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Aquarius, thanks, I think Doris will throw the "kitchen sink" at us after Christmas. He will whine that he permitted us to enjoy Christmas, in the knowledge that most of us will have had to alter our plans. I don't think that he could give a toss! I'm definitely a better safe than sorry person nowadays, and I've turned down a couple of very kind offers to visit friends on Christmas Day. I'm sticking to meeting them outdoors for runs.
The foot does seem to be a lot better now thank you, and yesterday was the 7th and last day for using the cream. I didn't feel anything during this mornings run, but I'll see how it is in the morning before deciding whether to see the pharmacist or not.
It was really cold this morning, and the grass in the forest was frosty. Thankfully the tarmac leading to the forest was ice free. There was just Sarah H, Mike and I running this morning, and we incorporated 6 x 60 seconds with 30 seconds jog recoveries on a fairly flat gravel trail.
Thanks for the belated birthday greetings to Jane.
Well done for running 5 miles whilst not being in the mood. You were very wise in deciding to defer the detour route until conditions improved.
How disappointing that the house that you viewed was in such a state. Sounds like an excellent candidate for "Homes under the hammer!"
Aqua, well done for getting out. The times you run, the temperatures you run in and the underfoot conditions you run on, all put me to shame! What a let down the house viewing sounds. You build up expectations and then the hard reality hits you.
Mrs JB tends to handle the majority of the burden with the grandkids (and just about everything else too come to that) so my role is somewhat limited. Not really a 'New Man' - but I am good on the chasing around the park stuff.........
Well the plane has landed in Poland and that's a relief. It's snowing there which is what they wanted. We picked up their little dog this morning and in many ways she's a delight - full of life and affection. But when she's off lead she just wants to play with every dog in sight and has no recall function.
I'm going to try a run this evening. The roads are well lit and the traffic is light. I tend to avoid evenings in the dark so it's a it of a novelty.
I think that the Xmas day parkrun might be the last for a while. That's if we follow the Welsh regs and limit outdoor gatherings to 50. But the thing about Johnson is that you can't predict what he'll do.................
Funnily enough we saw a recent edition of Homes under the Hammer which featured a property in a similar state of disrepair. The estate agent we met at Tuesday's viewing was brutally honest about how much work needed to be done, which surprised me, normally they try to put as positive a spin on things as they can. The house belonged to an elderly person who had died, presumably the family are the ones selling it. We saw a similar house a few weeks ago, again it belonged to an elderly person who had died, in both cases the conditions they had been living in was really shocking. Both houses looked and smelled dirty and damp, had limited heating, peeling wallpaper, huge cracks everywhere, ancient electric fittings, and what looked like original kitchens and bathrooms (both were built around 1930). I came away from both viewings feeling terribly depressed that the occupants had been living in such miserable conditions. Both houses were in well-to-do areas and the prices being asked for them were high. I can't understand how nobody knew how these people were living. So sad.
JB: It must have been a relief to hear that you son arrived safely in Poland, I hope they will have no problems returning to the UK, heaven knows what restrictions may be in place by then.
Did you get out for a run yesterday evening? When I trained with the club it was every Tuesday and Thursday evening, and although afterwards I was pleased I'd gone I never looked forward to the sessions, particularly in winter. I think the ideal set up is the one HS has, running in the early part of the day with like minded people. Although if I'm really honest I much prefer to run alone, I think I must be very anti-social.
I agree with you that parkrun, and similar events, may well have to cease after Christmas. The Omicron infection rates are soaring and restrictions of some sort will be inevitable.
A rest day today (aka housework
Hope all is well with WtnMel, I know he's got a lot on this week.
JB, good to hear that your son arrived safely in Poland. Did you get out for a run last night?
Talking about parkruns, the local one which is Brockenhurst and in the winter is run in Wilverley Inclosure is cancelled Saturday, and probably won't return. This is due to recent restrictions imposed by the Forestry Commission and Forestry England, relating to the Sustainability & Habitat Regulations. This has meant the New Forest 10 mile which should have been in April, has now been moved to 30th October. The restrictions apply to all events in the special area called the New Forest. It applies from March to September inclusive. The new Bartley Park parkrun at Totton is still going ahead on Christmas Day and I believe the Southampton one is too.
