(Yes, my ’80s pop playlist is back on heavy repeat. Can you tell?)
I expected to be struggling a bit today for various reasons (mostly outwith my control). I’m not, but let’s leave it at that. It’s been a busy day, certainly.
And here’s the only ‘Blue Monday’ I want to hear about today (like many people I expect):
For today, anyway. Lots to do, despite the fact that my clients are mostly on holiday and thus so am I!
It’s been a busy week. Monday was a big accounting catchup day for my business as I’ve not had time to keep up with it over the last few hectic months. Tuesday was spent in Geth’s office at work, as they’re moving buildings again and we needed to pack up all his stuff so it can be transferred to his new office. Wednesday I had a hair appointment and took the opportunity to run a few other errands while I was out, and yesterday was 18-miler day on my marathon training schedule. I’ve also been doing initial planning and coding for my new game!
I was really anxious about yesterday’s run as my long runs so far this training block have been fairly miserable due to various issues. However, everything (mostly) came together yesterday, and I was able to have a really positive, steady run. I’ve recovered really well so am feeling a lot more confident about the remaining long runs on the schedule!
I know I say this most weeks but next week should definitely be quieter… I hope!
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
Elvis Presley – ‘Return To Sender’
Sunday
KC & The Sunshine Band – ‘Give It Up’
Monday
Duran Duran – ‘Save A Prayer’
Tuesday
Nobuo Uematsu – ‘Boss Theme A’
Wednesday
Nobuo Uematsu – ‘Boss Theme A’
Thursday
Duran Duran – ‘Invisible’
Duran Duran and Chai – ‘More Joy’
Friday
Queen – ‘A Winter’s Tale’
Carter USM – ‘The Only Living Boy In New Cross’
Ultravox – ‘Vienna’
Peter Gabriel – ‘Games Without Frontiers’
I broke a record today.
My previous lifetime record for consecutive days spent in the UK was 1,095 days. With Mum and Dad, I sailed back from our holiday in the Faroe Islands to Shetland on 7th July 1986. I then didn’t leave the UK again until 6th July 1989, when I sailed from England to France with Mum, Dad and Malcolm. During that three-year period we did get on a lot of ferries – we were visiting my grandparents in Shetland a lot as my grandmother was poorly by then – but it wasn’t until that French trip in 1989 that we went abroad again.
Growing up in the 1990s I was lucky enough to travel a lot with the family. We went abroad almost every year, usually to continental Europe but sometimes to North America too. In my late teens I often went on holiday abroad with friends, and after I met Geth, while most of our travelling was UK-based, we typically ventured out to other countries once a year or so, usually to coincide with one of his academic conferences or work trips.
2018 was the last such trip to date. Geth was meeting international colleagues in Toronto, and we decided to combine that with a holiday as it was an opportunity to visit Malcolm and Steff. Mum and Dad were able to match the dates for their planned trip to Toronto too, and so it was a lovely get-together with the family. I flew back from Toronto and arrived in Edinburgh on the morning of 25th July 2018. That was 1,096 days ago – exactly three years. I haven’t left the UK since.
I had no idea it would be my last trip abroad for such a long time. Breaking this particular record was obviously not my plan! I passed on joining Geth on a work trip to Oslo in June 2019, as I was really busy with work and other things at the time, but I had a ticket to see Duran Duran in Dublin in June 2020, and we planned to go back to Toronto in summer 2020, and we wanted to have a couple of city breaks in Paris and Amsterdam in autumn 2020…
Yeah. 2020.
It’s funny how much I took travelling for granted before. There were lots of places in the world I wanted to see, and the only things stopping me from seeing them were time, money and the anxiety I always have around travelling due to mental issues with routine. It never occurred to me, pre-pandemic, that the world would ever be in a situation where I simply wouldn’t be allowed to go to these places (or that it would be so logistically difficult and/or risky that it wouldn’t be worth it). Nowadays, as I sit in the house watching cities like Sydney and Tokyo and New Orleans and Johannesburg and Barcelona and Rio de Janeiro fly by, in documentaries and films and videogames on my screens, and in the pages of the books I read, and the academic works I edit, and the stories I write myself… I always think the same old thing I always did. ‘I’ll go there someday!’ And then I feel sad, because I don’t know when that will be possible again in the same way that it was before. Years away, perhaps.
I had a ticket to see Duran Duran in Dublin in June 2020. Then I had a ticket to see Duran Duran in Dublin in June 2021. Now I have a ticket to see Duran Duran in Dublin in June 2022. I hope it happens. I hope the world won’t make me go a whole quarter of a decade or more without seeing my brother, whom I last saw in person on my birthday in January 2020. I hope I’ll be running parkruns in Paris and Amsterdam next year. But the last year and a half has taught me that I can’t be certain.
I can hope, though. I really, really hope that the world will go back to what we once thought of as normality.
Until then I will just keep patiently counting days. And hope that I am setting a record I will never break again!
A couple of years ago, Mum and Dad gave me this 1984 flexidisc for my ’80s collection. The fonts are fantastic!
Of course, it has its own Discogs entry!
I wasn’t even sure how a flexidisc operated as we didn’t typically use them when I was little. The below YouTube demonstrates this particular disc.
As I understand it, I could play the disc on my turntable even without the card it supposedly came with, but I’m not sure how useful it would be!
This one is classic by name and classic by nature. I’ve been eating it for a long time. When I was really little and first discovered pesto (in the golden age of pesto that was the ’80s), the jar for this pesto looked like this:
Nowadays there are a lot more flavours of Sacla pesto and so they have a numbered system to keep track of them all. Modern jars for the original basil pesto look like this:
The taste of this pesto has changed over time as well as they’ve gradually altered the recipe. It originally tasted more like the pestos that call themselves ‘pesto alla genovese’ nowadays. These days, it’s got quite a strong, rich taste that I find more suited to the ‘chicken pesto’ meal I make with pasta, Quorn chicken style pieces and green vegetables.
That meal is Geth’s favourite, so we eat this pesto at least once a week!
There were a lot of summer fields on my long trail race today, so these ones from Shetland in 1985 feel appropriate today. My memory doesn’t quite go back far enough to remember this particular walk, but I am fairly sure being pushed in a buggy is easier than running/walking miles and miles under your own steam.
On a related note, race review coming tomorrow!
Pretty much every photo of me from spring and summer 1987 involves an ice cream. It was clearly a warm year. Mum also seems to have partaken in a lot of the ice cream, which is surprising as she doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth! Maybe she was just holding Dad’s ice cream while he took the photo. My brother Malcolm, in this photo at least, seems to have been more interested in his own shoes. Life is simple when you’re seven months old.
This year has not been a warm year… until now. The warm weather has shown up just in time for me and Geth to swelter round our virtual half marathon tomorrow. We will be eating ice cream tonight. For fuelling purposes, you understand.
Geth and I have been away for our first ‘coming out of the pandemic’ weekend with family the last couple of days, so I’m skipping my regularly scheduled blog post for today. Very tired after a long drive!
Just a quick note that we were thrilled to meet our niece for the first time. She is adorable.
