I have still got a LOT of aches, pains and stiffness in my legs, but there’s a tiny bit of gradual recovery every day. I’m managing to shuffle round my daily short run route at a very slow pace, and hopefully I’ll be able to plod round parkrun on Saturday without taking a horribly long time. I was able to brave the foam roller again as well after my run this morning, and hopefully continuing the habit of doing that every day will keep the stiffness at bay long-term.
I have a slight bit of post-marathon blues now. I think it’s because I don’t know if or when I will ever be able to run London again, and it’s been such a long journey that I feel sad it’s over. I think I will feel a bit better when I run other marathons and take on more of a mindset that there are lots of great ones out there, but London really was something else, especially this year when I had such a great experience. I will definitely be throwing my hat in the ballot for future editions. Maybe some time in the future I’ll get lucky again.
I’m taking this week very easy and slow. I’ve got a bit of day job work and am doing some initial prep for the software development course I will be starting soon (very excited! Will blog about that properly soon). I’m also looking forward to an incredibly quiet weekend once Geth and I are back from parkrun! I have plans for emptying Sunday to the extent that I don’t have to do anything at all 😀
I saved up so that I could have a couple of blowouts on the Hallowe’en and Christmas Locket collections this year! I have so many new spooky leggings to wear this month, including these pink cartoony ones.
Life was going at a million miles an hour all summer and into the early autumn, so it feels a bit odd that this week it’s just… quiet. It’s much appreciated though!
The first half of September has been almost back to pre-pandemic levels of Being Out And About! Weddings, races, gigs… it’s been a busy time, but so joyful to be able to see people and do normal things again. I even finally got to see Duran Duran this week! They announced a couple of short-notice gigs about a fortnight ago and I jumped at the chance… especially seeing as I already had a ticket for Andy Taylor on the Wednesday and so it was set to be the best coming-out-of-the-pandemic return to gig-going week I could have hoped for!
I’ll review the gigs in depth here eventually but I’ve also written pieces on them for a couple of fansites/publications so I want to wait until those are out first.
Anyway, the second half of September, in contrast, is empty, and I plan to make the most of that. I will only be leaving the house to do parkrun and an occasional long-ish run (my short daily runs are now all being done on the treadmill to reduce my risk of injury in the lead-up to the marathon) until I leave for London, with the one exception being the day I’ll be helping Geth unpack boxes in his new office. I am guarding that time very carefully as I want as much physical and mental rest as possible over the next sixteen days!
I am also getting organised for Hallowe’en so that I’m not rushing around with that in October. Some exciting things coming in the post soon…
T-shirt collection well stocked up this week! Love both of these 🙂
Saturday
The Wombles – ‘The Wombling Song’ Duran Duran – ‘Come Undone’
Sunday
Mika – ‘Grace Kelly’
Monday
Mark Knopfler – ‘Local Hero’ The Running Channel – ‘Run With Me’
Tuesday
Meat Loaf – ‘Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through’ Duran Duran – ‘Invisible’
Wednesday
Duran Duran – ‘Tonight United’ Andy Taylor – ‘Bringing Me Down’ Gloria Gaynor – ‘I Will Survive’ Duran Duran – ‘Friends Of Mine’
Thursday
Duran Duran – ‘What Happens Tomorrow’
Friday
Tom Jones – ‘Delilah’ Duran Duran – ‘Ordinary World’
Geth and I travelled back to Newcastle this morning after a family wedding yesterday. It was so lovely to be able to have a normal family celebration after everything that’s happened over the last eighteen months, and to see so many people I haven’t been able to see for so long. I really hope we can have another gathering soon.
The next couple of weeks are gathering steam and so I’ve spent a bit of time this afternoon making sure to schedule in some time to relax! The last few months have felt very non-stop and I know I won’t be able to do all the stuff I want to do over the next month if I keep barrelling along without a break.
Work is returning to a good level as well – there’s plenty to keep the business ticking over, but it’s not as hectic as it was in the summer and so I’ve got time to do other things too.
Should be a good month leading up to the marathon!
A slightly ominous-looking tree on the Quayside. I’m looking forward to exploring this route further during training for future marathons.
Twelve days to go until meteorological autumn begins. I am very excited.
Things have been quite well timed this week. Geth and I returned home from the last of our summer trips away on Tuesday, and I finished the last items for the last of my big summer work projects on Wednesday. Work has been very busy over the spring and summer, which has been great, but it’s starting to quieten down again now. I’ll be taking the opportunity over the next few weeks to get a new game made and to have some downtime with my much-neglected videogame collection. I’m also in the sharp end of marathon training now, so I need to get some rest and relaxation in when I’m not running!