Aquarius, I spoke too soon about my athletes foot problem. The next day it started to hurt again, so I returned to the Chemist this morning and was dispensed an alternative cream, which was "a second step." He said that if that didn't work, then the next step was the Dr. I haven't used it yet, as I haven't read the instructions. They didn't have any lateral flow test kits, so the queue outside that had formed, quickly dispersed. I got my kit from an alternative chemist a couple of days ago.
Regarding the dilapidated property that you viewed, I imagine that the purchaser would be someone to gut it and renovate for resale or rent, as per the Homes under the Hammer purchasers. We haven't heard any more from the solicitor regarding the sale of our cousins house, but we are sure that it has been sold, and as I've said previously, probably to be renovated and sold on, or as a holiday let.
It's odd that you prefer running solo, being that you belong to a running club. I hope that you do manage to get out for a hilly run in the park tomorrow. The forecast here is for rain the next few days. The rain today didn't last for very long luckily.
I see we have a spammer in our midst - I shall have to wake up rwspamkiller1 & 2 and get them to do their thing ..
Aquarius - there were only three at Mon's coffee & chat as most were busy or ill (but none of them with covid). They didn't feel it would be safe to sit in the cafe so they had a walk around the park with their coffees instead. I came up with a new name for the group .. WACAC .. (walk and coffee and chat) which seems to have stuck. The feeling is WACAC is the way to go for the foreseeable future. The main problem for my younger son seems to be he's stuck at his Mum's for a week and a half now that he's not been able to 'escape' down to see us for a few days. He has my sympathies
HS - I know the theory of throwing away/shredding paperwork as you go along .. great theory, but I don't put it into practise. After Donald Trump got thrown off of Twitter I used to follow his idiotic sons for a while .. but I got bored of that and have now found other 'targets'. I think you may be right that you won't be able to go and see your daughter in January either. Nice to have the prosecco, cheese straws and mince pies after the pre-birthday run in Jane's honour. Boris is only 'dithering' because he doesn't want to become even more unpopular by cancelling another xmas.
JB - I'm sure older 'children' (even the ages you were joking about) would happily pretend to believe in Father Xmas if it meant there's a present on offer
Going through the Radio Times I noticed on Sky Arts two films which might be of interest - one about Yes and the other Deep Purple - both of which are playing alongside a symphony orchestra. I'll record them both and can always delete them if it's rubbish
BTW - don't know if xmas is already over before it's started but I've already had the first Radio Times of 2022 delivered through the post.
I went over to see my eldest son on Tue and we had the zoom call with my Mum (in Herts) and my younger son (in Derbyshire). My mum got on okay with chatting to us via zoom on my sister's ipad but it wouldn't have happened if my sister hadn't been there to do the techie side of things. MUm didn't stick around on the call for too long - but we managed to keep her talking for longer than usual
I went into Cheltenham this morning. I parked at Pittville park and walked into town (it'd less than a mile) and managed to get most of the small presents I wanted for Margaret. There was one thing I wanted but tbh, everywhere was so busy I couldn't wait to get away, so headed back to the car. I was able to pop into the village this afternoon and get the last thing I wanted.
HR, shame that the Parkrun is closing down..............but another one is popping up. Hope the new treatment for your athletes foot works.
Aqua, the UK property market is pretty dysfunctional. I do think we are obsessed. I was watching the Kirsty and Phil show (which feds the obsession) last night as it was in Lancing which is a couple of miles down the coast. I didn't last long. Sorry - if not surprised - to hear of the charity run being cancelled. Will you have a run anyway or enjoy a sneaky day off?
I did 30 mins last night and will repeat this evening. I don't post my runs of Strava but when I look at others' efforts they look so sensible: out and in, circuits, loops etc. Mine would be totally random and follow no coherent structure. If it were art then it would be modern art!
We are enjoying the company of the little dog staying with us. She has the perfect blend of all out effort and all out relaxation.
Merry Christmas!
