There’s still a lot of bits and pieces to do upstairs, but I’m getting there. 95% of the stuff is now living where it’s going to be living over the weekend while we have visitors. I also made a good start on downstairs today, and things are starting to look a lot better.
Including this candelabrum, for which I have finally found a good place after carting it round several houses. It would look even better if that tiny blue flame on the front candle would perk up a bit.
I’ve got a bit of time tomorrow and then most of Friday to finish off. It’s just small jobs left to do now so I feel a lot better about the house in general. Slimming World weigh-in tomorrow is another matter – after the (necessary but heavy) carbathon at the weekend I’m kind of dreading it!
OOTD: Geth’s comment was ‘I’m sure there’s a picture of my mother looking like that in the ’80s’. Jumper Faber (vintage 1980s, bought at vintage fair 2018), leggings Primark (2018), boots Carefree (2017).
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Reynolds Girls – I’d Rather Jack
Genesis – Land Of Confusion
Five Star – System Addict
Duran Duran – New Moon On Monday
The study is finally all unpacked! However, the rest of upstairs is now a bomb site, because I’ve had to use it for organising everything that came out of the study. Luckily, it should be a fairly straightforward process this evening to get everything into its place – it just requires a bit more shuffling stuff about.
Other than a few bits and pieces here and there, work is being fairly quiet this week so far, so I should have another full day tomorrow to break the back of the house project ready for Geth’s family coming to stay at the weekend. After their visit, I’ll be able to work on the scanning and shredding at my own pace (which is for the best, because judging by the amount of stuff I’ve unearthed today, it could take years!).
OOTD: house-sorting outfit! Jumper Prima (thrifted from family friend in the mid-1990s, probably originally late 1980s or early 1990s), jeans Zara (2018), trainers Reebok (2017).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Tina Turner – What’s Love Got To Do With It
Will Powers – Kissing With Confidence
Ricky Martin – María
Soft Cell – Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
Mark Knopfler – Local Hero
A day spent recovering the legs from the race yesterday. Lots of TV watched, including Smashing Hits: The Pop Map of Britain and Ireland, which I will review separately soon!
Back to the house project tomorrow.
OOTD: comfy recovery clothes. Hoodie Uneek Classic for Mesh (2016), t-shirt Cyberdog (originally early 2000s, thrifted from Geth 2014), belt H&M (2017), tights Primark (2017), boots Carefree (2017).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Baccara – Yes Sir, I Can Boogie
Kim Wilde – You Came
Fifth Harmony – That’s My Girl
An early start, aided by my new Spotify playlist that collects all my favourite running-reminiscent songs! After getting our stuff together, Geth and I headed out for a good walk to the Great North Run start line. We put our rucksack on the baggage bus and got ourselves settled in the start pen.
Start line selfie! I am still no good at taking these.
It was a good hour-long wait until we finally started moving, and probably another twenty minutes after that walking down to the actual start line (being the world’s biggest half marathon, it takes a good long while to get nearly 60,000 runners over the line), but before too long we were off, and I was able to settle into my comfortable pace for the first few miles.
Unfortunately pretty much all of my recurring aches and pains showed up during the course of the race, and so I didn’t get anywhere near the sub-2:30 I would have liked. I did get 2:43:19, which is a 10 min 36 sec improvement on last year’s PB – ergo I can’t really complain! Looking forward to the winter, though, as I will be able to train a lot better for the various races I will be doing in the run-up to the London Marathon in April.
South Shields and its pubs were as wonderful and necessary as ever. We hung about for a while to avoid the Metro queues, but are now finally home with pizza and prosecco. A very quiet day planned tomorrow.
OOTD: the only piece of clothing that matters today! Glasses Moschino (2006), t-shirt Great North Run (2018).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Ashford & Simpson – Solid
(Another short playlist due to a whole day of having music played at me!)
Great North Weekend properly got started today, much the same as it did last year, with a parkrun volunteering session. There were a lot of people volunteering due to the GNR, but luckily Geth, Ed, and I managed to snag the gate 2 spot, which meant we didn’t have to hang about for too long. Great atmosphere at parkrun though – it’s always good on Great North Weekend.
After parkrun, Geth and I went for breakfast at Costa, and then home to collect a few things before heading into town for the Pasta Party and the Great North CityGames.
We got off at Gateshead and headed for lunch at the Pasta Party first, as the queues just get worse throughout the day. As we’re both running this year, and I’m on my second year of membership, we had a ridiculous number (six) of pasta vouchers:
So much pasta. I ended up eating most of it, ’cause Geth doesn’t have the stamina for pasta-eating that I do.
We then headed over the Millennium Bridge (bumping into Ed again halfway across!) to catch the CityGames long jump, where I took the obligatory blurry photos of Greg Rutherford and Jazmin Sawyers:
People that I usually just see on the TV!
It was Greg Rutherford’s last ever competitive long jump event, so it was pretty special to get to see him. We then went back to the Gateshead side of the Quayside to watch the sprint distance events from the seated area. Despite the rain, it was quite comfy!
Sadly the CityGames is moving to Stockton-on-Tees from next year, so it won’t be part of our Great North Weekend again for the foreseeable future. I’m guessing the Pasta Party will remain in Gateshead though.
A quiet evening in after that, with the BBC coverage of the CityGames, the Strictly Come Dancing launch show, some triathlon on iPlayer, and yet more pasta. I could not be any more carb-loaded after the last three days. Hopefully it will give me the requisite energy for tomorrow’s Great North Run!
