Mud, mud, unglorious mud

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Because Shaun is insisting that I don’t live near a forest, an assumption he comes to purely because he hasn’t seen it, even when I point out the photographic evidence on this here blog, I make the rash promise of a) getting up early (i.e. some time when it’s still the a.m. bit) on Sunday to take him to said forest; and b) agreeing to take the mountain bikes there and somehow I manage to ride to the station without a) doing the whole journey via the pavement; b) killing the old man on a bike that I nearly crash into; and c) falling under a bus.  Woo, go me.

We get to the forest and after about five minutes I start moaning about the amount of mud and wanting to get back home to my sofa and the big bag of Cheshire Cheese & Chutney flavour Kettle Chips but it has to be said that the trees are a pretty Autumnal colour

Epping forest

and I agree to have an action shot taken

Epping forest

and if I look like I’m wobbling and have absolutely no control over the two wheeled thing, that’s because I am and I haven’t but I manage not to fall off and we eventually leave the forest and Shaun wonders how I manage not to fall off into the mud and decides he quite likes Chingford and we go and look at house porn in estate agent’s windows and decide to buy a house there, although probably not the one for £1.8 million.

Stats:
Sunday mornings: 1
Old men nearly crashed into: 1
Mud: Loads
Times fallen off bike: 0
Houses for £1.8 million: 1

In the pink

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Pink champagneJust over a week ago, I won the pink quiz at work and my prize was a bottle of pink champagne although strictly speaking I should share it with Google who provided all most of the answers but I don’t know if Google drinks and probably doesn’t what with it being a search engine and that and I’m not sure what happens if you pour pink champagne over search engines and then I’m offered some running shoes to try out so I choose some pink ones and then yesterday I find out that I won first prize in a jewellery competition organised by Beads Unlimited with the pink and silver heart bracelet

Pink and silver heart bracelet

that I made and I don’t even have the bracelet any more as I gave it to Emily so it’s just as well I took a photo of it what with it being a prize winning bracelet and that and I think I’m enjoying winning these pink things and I used to hate pink and now I think pink is my favourite colour.

 

 

 

Stats
Bottles of pink champagne won: 1
Jewellery competitions won with pink bracelets: 1
Pairs of pink running shoes: 1

A JogBlog world record

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Because I am an idiot, I get to the gym yesterday after work and realise I’ve forgotten my trainers and I think OH NO, BUT I HAD A CHOCOLATE BISCUIT AND NOW I’M GOING TO GET FAT AND IT WASN’T EVEN A NICE CHOCOLATE BISCUIT and so this morning I think I’d better go and burn some calories as although the scales are still showing me at 9st 2, the quicker they show me under 9st the better and as I’m running towards the footbridge I think this is scary obsessional behaviour and probably how anorexics start out and I think I have no plans to turn anorexic, at least not until after I’ve gone out for pizza tonight and I go past the stables and I can hear people behind me and I turn around and there’s a couple running behind me and I think well overtake me then and they don’t overtake me and I can hear their footsteps right behind me but then they do overtake me and I think hmm, actually, I don’t want you to overtake me and I wonder if I can catch them up but I don’t bother and they go through the bridge and I think wait for me, you can save me from any murderers under there and I wonder if they’ll be able to hear me gurgle if I get stabbed in the neck but I get through the bridge without being stabbed in the neck and the girl runs up the steep bit and I think if she can run up the steep bit then so can I and I’m wondering if I’m going to have to follow them all the way home but they turn off towards the marina and I’m going down the boring bit and a dark grey beetle comes past and I think it must be the same dark grey beetle that came past me last week as surely there aren’t two people in Walthamstow so boring that they would buy a dark grey beetle when you can get cool yellow ones instead

Yellow Beetle

which is the only car ever ever ever that would tempt me to learn to drive although if I’m as successful at driving a car as I was riding a motorbike it’s probably a better idea to stick to walking everywhere and I get home and fuck me, I’ve done the marshes in under 30 minutes for the first time ever ever ever.  YAY GO ME.