(P.S. If you have neighbours who defile their gardens with hideous blow up reindeer or Santas just be glad you don't live next door to this.
Well done for running in the morning. I can see the attraction and I'm not wedded to mornings or evenings. However, I did run yesterday evening and it was rather nice. The roads are really well lit and many of the houses I run past have (rather tasteful - unlike that picture!) Xmas lights. So I did a simple run: 30 minutes out (uphill) and then back down. I tried to put a bit of oomph into the uphill and then relaxed coming back down so it was just about an even split.
I went into town today as planned to buy Mrs B's pressie - this year's Booker prize as it happens (it worked last year!). As I went on my bike and mainly along the prom I avoided most of the road traffic. But I did notice a surprisingly high number of runners - perhaps 'making space' for their food and drink intake over the next few days.
We will be on our own on Christmas Day too, although we'll have the hound for company. Parkrun will be the highlight I think. One of my pals is doing his 100th run and it's his (69th) birthday too. As he's a close rival, I should move over and let him cruise past. Won't happen. It looks like an SB is highly unlikely given the prediction of the wind strength and direction.
Merry Christmas to all!
JB - crazy parking was my reason for leaving the car in Pittville Park (£1 for up to 4hrs) and walking the rest of the way into town. I wouldn't class myself as a big fan of Deep Purple - but always liked 'Black Night' & 'Smoke On The Water'. I've always liked Yes as well - but 'Tales From Topographic Oceans' was a step too far so I stuck to listening to the earlier stuff. Glad you are enjoying the little dog staying with you - I would never volunteer for that, even for family, as I'm not a dog-lover (or cats either for that matter). I suggested "near misses from previous year's Booker prizes" as recommended on the BBC show as some members of my book club like to get theirs from the library - the idea seemed to go down well and we're going to read "The Bookshop" in January (was a near-miss in 1978). Well done for yesterday's run.
Aquarius - reading about the Gibside parkrun that was cancelled, I'm surprised there isn't one at a couple of the NT houses we've visited recently, which have extensive parkland. I quite liked WACAC when I came up with it - Val said as it's U3A maybe it should be stroll and coffee and chat but SACAC doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Monica put some sugar in the mulled wine she served us to take away the 'tang' .. might be worth trying? Well done re your 4ml run to the park and the hill repeats. Bad news about the xmas dinner plans having to be cancelled due to your son's positive test result. One lady from the WACAC group is in a similar position - she sent a Whatsapp message saying her xmas dinner will just be the accompaniments as her son was providing the turkey. We don't have any neighbours with awful blow-up father xmas's. I did see on Fetch that the lady who used to run the Thu pub to pub runs had invested in some light-up reindeer for her garden (she mentioned it in her blog). No doubt I pissed her off by referring to it as overpriced tat!
Today I haaaave mostly been .. maintaining Margaret's car. Nothing difficult though - just charging up her battery (she only does short trips) and pumping up the tyres (all okay apart from the OSR which was around 20psi rather than 35psi).
I've just popped a card back in the post for the people who used to live here. I should probably throw it away as it was 2015 they moved out and if their 'friends' still don't know after 6 years, perhaps they weren't told? I had to sellotape it back together as the envelope was ripped so as well as adding the new address, I added a note saying 'ripped on arrival' in case they think we did it
Margaret is busy in the kitchen making stuffing for tomorrow xmas dinner (which I'll be cooking) and listening to the service of 9 lessons and carols on the radio - an ideal time for me to come upstairs and wrap her presents.
Aquarius, I'm not surprised that the dilapidated property has been sold. There are always people with deep pockets that have thousands of pounds to spend, on top of the purchase price. I happened to catch the end of Homes under the hammer this morning, and the buyer had spent £50k "doing it up!"
Thanks, I applied the new cream this morning after my shower, and it was very soothing. I'm hoping that by the end of the 7 days it will be ok.
We're not holding our breath re a response from the solicitor. Hopefully, we will get a nice surprise when we do hear.
Well done for this mornings run. You seem to be doing a lot of hilly runs now, which is good.
