Tag: cats

Janathon Day 5 – strangers, pub, cats and dogs

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I am too knackered to blog properly, so here’s my blog post in a list.

1. Saw tweet a couple of weeks ago about local bike ride, organised by Spokes.

2. Thought, I want to go on the bike ride and favourited the tweet to remind me.

3. Woke up and the weather wasn’t minging, so went off to meet a bunch of strangers.

4. Met the bunch of strangers who turned out to be a very nice bunch of people indeed.

5. Discovered I wasn’t the only one there who should have been at home writing a dissertation proposal instead of gallivanting around the countryside.

6. Cycled for about an hour until reached a pub in Smarden.

7. Spent a long time patting the dogs and stroking the cats in the pub.

8. Ordered cheese omelette and jacket wedges, then moaned my jacket wedges were chips, not wedges, and the chips were raw.

9. One of the group was perturbed her lunch didn’t come with the advertised bread.

10. One of the group said his jacket potato tasted old.

11. When we were asked how our food was, we all said ‘lovely, thanks’ in that good old British way even though we’d all just moaned about it.

12. Cycled for about another hour and went home and had two cups of hot chocolate to try and thaw out.

13. Went on Twitter and accidentally agreed to run Ashford parkrun with @TrevB1 in our onesies if he gets his workplace’s VLM place on Monday.

14. Spent four hours on Facebook trying to muster up the energy to blog. Remained unmustered.

15. Ate pie and mash and cabbage and gravy and wondered if I could be bothered to blog.

16. Realised I couldn’t be bothered to blog so wrote a list instead.

bike-capture

Janathon Day 24: Easycore

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Well, at least I didn’t try and wriggle out of Janathon by using the cute factor, a la Ms Fortnight Flo, who thought she could get out of exercising by getting her cat to write her a sick note. Okay, I admit it, I’m just jealous I didn’t think of it first, dammit!

Today I thought I’d have a change and do some core exercises from the PC Fitness DVD. I was a bit scared at first as I thought it might involve balancing, which I’m not very good at.

I needn’t have been scared though, no balancing was required and even I can’t fall over when I’m lying on the floor doing crunches.

I’m going out tonight and therefore may need a sick note for tomorrow. Hmm… where’s my cat? looey…?

Stats
Core exercises: 15 minutes
Balancing required: none
Sick notes possibly needed for tomorrow: 1

Road 1 Me 0

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As yesterday’s run was more of a run a bit, take photos of sheep, run a bit more, take photos of lambs and run a bit, take photos of cows kind of run, today I decided to be a proper hardcore runner and go for a run without my camera and not stopping to look at the cute farmyard animals, especially as, since I cancelled my gym membership, either my scales are lying or I need to do more exercise.  And obviously eat less crisps (and somehow cakes have crept into the fridge) but one thing at a time, eh?

I spend most of the morning procrastinating as usual before putting my trainers on and I even excel in my usual procrastinations by wasting time looking for cat poo, as the cat and I moved in on Saturday and she hasn’t been in her litter tray yet but has weed on the rug which Shaun was really pleased with.  At least, I think he was, as he marched into the living room with a brush and a bucket full of disinfectant and I know how much he likes cleaning, so she did him a favour really.

As I put my Garmin outside to get a signal, the cat makes a break for freedom and I get her back in the house and she meows at me and I shut her in the house and run up the road and when I turn the corner I see some old people with dogs and an old lady says hello and I try not to make eye contact in case she has magical powers and turns me into a countryside person and I mumble hello and look at my feet and in a field is a bunny and I think aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, cute bunny and then there’s a baby bunny and I think AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH, CUTE BABY BUNNY and he runs off and then there’s another baby bunny sitting with the lambs and I wonder if it’s the same bunny? and how come it’s scared of me and not scared of the lambs? and then I’m on the road with the corners and I get to the bend I didn’t like the most yesterday and I go further to the edge and my ankle ends up in a hole and the rest of me ends up in the road and I think ouch and I want to get up off the road before I get run over and I stand up and a tractor goes past and then three cars behind it and I take a few steps and my ankle’s not that bad and I carry on running and I think I’ve gone past where the cows live as I didn’t see any and didn’t see any fields I recognise as being the one they live in and I must have been too traumatised after falling over to notice them and I think that I’ll have to either a) give up running and get fat; or b) move back to London where we have PROPER PLACES TO RUN IN and then I see the sign for Headcorn and I don’t remember seeing the other sign that says it’s a mile and a quarter away and then I think I’m on the road that turns into a pavement in a bit and then it does turn into a pavement and I get round the corner and walk up the hill to get over the trauma.