I’m finding it hard to get out of the ‘I should be doing something work-related right now’ guilt and letting myself relax, but that’s sort of understandable after so many months. I hope I’ll feel a bit more settled in a week’s time.
So many pictures from our last trip! This is another one from the Mull of Galloway.
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
S-Express – ‘Theme From S-Express’
Sunday
Grant Lee Buffalo – ‘The Whole Shebang’ Shoji Meguro – ‘Heretic Mansion’ Duran Duran and Chai – ‘More Joy’
Monday
Duran Duran – ‘Reach Up For The Sunrise’
Tuesday
The Crüxshadows – ‘Return’ Fleetwood Mac – ‘Don’t Stop’ Duran Duran and Chai – ‘More Joy’ The Corries – ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’
Wednesday
Peter Gabriel – ‘Games Without Frontiers’
Thursday
Duran Duran – ‘What Happens Tomorrow’ Duran Duran – ‘Invisible’
With the summer work and trips all complete, I’m having a day off to play videogames before getting back to my projects. Looking forward to getting lost in some other worlds for the afternoon!
A different kind of ‘other world’ visited at the weekend. The ones I’m visiting today aren’t real!
I didn’t have much of a weekend last week because I was too busy with work, and I’ve been working every evening till late this week as well. As such, I have zero brainspace left and I need some time off. Part of the reason I worked evenings this week was because I wanted today off so that I could have a three-day weekend, as I knew that the first day would just be a ‘staring into space’ recovery day after the last few weeks. I also aimed to do my weekend long run today in order to get it out of the way early. However it’s been really, really hot today – too hot for running comfortably – and I ended up cutting the run short after halfway, as the heat was making it unsafe. Next week I’ll get up really early so I can get out and back in before the heat gets too bad.
I’m really looking forward to the rest of the weekend now. Brain rest will be amazing.
Laptop, loungewear, sofa. It’s been that way for weeks, but this weekend it will be that way in a non-work way.
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
Koichi Sugiyama – ‘Dragon Quest Town Theme’ Duran Duran – ‘Invisible’
Sunday
Nobuo Uematsu – ‘Chocobo Jam’ Paula Abdul – ‘Straight Up’
Monday
Nobuo Uematsu – ‘Yuna’s Theme’ Duran Duran – ‘Give It All Up’ Simply Red – ‘Something Got Me Started’
Tuesday
Nobuo Uematsu – ‘To Zanarkand’ Cast of The Sound Of Music – ‘Edelweiss’
Wednesday
Duran Duran – ‘Pressure Off’
Thursday
Robbie Williams – ‘Time For Change’ Duran Duran – ‘Winter Marches On’ Duran Duran – ‘My Antarctica’
My week has been very busy, in the way that a lot of my weeks have been very busy during lockdown. Lots of day job work, lots of working on my own creative projects (writing and coding), a bit of running but not as much as is ideal due to a bad hip, quite a lot of strength training to try and fix said hip, and a lot of playtesting and competition-judging other people’s text adventures (the most fun part of my day and a good way to give back to a community that is giving me so much joy at the moment).
I’ve been working really hard recently and it’s been paying off. There have been a few developments in my editing business that I’ll talk about later in the year, I’m starting to get bits and bobs of writing published, and my text adventures are doing well and getting a good reception. I hit RED day 500 this morning – my 500th day running in a row – which is enabling me to feel like I’m still achieving things with my running even though I’m having a bad time of it with my hip and a general lack of energy at the moment.
All of this has been made possible by the pandemic allowing me to sit on my sofa all day long and get things done. I am one of the people for whom lockdown has, on the whole, been beneficial – of course I’ve had my anxious moments like everyone else, as I really don’t deal well with uncertainty, but in general I have been really, really happy having an excuse to stay home. I’ve realised more than ever that I don’t actually like leaving my house, and that it’s okay not to like leaving your house. The real anxiety I have now is adapting to the world going back to normal again. I’ve said for probably a year now that I won’t just be able to jump back into my life as it was pre-pandemic; there were a lot of things I used to do that, I have realised, caused a lot of unnecessary stress. Constantly going out to group activities and classes, gigs and races every week, travelling every other weekend… I can’t go back to all that. My personal return to normality is going to have to be very gradual, and there are a lot of things I probably never will do again.
Learning to say ‘no’, to myself as much as to anyone else, is probably going to be my biggest challenge this year. I’ve found out how important it is to feel in control of my own time. It’s a precious thing, and I’m not going to give it up.
