Garden update

Still no running due to bad leg and due to me not getting round to seeing anyone about it yet so thought I'd post a picture of a flower I bought in Homebase last Saturday. Here it is

Nice, innit? I can't remember what make of flower it is. I do know that these ones are lillies though

Or are they not lillies until the flowers come out?

Transforms my garden, these do 🙂 Unfortunately the weeds have grown back, aarrgghh, so I raked over them this morning. Bought some of that cloth stuff that you put down before putting gravel/slate down which I haven't got round to doing yet. Have some bags of nice purple slate though but because Ben & Sheila said to carry more than 4 in their car would do in the suspension couldn't get all I need but Homebase only had 4 bags anyway so I hope they have more next time I go back, otherwise I'm going to have a multicoloured garden. Hmm. Could work. Possibly.

I also planted some radish seeds and some spring onion seeds. Oh I'm so at one with nature, me.

Operation Garden – Stage 3

Another Operation Garden post, I'm afraid. My leg's still hurting after the Crisis Square Mile Run on Thursday so no running for me today. Actually, I'm fibbing, I had too much wine last night.

But I have been very industrious today and pulled up all the weeds by hand and found my patio. No helpers today due to there being a football match on or something, or was it cricket?  I can't remember.

Here's what it was like at Stage 2

And now here's what it's like at Stage 3

And here's a reminder of what it looked like at the beginning

Stage 4 hopefully will be tomorrow, then I'm going to need a skip for the 23+ bags of rubbish and a trip to B&Q to get some plants and gravel and stuff. Then I can have a BBQ, hurrah!

Stats:
Weeds: millions
Patios: 1
Bin bags full of millions of weeds: 23

Stage 2

This is nothing about running at all although I did do the garden after I'd been out for a run so there's a tenuous link for you. Gary came to help with stage 2 of the garden. Here's a reminder of what it looked like before stage 1

Here's stage 1 which I did all by myself and got sunburnt in the process

And here's stage 2. Gary bagged up all the rubbish from stage 1 and I did all the digging. I hate bagging up rubbish so am very grateful to Gary for the help (he did get a free dinner for his hard work though).

I haven't a clue how to get rid of the weeds/grass growing through the cracks in the patio. Each year different weeds grow, this year I have evil industrial strength weeds so in my not very environmentally friendly way, I chucked a load of weedkiller over them. Hope that works. At least I can sort of see the patio now. This is what my garden looked like 3 years ago. Not a weed in sight!

Aah, hope I keep up the hard work and restore my garden back to looking reasonably respectable again!

No more park for me

I'm giving up on the park. There were kids playing football in there which I didn't mind in the slightest but there was a man running on the path which bugged me and not only was he running on the path but running the opposite direction from me which meant that we passed each other head on and after the third time I couldn't take it any more so went onto the street. If I can't stand people running near me, how the f**k am I supposed to cope next Thursday with about 2,000 other people running near me? Heh heh. Na, it'll be fun.

I don't know if it's the warmer (well, not warm today but I did manage to get sunburnt on Sunday when I was doing the garden) weather and the lighter evenings but there definitely seems to be more people out running lately. Saw another female runner tonight which was spooky as I'd just been thinking before I came out that I very rarely see other females out running. She had freshly applied make up on which is very strange unless she's one of these annoyingly perfect women who always look fresh, unlike me. I take my make up off before going running, otherwise I'd come back looking like a panda.

And speaking (well, briefly mentioned, anyway) of gardens, here's mine after stage 1. Let's hope I get as far as stage 2 unlike last year when I cleared half of it and then did no more.

There's a patio under there somewhere, I just know there is. I will find it.

Anyway, not too feeble an effort tonight, considering as when I couldn't face passing the other runner any more I thought I'd go up the road and back and then go home but continued instead, so yay, go me!

Stats:
Miles: 2.44 miles
Time: 25:45
Average pace: 10:32 minute/mile
Average speed: 5.7mph Max speed: 7.4mph
Calories burnt: 227
Music: Shuffle (Soft Cell, Ash, Dandy Warhols, Zwan, The Futureheads, Baby Teeth)
Other runners in the park putting me off: 1
Women running in full, freshly applied make up: 1

Get orf my land!

Oh man, why do I hate other people being in the park so much? I can only run when there's no other people in my line of vision, I like switching off and just listening to my music. There were two other people running on the path, completely put me off. Although I did overtake one of them, not sure how I managed that, I was only going my usual snail's pace. I'll have to go at 4 in the morning, might get the place to myself then. And why are people up at 8:30 on a Sunday morning anyway? Shouldn't they be at home either sleeping or hungover? Or both? And why do people go to the park just to sit on a bench? Don't they have gardens? It's not exactly a nice park. Odd.

Oh well, didn't go very far today (well, you can't go very far round the park anyway. And yes I know I said only a couple of days ago "who would want to just do laps of the park" which makes me a complete hypocrite as that's all I've done for the last couple of days) but I'm going to do the garden in a bit which looks like this

at the mo so that should be quite a bit of exercise for the day! (There's not even a lawn under there, just a patio and borders. Sooooooooooo many weeds, ugh.)

Ugh, and a magpie landed right in front of me. Whoever made up that superstition needs shooting. That's the only thing I'm superstitious about (well that and putting on the right shoe (or Converse in my case, I hate shoes) first and not wearing socks inside out). I hate magpies. And members of the general public.

Stats:
Miles: 1.34 miles
Time: 13:46
Average pace: 10:17 minute/mile
Average speed: 5.8mph
Max speed: 8.7mph
Calories burnt: 108
Music: Primal Scream
Other runners in the park putting me off: 2
Women in velour tracksuits giving me dirty looks: 1
Magpies: 1

1 2