OOTD: rain? What rain? Glasses Emporio Armani (2017), hoodie Uneek Classic for Mesh (2016), t-shirt Puma for Great North 5K (2015).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Kim Wilde – You Came
And a bonus track that Geth was humming earlier:
Baltimora – Tarzan Boy
(A short list today, partly due to spending most of the day surrounded by actual music, but mainly because after Geth woke me up for the second time by loudly singing Tarzan Boy, that became my earworm for the rest of the day too!)
As hoped, I managed to get a good day’s worth of house stuff done today. This mainly involved unpacking boxes and Tetrising the contents about, so it sort of feels like I’ve not made much headway, but I know I have really. It will be more apparent after I unpack the other half of the boxes on Monday (assuming I don’t have work) and am able to start getting some things into their finalised places. Exciting!
Geth is watching triathlon TV at the moment to mark the start of Great North Weekend, which will take up the rest of our time until Sunday evening. I’ve got a bit of work and a bit of admin to get on with, before an early night in preparation for parkrun volunteering tomorrow.
I’m still eating ALL THE PASTA. One more day of carb-loading to go!
Rod Stewart – Baby Jane
The Wanted – Walks Like Rihanna
Nik Kershaw – I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me
Brother Beyond – The Harder I Try
Charli XCX – Boys
George Michael – Careless Whisper
Eurythmics – Here Comes The Rain Again
Howard Jones – New Song
A good day today! 5lbs off at Slimming World this morning, which got rid of the last of my various gains from August weekends away. After a few SP days it was nice to be able to have some pasta for lunch afterwards, too – getting started with the carbing up before Sunday! I got the last of my work done for the week in the afternoon (unless anything urgent comes in last-minute), which means I should be able to get a whole day of house stuff done tomorrow. Looking forward to unearthing more floor!
Also looking forward to trying out these new body butters – today’s shopping treat.
Pilates class started back again this evening after the summer break, which was a really nice pre-GNR workout – I’ve had a lot of energy today from wanting to get running, so it was good to be able to divert some of it.
Now having a writing evening. It feels more and more like I’m getting back into routine now, which is great.
OOTD: back to the regular Thursday routine! Hoodie Internacionale (2000), vest top Primark (2018), leggings Primark (2018), trainers Reebok (2017).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Kim Wilde – You Came
Alicia Keys – Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart
Swing Out Sister – Breakout
Green Day – Minority
Sophie Ellis-Bextor – Take Me Home
Steps – One For Sorrow
The Police – Don’t Stand So Close To Me
I was able to do another chunk of house stuff today, which involved a lot of emptying boxes, putting away our excessive spare hanger collection (something I may rethink keeping once I’ve finalised the wardrobes), and as a result clearing a lot of floor space in the dressing room. It was nice to see floor that we’ve not seen for months, although of course I’ll soon be covering it again through Tetrising when I finally unpack the study (starting Friday if work stays quiet!).
I also caught up on a month’s worth of blog reading and a couple of radio chart shows. Nice productive evening.
OOTD: it was super cold this morning so I went for the giant jumper. Jumper Carlo Colucci (vintage 1980s, bought at vintage fair 2017), jeans H&M (thrifted from Steff 2016), boots Carefree (2017).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Duran Duran – Hold Back The Rain
LSD – Thunderclouds
Steve Earle – Galway Girl
Nik Kershaw – I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me
Ashford & Simpson – Solid
Success! I went to Asda again this morning and someone was actually on the Asda Money counter! It was a much nicer walk too without the rain, especially as the trees have already started changing and it’s looking very autumnal out there.
After a bit of admin, I was finally able to get on with some house stuff today:
Almost all of our spinoff novels and comics. Some of them have gone walkies, but will presumably turn up by the time I finish unearthing the study.
It required a lot of Tetrising from garage to landing and back, but both the TV/film spinoff novels and the comics, as well as all the bedding and towels, are now in their correct and final places. Another job done!
Still catching up with unwatched Marvel Universe films. Tonight it was Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, which was really funny and a good watch. In some ways it’s nicer to be watching them in the comfort of home, but I expect we will start going to see the films at the cinema again once we’ve caught up.
OOTD: making the most of the natural light before it disappears. Jumper unknown brand (vintage 1980s, bought at vintage fair 2017), jeans Levi (2018), trainers Reebok (2013).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Bucks Fizz – Piece Of The Action
Spice Girls – Mama
Duran Duran – The Chauffeur
Duran Duran – A View To A Kill
Jonas Blue and JP Cooper – Perfect Strangers
Billy Ocean – Suddenly
Back to work all day today, followed by a fairly pointless walk to Asda and back in the rain. I’m trying to sort out a client’s payment at Asda Money, and this evening, despite being supposed to be open all day from 9am till 8pm, they had a cheerful ‘just popped out for a minute – be back at 7.45pm!’ sign on the counter. It was 6.10pm. I wasn’t going to hang around for an hour and a half, so I will have to try again tomorrow, which will be my third time trudging to Asda for this thing (the first time I went, there was a non-Asda-related problem with the process).
This is one of the many reasons that I will soon be formally updating my business policies, so that I’m not wasting time doing things like this!
Anyway, other than that, I’m having a fairly relaxed evening. Geth is out at a boardgame night, so I’ve got the Now! ’80s channel and my Kindle to keep me occupied.
OOTD: attempting the Guardian’s ‘autumn flash’. Umbrella Flexitech (2018), glasses Emporio Armani (2017), jacket Primark (2018), hoodie Logo (2007), t-shirt Gildan for Infest (2018), bag CXL by Christian Lacroix (2018), skirt Miss Selfridge (2004), boots Clarks (2016).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Jermaine Stewart – We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off
Simon & Garfunkel – Cecilia
Abba – Lay All Your Love On Me
Abba – Head Over Heels
Tears For Fears – Everybody Wants To Rule The World
Brother Beyond – The Harder I Try