Life is starting to fit into place, gradually.
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
Michael Land and Clint Bajakian – ‘Opening Credits Part #1’ Whitesnake – ‘Here I Go Again ’87’*
Sunday
Patti Smith – ‘Because The Night’ Dee Cooke – ‘Control Room’
Monday
Dee Cooke – ‘Outside Building’ Fisherman’s Friends – ‘Sailor Ain’t A Sailor’
Tuesday
Whitesnake – ‘Here I Go Again ’87’
Wednesday
Fisherman’s Friends – ‘Haul Away Joe’
Thursday
Pet Shop Boys – ‘Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money)’ Duran Duran – ‘Tel Aviv’
Friday
Michael Land and Clint Bajakian – ‘Crete’ Duran Duran – ‘Save A Prayer’ Talking Heads – ‘Once In A Lifetime’ Ed Sheeran – ‘Lego House’
It’s not been a bad week. The only thing slowing me down has been an ear infection that I picked up last week (god knows where from given that I never see anyone at the moment!). Following a phone appointment with the doctor, I’ve managed to get some antibiotics, but so far I’ve been up and down with them – hoping it settles down over the weekend. I’ve also been feeling a bit stiff and achy again, so there’s been a fair few evening yoga sessions over the last few days!
Work-wise I’ve been trying to do focused days this week rather than trying to do a small amount of ten different things every day. I feel like it works a bit better when I can just sit down and concentrate on one thing for most of the day rather than chopping and changing and trying to squeeze everything in.
I managed a day off on Wednesday, which was great, as I wanted a bit of time to sit down and play videogames (I’ve not had the energy for it in the last couple of weeks, which is usually a bad sign). Wednesday is a good day to take off if necessary, as it’s the weekday when I’m least likely to have urgent work from clients.
I’m playing the Fetchpoint game on Fetch Everyone again, which is kind of like virtual geocaching and involves collecting lots of invisible tokens around my local area. This is getting me out walking more often (and helping to vary my running routes), which is a good thing as we move into spring.
I’m mostly concentrating on the Adventuron jam this month, but in April I’m hoping to have a bit of time to work on my business website – I’m going to be changing a lot of terms soon and need to revamp the site accordingly.
A big week of game-creating ahead as we’re reaching the final push of the current jam. Fingers crossed I can carve out lots of time to get it finished!
Geth and I went to Jesmond Dene for a walk last weekend. It was so nice to be back in the Dene for the first time after the winter.
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
Simply Red – ‘Money’s Too Tight To Mention’ Kanye West – ‘Stronger’
Sunday
John Newman – ‘Love Me Again’ The Boomtown Rats – ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ Kesha – ‘Tik Tok’ Frankie Miller – ‘Caledonia’ Girls Aloud – ‘Sound Of The Underground’ Matthew Wilder – ‘Break My Stride’
Monday
Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton – ‘Islands In The Stream’ Joe Hisaishi – ‘Battle’ Soft Cell – ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’
Tuesday
Kanye West – ‘Stronger’ Muse – ‘Feeling Good’ UB40 – ‘If It Happens Again’
Wednesday
Joe Hisaishi – ‘Battle’ Cheryl – ‘Call My Name’
Thursday
Bros – ‘I Owe You Nothing’ Rag ‘N’ Bone Man – ‘Human’ Let Loose – ‘Crazy For You’ Demi Lovato – ‘Heart Attack’
Friday
Revo – ‘Halcyonia’ Kesha – ‘Tik Tok’ J Balvin and Willy William – ‘Mi Gente’
On the whole, my recent time-scheduling experiments have been fairly successful, in the sense that the main aim was to ensure that I get everything done during the day so I can relax in the evenings. I have managed to do that over the last couple of months, and I feel a lot better in that sense. However, I’m not 100% happy with the way my scheduled days are panning out; I always feel like I’m rushing from one job to the next, and like I’m half-arsing everything I do as a result. In my world, half-arsing something means failing at it, so I’ve not felt great about a lot of the stuff I’m doing in recent weeks.
As such, I’m going to be rethinking things over the weekend, and planning out dedicated days for tasks rather than ten minutes here and there. I expect this is something I’m going to have to keep working on and tweaking indefinitely. Too many commitments, not enough time!
A new favourite weekend pudding. I made these cinnamon swirls last weekend and both Geth and I enjoyed them so much that I’ll be making some more tomorrow.