Splits 8 November 2008

Stats:
Distance: 3:03 miles
Time: 29:13
Pace: 9:38 m/m
Calories: 288
Chocolate biscuits: 1
Dark grey beetles: 1
Marshes in under 30 minutes: 1
Music
Cardiacs
Muse
Jeff Buckley
Bobby Conn
The Who

NaBlo thingy day 6

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It’s day 6 of the blog every day thing but I have nothing to write about except what I had for lunch, which was leek and potato soup again and I’ve decided that I don’t care if no one cares what I had for lunch because I don’t have anything else to blog about except for yesterday’s traumatic experience when I was halfway to the station in the morning and realised that I’d forgotten my mobile which was traumatic enough by itself when I realised that I’d have no way of a) checking my personal email; and even more importantly b) updating my Facebook status, but this halfway to the station trauma was nowhere near as traumatic as the halfway through the morning trauma when I was struck dumb by the terror that was WHAT IF I GET HOME AND THERE’S NO MESSAGES?

Research has (probably, but I’m making this up) proven that this paranoia stems from the olden days when answering machines were first introduced and if you didn’t get home to find the little flashing red light on your phone signifying that someone somewhere wanted to contact you (in the days before the “please replace the handset, and try again” man) then you’d spend the rest of the evening in a deep paranoia that nobody loved you (instead of the modern day paranoia that only the “please replace the handset, and try again” man loves you).

I get home and I go upstairs and rescue the phone from the bed where the cat has probably spent all day updating Catbook with “looey is eating cat food and drinking out of the toilet bowl” and lo! there’s the little envelope icon (not to be confused with a gay icon) signifying that someone wanted to contact me and it’s not even only from O2 telling me I haven’t topped up in a while but a message via Facebook from someone I haven’t seen for 22 years. Thank you Facebook for saving me from my paranoia.

Stats:
Breakfast: Muesli
Lunch: Leek and potato soup
Dinner: Butternut squash pasta sauce with penne
Mobiles forgotten yesterday: 1
Messages on forgotten mobile: 1

NaBloPoMo day 5 (a retrospective)

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Is it cheating to blog retrospectively?  I decide no, that’s what timestamps are for.  Although I was hoping to do it undetected but Warriorwoman has got up early to stalk me and spotted the gap in the NaBloPoMo thing.

But when you’re blogging retrospectively, but cheating by backdating the post stamp do you call it today or yesterday?  I suppose the sensible thing to do would be to cheat properly and backdate the post stamp and call it today and just pretend that it’s not really yesterday and then no one (except Warriorwoman) would know that you went out drinking and eating Chinese food instead of staying in and blogging and then tonight I can come home and blog and call it today and it really will be today and not yesterday.

This blog every day thing is too confusing.

Stats:
Blog posts on their proper days: 0
Breakfast: Muesli
Lunch: Leek and potato soup
Dinner: Hot and sour soup, pancake rolls, deep fried mushrooms, vegetables in curry sauce and noodles

Blog every day thing day 4

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No no no, this is all wrong, it’s 7:38am and I should be drying my hair and getting ready to go to work, not sitting here blogging, aarrgghh and I’m going to get ready late and not have time for any breakfast and I’ll waste away to nothing and not have the energy to drink my potato and leek soup I’ve made for lunch and aarrgghh now I’ve forgotten that no one cares what you had for lunch and so maybe I’ll just post a picture of the rucksack I bought yesterday which I would have posted yesterday but it came out blurry and it was when I discovered I’d taken a blurry rucksack photo that I discovered the upside down sheep photo in my camera so I’ve taken the picture from the Sweaty Betty website instead.  Cool innit?

Sweaty Betty Rucksack

Stats:
Breakfast: Muesli if I have time
Lunch: Leek and potato soup
Rucksacks: 1

NaBloPoMo

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No, I’m not speaking in tongues.  It’s National Blog Posting Month, although apparently it’s every month, not just November so if it wanted to be pedantically accurate it should be called NaBloPoEvDa and I’m not sure why I’ve decided to join in, especially as I don’t fit the “national” criteria and therefore strictly speaking should only be for Americans but the website says anyone can join in so to be really annoyingly pedantically accurate they should change the name to InBloPoEvDa.