Stats:
Distance: 2.34 miles
Time: 24:59
Pace: 10:41 m/m
Calories: 207
Cats weeing on rugs: 1
Old ladies with magical powers: 1
Bunnies: 1
Baby bunnies: 2
Cows: 0
Roads fallen onto: 1
Twisted ankles: 1
Londoners moving back to London: 1

Everything looks like a cow

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For some strange reason, although I was up early yesterday, spent the day out and about or inside packing, and completely knackered by the evening and falling asleep reading my book in bed, then I couldn’t sleep and kept waking up and was even woken up by the cat being sick and the bread machine doing it’s thing and so at 6:30am I get up before my fake sunrise comes on and before the bread machine has finished doing its thing and as I’m not aching after yesterday’s pitifully slow three miler, I decide to do another run.  Woo, get me, Miss Finely Tuned Athlete.

I clean up the cat sick and go into the bedroom to get changed into my running gear and I realise that yesterday when I carefully picked out enough clothes, including running gear (on the assumption that I’d do two more runs this week) to last me until Saturday as I packed away all my other clothes (two bin bags full for the bin, four bin bags full coming with me), I didn’t keep out any running socks and so I’ve got to wear normal socks to run in and then I’ve got to decide whether to wear the ones with monkeys, sheep, cats or cows on and I decide on the ones with sheep on and my Garmin gets a signal in record time and I leave the house at 7:30am hoping the postman doesn’t come in the next half an hour as I’m expecting three more parcels of stuff I bought via eBay and I hope I don’t have to wait all day for the postman as I need to get to the sorting office before 1:00 when it shuts to see if they’ve had my parcel from Saturday returned there yet and I don’t want my tenant getting all my parcels and parading around in my new sunglasses, whilst drinking out of my new cow mug and making jewellery with my new beads.

Ladybird Book of Farm AnimalsI go to the marshes via the boring way first this time and as I go towards the bridge another runner’s coming towards me and I think, aah, another hardcore runner, running early in the morning, I bet he says hello to me, the hardcore runners are usually the friendliest and he does indeed say hello to me and I say hello back, so he knows I’m also a hardcore runner and not just a red-faced shuffling thing and I get through the bridge and I think I see cows and then I think no, they’re not cows because a) the cows aren’t due back until July; and b) they’re horses and I think I’d better get the Ladybird Book of Farm Animals before I move so I don’t go up to horses and say moo and look stupid in front of the Country People.

And then I’m back to thinking about what to pack next, as I’ve still got a desk to sort out and the entire contents of my kitchen to pack and I think I could pack all my dishes and stuff and just use one plate and knife and fork and wash them up every day and then I think HUSH!  WHAT AM I THINKING? DO MY OWN WASHING UP? I don’t think so and then my thoughts turn to Juneathon and I wonder if Joggerblogger/[rich] will mind if I take over if he can’t do it this year and Hauling My Carcass has asked what the Rules of Juneathon are and so here’s a quick rundown and I will be reminding everyone later in the month and cracking the whip then.

Juneathon rules
Run or exercise every day
Blog about it

Easy, huh?

And then I get home and my hair’s all over the place and I think maybe I should get a hairband like the new doctor in Eastenders wears when he’s out for a run (which seems to be most of the time) and I think no, he looks like a dork.

Stats:
Distance: 3.03 miles
Time: 34:20
Pace: 11:20 m/m
Calories: 255
Cat sick: 1
Fresh loaves of bread: 1
Pairs of sheep socks: 1
Hardcore runners recognising me as a fellow hardcore runner and not a red-faced shuffling thing: 1
Horses: lots
Cows: 0
Plates I’m going to wash up myself: 0
Rules of Juneathon: 2
New dorky looking doctors in Eastenders who do nothing but run all day: 1
Music:
Foo Fighters
Duran Duran
Electric Soft Parade
B52’s
Cardiacs & Affectionate Friends