Sorry to hear that your youngest son's partner has had a positive LFT, thereby wrecking your Christmas Dinner plans. I'm afraid many families are in the same position, and for the second year in succession. My sister decided to go to her daughter's in Newbury, as she, and her daughter and family all had negative tests.
A merry Christmas to you, Steve and all your family members. I'm glad the hideous Santa wasn't yours!
WtnMel, do you ever get responses from those that you heckle on Twitter?
You are right about Dozy Doris, he is a populist PM, like Donald Duck, the ex President, and never does the "right things!"
I'm a fan of "Deep Purple," but not "Yes." My son gave me two Rick Wakeman CD's which were absolute rubbish. Each track sounded exactly the same. That's probably why he gave them to me, he didn't want them!
Nice that you saw your eldest son on Tuesday, and the Zoom call with your Mum and younger son.
A good idea to park and walk into Cheltenham. I imagine it would have been a nightmare, trying to find a parking space.
Well done for maintaining Margaret's car, even if it was straightforward.
Happy Christmas to you, Margaret and family, and hope you enjoy your Christmas Dinner. Has Margaret put the sprouts on yet🤣
JB, I see that you are as turned off by Rick Wakeman's solos as I am. They do go on and on don't they! I do like EL&P, interesting that Emerson went to your school.
I think that the new Bartley Park parkrun will continue as it isn't in the New Forest, that is unless Doris says that all parkruns and races will be cancelled after Christmas. If he does, I think that he will "be toast!" The crowds at footie and darts matches are already singing anti Boris songs.
Thanks, the first application of the new cream seemed good, quite soothing, so I'm hopeful that it will do the trick.
On the subject of Strava, some runners deliberately run to leave a "picture," trail, often rude!
Glad you are enjoying the company of the little dog.
A good idea cycling into town. Driving is a nightmare these days and I avoid it whenever I can.
Happy Christmas to you, Mrs JB and family. A parkrun is a good start to Christmas Day, and will build up a nice appetite.
I'm not doing the Bartley Park parkrun, but Sarah F will be. I'm going to do a 5k road run with Karen, who is faster than me, but before my injury, I could keep up with her. Her twins were 6 years old yesterday, and growing up fast. I'm hoping to run my quickest time this year by trying to keep up with her.
Hope you are enjoying Christmas Day 🎅
I ran a good pace road 5k this morning with Karen, in 26.45 a WAVA of 72.03%
Not my fastest this year, but due to my recent birthday, is almost identical to that back in March, when I ran 26.09.
I'm watching "Little Women" on the TV at the moment. I haven't read the book, so I don't know how accurate it is, but I'm really enjoying it. Life was so much simpler in those days, but they still had their problems. They were dying from Scarlet Fever, without the means to cure it.
Mel, Hope your cooking lived up to (or even exceeded expectations).
The rain teemed down this morning almost exactly at the time of the Parkrun. We had a good turnout of 350 plus and everyone seemed in good spirits. My aspirations of a season's best were dashed, not by the rain or puddles but simply because I went out far too fast at 4.03 for the first km and couldn't sustain it. Finished with 20.57 and a WAVA of 80.83% which was good enough to beat the 60-64s as well as my own age category.
Long walk with the dog in the afternoon. A glass of port is called for!
I don't know whether Sarah F did the parkrun or not. It hasn't shown on Strava, and I haven't heard from her except for an early morning "Merry Christmas."
Talk of the devil, an alert from her has just bleeped, so I'll take a look.
Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!
JB, Sarah F did do the parkrun again on Christmas Day and said that there were less runners, only about 122.
This morning I ran a solo 6.71 miles in the very wet and boggy forest. It must have rained heavily all night, as there were numerous large and deep puddles. The mud was very slippery, so I was quite cautious.
I went to the supermarket after my run to stock up with the essentials, I.e beer 🍺
I’ll catch up with everyone’s posts later.
It rained heavily all night again, so as the forest was so soggy yesterday, it would have been even worse today. I decided, therefore to do a road run instead. I ran 10k the quickest for several months, so very pleased.
Learning just how much mud a long haired dog can accumulate!
Great 10k HS.
