faster time than I have been doing recently, which is not bad considering how much juggling of marathon training I needed to do this week!

Post-parkrun
Photo by Clare Harvey.

Afterwards we joined the social run group at the café for sherry (Geth) and mince pies (both of us)! It was lovely to be able to say happy Christmas to everyone before we decamped for the break.

Not parkrunning tomorrow as we’re taking the time to enjoy Christmas morning – but there’ll be a couple for Hogmanay and New Year’s Day next week!

Evening mode

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Bit of a sluggish day today – it’s been one of those grey and wet ‘lights on all day’ November days, which always puts my brain into evening mode before it’s evening – but despite the rain I am looking forward to getting out to my Pilates class later this afternoon. Gradually doing the last-ish of my Christmas shopping as well, which is always a cheering experience.

Monday things

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After a nice day off yesterday I’m getting back into things post-weekend. Lots of Christmas prep tasks sneaking up on me now. These days I like to have them done by the end of November so that there’s no stressful mad rush at the end.

Back to the Monday social run this evening – it’s been a few weeks since I last went. Looking forward to it.

Novemberish

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While there may still be a couple of slightly sagging Hallowe’en lanterns on my mantelpiece, I feel I have definitely fallen full-on into November mode. I’m writing my NaNoWriMo project (which is several small projects this year, mostly game coding) and I wrapped a couple of Christmas presents to send off this afternoon. It’ll be here before we know it!

November has become a bit busy and so I’m focusing on one or two days at a time. This weekend I’m looking forward to a bumble round parkrun and then volunteering at the race on Sunday.

One eye on normality

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Penultimate day of Christmas and we have begun to transition back to normal in our house! We have nearly eaten up all the seasonal goodies and my TechUp course has started again after the Christmas break. However, neither Geth nor I are back at work until next Monday, so we’ve still got a bit of breathing room before total normality resumes.

Between work, studying and marathon training, I’m about to head into a fairly intense few weeks. Nevertheless, I would much rather frontload the year with all the busy stuff in January and February (and hence be distracted from the rubbish parts of winter: bonus points). It looks (at the moment!) as though things will gradually get less busy throughout the course of 2022, which is the good way round.

Just need to avoid taking on too many new projects. Easier said than done!

Pringles
Last tube of Pringles for this Christmas. The aim is for them to be gone by tonight… I suspect between the two of us we should manage it.