…and then I headed to my counselling appointment. I’m starting to feel a bit more focused in the sessions now, and find that I’m able to look at things from angles I hadn’t considered before.
I spent the afternoon doing day job work, and am now having a quiet evening before a hopefully speedy parkrun tomorrow!
More spring flowers – the crocii are out in the parks now! Spotted a few early daffodils in the wild as well…
Today’s earworm playlist:
George Ezra – ‘Paradise’ Bon Jovi – ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’ Vangelis – ‘Chariots Of Fire’ The Connells – ”74-’75’ Dee Cooke – ‘Money’* The Midnight – ‘Lost Boy’
*A truly awful rap track that was unwillingly conceived by my brain circa 2013. Not for public consumption.
…and a bit of a disappointing result at Slimming World – only half a pound off despite working really hard for it this week 🙁 Still six pounds away from target range. I really had hoped to get there by the end of February but it’s looking unlikely now.
I’ve spent the afternoon working on house stuff and admin. Other than my counselling appointment, it’s looking like tomorrow will be similar.
At least the snowdrops are out now! Always appreciate these early signs of spring when the weather is still miserable.
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Midnight – ‘Jason’ The Midnight – ‘Collateral’ The Midnight – ‘Vampires’ Soft Cell – ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ FM-84 and Ollie Wride – ‘Running In The Night’
Due to my all-encompassing work project, Geth and I didn’t get to enjoy the bank holiday last Monday, so we arranged to take a day in lieu and go for a day trip today instead.
The weather has been a bit strange over the last month – rather than having a spring, we’ve basically gone straight from winter to summer, but I’m not complaining.
We had a lovely walk along the seafront and climbed right up to the replica self-sinking gun on the cliff.
1987 replica of 1887 gun. You know me and 1980s stuff!
According to the plaque, the original gun was tested in 1887, and did work in terms of being able to sink back into its foundation after being fired, but because it took far too long (eight hours) to prep, it was never actually used. This replica was installed in 1987 for the 100th anniversary.
On the beach at South Shields. After such a long winter, it was so nice to feel the sand under my feet!
We then walked back to the seafront and had lunch and a couple of pints in the Sanddancer, which is the best place to go in South Shields when it’s not Great North Run day (on GNR day, because it’s the first pub you get to after collecting your goodie bag, it’s absolutely rammed, so you’re better off going to another pub a bit further down the seafront).
After that, we went back to Newcastle, did a bit of shopping in town and went for another couple of pints. A perfect ‘bank holiday’!
I can’t be sure, because the days are sort of melting into each other at the moment (only three more twelve-hour shifts! I can do this!), but it seems that we’ve had about two weeks in a row where the weather’s actually been quite nice – warm, sunny, blue skies. There are also lots of flowers in our new garden, mostly weeds like dandelions, but still flowers. The ice-cream van shows up every day around one o’clock in the afternoon with a creepy jingle straight out of a horror film. And Geth’s actually been mowing the lawn. It’s beginning to look a bit like it might not be winter anymore. In fact, leaving aside the only-just-beginning-to-bud leaves on the trees, it’s beginning to look like summer.
I’m pretty happy about that. The winter was so long and awful (still snowing in early April) that it was starting to feel like it would never end. But because of that, it sort of feels like we’ve skipped spring and gone straight to summer, which I’m thrilled about (I don’t like typical British springs – wet, windy and not yet warm enough!). This has meant that I’m actually starting to get excited about all the stuff I’m doing in the summer – I’m just a bit worried about having enough time to prepare for it!
Of course, sod’s law means that as soon as I’m done with work at the end of this week and can actually go outside, the nice weather will disappear. At least that should mean that it won’t be too warm for running at the weekend!
We’ve finally seen some spring weather in the last week or so. Outside, it’s been lovely – the winter was so long and awful that being able to walk around in bare legs and light jackets last week felt like being on holiday somewhere tropical.
Inside, however, when I’m sitting still (which I’ve been doing a lot, obviously, as I’ve got a lot of work to do at the moment), I’m still really feeling the cold, and have had to have the electric fire going next to me most of the time now that we’ve pretty much switched off the central heating for the summer. It’s one of those disadvantages of weight loss – I just don’t have that excess blubber to keep me warm anymore.
I’m definitely looking forward to it warming up more for the summer – I feel silly having the fire on this late in the season!
I’ve been making an effort to get back to running again – I went out for a short run last Tuesday and then to parkrun yesterday – because race season is starting again soon (my first race is the Sunderland 10k on 13th May) and I need to get training. It’s generally been a bad winter for my running, partly because of the crappy weather, but mainly because the move has taken up all of my mental energy, and when I’ve got a big thing like that going on, exercise does tend to take a back seat, unfortunately.
I can’t let it slide next winter, though, because in April 2019 I’m running the London Marathon – my first (and probably last) marathon!
I was lucky enough to get a ballot place for London Marathon 2018, but with the move there was no way training would have ever happened this year. Thankfully, the London Marathon organisers give you one opportunity to defer your ballot place for a year, so I’ve opted to do that, and will be running in 2019 instead. It also gives me an extra year to prepare and get fitter before the event.
I’ve run three half marathons (and will have run five by the time I do London), but everyone says the full marathon is a very different beast, so I’m going to have to be absolutely religious with my training. I’m hoping for a really good season this year (no injuries would be nice!) to give me a good base for the winter.
I’m also hoping we’ve seen the last of the cold and wet. Let’s just have spring and its associated good running weather now, please weather gods!
I did parkrun this morning, for the first time in a couple of months. Between the move and the weather, I’ve just not been feeling like running at all since late January, so it was nice to get back to it. Lovely day too, and it was perfect running conditions.
I’m hoping that we’ve seen the end of the bad winter weather now, though there are a lot of ominous rumours about a white Easter next weekend. I sincerely hope it’s not, as Geth and I are visiting the in-laws and the last thing we need is Christmas-style travel disruption.
With the clocks going forward tonight, it would be nice if it could just be spring weather from now on. Fingers crossed!