JB: Our son used to have a dog which, despite not having long hair, clouds of hair came off every time you stroked it, or it brushed up against you. The carpets had to be vacuumed at least once a day. After walks in the rain it liked to have a good shake when it came in, the result being mud and hairs everywhere. You'd have to be a real dog lover to put up with that. Enjoy your run later on if you decide to go.
HS - I don't ever get any responses from people on Twitter .. but I'm not expecting any reply to be honest, just adding my opinions to the mix. I watched the two concerts I mentioned. I really enjoyed the 'Yes' one - hearing the songs I recognised with the orchestral accompaniment added something to them. But the Deep Purple one was rubbish - the orchestra didn't add anything to the songs and to be honest, most of the time you couldn't hear them. It was me who cooked xmas dinner by the way - it all went well apart from me forgetting to add a stock cube leading to some very bland gravy
JB - happy birthday. If I was having my yearly appraisal with Margaret I would hope I've 'exceeded expectations' to put me in the running for a pay rise (what do you mean, retirement appraisals don't work like they did in the office). Oops re setting off too fast at parkrun and fading - but still a very good WAVA score.
Aquarius - hope all is fine with you.
Been doing a lot of sitting around as you'd expect. But trying to get back to normal and I did a 3.3ml walk/run this morning. As I've done just recently, I walked the first 2mls (16.00mm), then ran/walked the 3rd ml (12:25mm) and walked the rest. The 3rd mile was mostly running with a few walk breaks thrown into the mix. And my knees still seem to be okay. Hopefully I'll manage to get out a couple more times this week.
While I was on Fetch logging my run/walk I saw festive calendar winners had been announced. Being the eternal optimist I always enter each day's draw every year. And it appears I've won a prize this year after several years of trying. Sadly not one of the expensive techie prizes on offer or a free holiday - just a big bobble hat!
Aqua, mud features quite a lot in your post. You are right: a dog (or a child) is a big commitment. Mrs JB would have a dog in a heartbeat but I'm more cautious (mud, hair, vet's bills, lack of flexibility). Actually looking after one for short periods allows us to 'meet in the middle'.
I didn't get that evening run yesterday as the rain returned, but today my mate suggested a 10K run (road, no mud!) and it was nice to run together.
Tomorrow my son and family return from their break in Poland...........and the dog goes back.
I always find this time of year rather melancholic: perhaps it's because the double whammy of Xmas and birthday come so close (you'd have thought I'd have grown out of it by now!) but new year has never rung any bells with me. At last there'll be a Parkrun on NYD.............
Aquarius - I don't blame you not going for that run in the snow when it could have been slippery. But I see you did go out for a 4ml run and opted to stay on the roads.
As I've started adding short running sections to my walk, decided not to go out this morning. But I have done my exercises.
Mrs Wm was feeling inspired earlier so we put up a few of the pictures that were taken down a few months ago when the decorating was being done.
The other thing I've been busying myself with today is going back through my 2021 diary and year planner. I add notes to a journal (I use OneNote on my computer) - a review of what happened during the year. For those inevitable "When did we? ..." questions that will arise in a few year's time.
I've also been beavering away in the background lately reviewing the files that have been filling up my external drives. The main culprits (as mentioned before) are mp4 files from my GoPro. I've realised all the ones from our trip to Canada in 2017 are sitting around as I never did get round to reviewing the footage and making a movie of our holiday featuring the highlights (like Niagara Falls for instance).
With the post office trip earlier, no even earlier walk/run. I shall have to make myself go out later on and not let myself get side-tracked
I had a fall half way through this mornings run. Unfortunately it was a road run, so I've gashed my left knee and hand. Thankfully, no broken bones, very lucky at my age. I'll post later if I feel ok.
It was just Mike and I running, so I wasn't alone. We carried on running as the knee wasn't pouring blood! I'm hoping there won't be any after effects. My left wrist is aching, and I think my left hand took most of the impact before my knee made contact with the road.
I've had lots of good wishes on Strava.
My sister who has spent Christmas at her daughter's in Newbury, has told me that one of her granddaughter's has tested positive, with no symptoms. It was only the daily testing that revealed it. The rest of them all tested negative. My sister will now have to test daily for 7 days.