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
Mark Snow – ‘The X-Files (Main Theme)’ Howard Jones – ‘Like To Get To Know You Well’ Status Quo – ‘In The Army Now’
Sunday
Revo – ‘Savalon’ Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars – ‘Uptown Funk’
Monday
Cher – ‘I Found Someone’ Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars – ‘Uptown Funk’ Howard Jones – ‘Like To Get To Know You Well’
Tuesday
Bros – ‘When Will I Be Famous?’ Lindisfarne – ‘Lady Eleanor’ Pretenders – ‘Brass In Pocket’
Wednesday
Howard Jones – ‘Like To Get To Know You Well’ The Smiths – ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ Kesha – ‘Tik Tok’ Charlene – ‘I’ve Never Been To Me’
Thursday
The Smiths – ‘Panic’ Pet Shop Boys – What Are We Going To Do About The Rich?’
Friday
The Beatles – ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ UB40 – ‘If It Happens Again’ Kirsty MacColl – ‘Days’
I do not lead the kind of life where I should be short of free time. My work is part-time, I set my own hours, I don’t have kids, and as an introvert I don’t do much socialising even when there’s no pandemic on. I do run and blog and do a vague series of tasks (mostly accounting and logging) that I call ‘admin’ every day, but none by themselves have ever felt like they take up too much time. So where has it all been going?
In order to answer this question, last week I did what the TOMM website’s TOTT (The Organised Time Technique) book calls a ‘bootcamp’ and logged what I was doing every minute of every day for the whole week. I was expecting to find lots of periods of time lost to aimless social media scrolling and web browsing. However, while the latter did indeed account for an alarming amount of my time, I was surprised to find that I was already fairly strict about limiting the former to once a day. Although that ‘once a day’ was still taking up too much time!
In response to my findings, this week I’ve instigated a daily schedule that tells me what I need to be doing at all times. For the first half of the day, it’s very strict – this enables me to get all my daily stuff done and out of the way. Most of the afternoon is a bit freer, allowing me to work on the projects I choose (or day job work that comes in), and then I have the evenings free to relax. The main problem for me in recent years is that my to-do list takes up the whole day including the evening, and so I’m not getting any downtime. This is a good way of guarding against that – it does mean that my day is a lot less flexible, but I think I’ll get used to that. It does also feel a bit like ‘scheduled fun’, but scheduled fun is better than no fun at all because I’ve let the to-do list take over my whole day!
My new schedule also halves my social media time and eliminates random browsing from the ‘work’ part of the day. These things are huge time sinks, and I know a lot of people struggle with them these days. Social media in particular is very prone to making me feel worse about my own life (and guilty about not adding three hundred additional things per day to my already-crowded to-do list), so I really am better off minimising my time spent there.
I’ve only been doing the new schedule for a few days but I already feel so much better and more relaxed and in control!
So, what have I been using my newfound free evenings for? Well, at the moment it’s videogames (of course), but the important thing is having them free so I can unwind. In the future I might listen to music or watch favourite TV series… the world is my oyster!
Not much in the way of home improvement going on this week, but I’ve really settled into the groove of daily cleaning, especially now I’ve got the new schedule to keep it manageable.
Now for a lot of strictly-scheduled-in downtime over the weekend!
This fireplace needs fixing as it’s not putting out nearly as much heat as it once did, but at least it looks nice.
This week’s earworm playlists:
Saturday
Traditional – ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ Duran Duran – ‘Save A Prayer’ Lindisfarne – ‘Lady Eleanor’ Men Without Hats – ‘Safety Dance’
Sunday
Audrey Hepburn – ‘Moon River’
Monday
Nintendo 3DS eShop – ‘Main Theme’ George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin – ‘I Got Rhythm’ Audrey Hepburn – ‘Moon River’ Peter Hames – ‘Ordinary Man’ The Boomtown Rats – ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’
Tuesday
Joe Hisaishi – ‘Kokoro No Kakera’ LunchMoney Lewis – ‘Bills’ Peter Hames – ‘Ordinary Man’
Wednesday
Audrey Hepburn – ‘Moon River’ Christina Aguilera and Redman – ‘Dirrty’
Thursday
The Marcels – ‘Blue Moon’ Mark Ronson and Lykke Li – ‘Late Night Feelings’ Spandau Ballet – ‘Gold’ Duran Duran – ‘Five Years’
Plus a bonus track that Geth was humming that day:
3 Daft Monkeys – ‘Paranoid Big Brother’
Friday
Duran Duran – ‘Five Years’ Nintendo 3DS eShop – ‘Main Theme’ Abba – ‘One Of Us’