So this morning when I get up and hear about InBloPoEvDa I think hurrah, a monthly challenge, I like monthly challenges, especially ones that don’t involve not eating chocolate/Kettle Chips/pizza or not drinking alcohol and I think it’ll be just like Juneathon, except not involving exercise or um, being in June.  But then I think what will I blog about every day?  After all, no one wants to know what you had for lunch [today, nothing; yesterday baked potato and baked beans; tomorrow leek and potato soup (or is it potato and leek soup?)] do they?  And when will I blog?  What if I’m going out?  Tomorrow night will see me and Tracey on another of our quests for free alcohol although I had thought I might have to cancel as I had a mystery illness over the weekend and I woke up this morning still feeling a bit rough but then I thought I can’t cancel as our new blogging friend is coming out and last time she came out on a mission comprising free champagne drinking in the hairdressers I cancelled citing reasons of mystery illnesses and she will get paranoid if I keep cancelling whenever she comes out and so I’ll have to get up early and blog instead but what will I blog about first thing when I haven’t done anything? and then I think I can post a photo of the upside down sheep I found on my camera but I don’t think that can wait.

Upside Down Sheep

Stats:
NaBloPoMos: 1
Lunch: None
Upside down sheep: 1

Mojo rising

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Since the Royal Parks Half I haven’t wanted to run and not for any specific reason like I was too hungover or I couldn’t be bothered or I was feeling lazy, I just didn’t want to and had no interest in running whatsoever but after turning down a night out last night I decided that this morning I would have no excuse not to run and would go out for three miles and see how I get on and I get up and get ready and go downstairs and Morrissey’s telling me to stop him if I’ve heard this one before and I can hear a knocking next door and I wonder if they’re doing DIY or knocking because my music’s too loud and I decide that they’re doing DIY as my next door neighbour isn’t a pikey chav who’s going to bang on the wall, unlike my next door but one neighbour who is a pikey chav who came round to swear at me on Wednesday because she took in a delivery for me so I went round to get it and her son answered the door and I said have you got a package for me? and he said yes and it was right near the door so I took it and said thanks and went home then his pikey chav mum rings on the door and says did you take your package? and I said yes, thanks, your son opened the door and she says he’s only 6 you should have waited for an adult and I said oh, yes, you’re right, I’m sorry, I didn’t think and I thought that would be the end of it but she carries on, you’re fucking rude, you’re well out of order, he’s only 6, you could be anyone. So I said sorry, I just didn’t think and she went on and on, I’m not taking your fucking packages in again, you’re fucking rude, he’s only 6, so I said DON’T LET HIM ANSWER THE DOOR THEN! and then I think oops, I’d better shut up as she’s a bit scary and I don’t want her to hit me and I’m far too sober for a row and as much as she seems to like showing herself up in the street I’m finding it a bit embarrassing and hope the other neighbours can’t hear this going on and she’s blah blah blah, carrying on, you’re so out of fucking order and I said look, I said I’m sorry, I don’t have kids, it didn’t occur to me, how many times do I have to say it? and she said ok apology accepted but I’m not taking in any more deliveries for you so I said fair enough and pikey chav woman goes home and I’m traumatised for the rest of the evening and most of the next day but I am recovered now and I put my Garmin outside to get a signal as I’m too much of a wuss to stand around in the cold waiting for it and I see the sheep on top of the TV and I think sheep needs a monkey and I can’t decide which way to go round the marshes and do I want to do the boring bit first or last and I decide to do that bit last and I get to the path and it’s blocked off and I think oh no the path is blocked off but it’s not completely blocked off and I run up the steps at the footbridge and go past the stables and don’t stop to stroke the horses and go through the bridge and I can see a man coming down the path but it’s ok as he has a dog and I go along the boring bit and I’m trying to decide what to write for my journalism assignment as it was going to be about marathon training for vegetarians but I decide as my marathon training only lasted a week I’m probably not in much of a position to write about the training part and as my diet over the last few months has consisted mainly of wine and Kettle Chips, I’m probably not best equipped to be writing about nutrition either  and I’ve managed to do the whole three miles without walking even though I haven’t run for three weeks and I get home and I think yippee that was good, I want to go out and do it again.  Hurrah.

Stats
Distance: 3:02 miles
Time: 31:20
Pace: 10:22 m/m
Calories: 286
Neighbours doing DIY: 1
Pikey chav neighbours: 1
Sheep needing monkeys: 1
Music
Stereo Total
Faith No More
The The
B52s

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