Tag: Sheep

Juneathon 2014 – Day 2 – Bald Sheep

Leave a comment

After yesterday’s pathetic effort, I knew I had to redeem myself today so I went for a walk. Okay, so a walk isn’t exactly extreme effort but if it hadn’t have been for Juneathon, I wouldn’t have bothered and that’s one of the points of Juneathon, really.

To make it more interesting though, I thought I’d get some photos of the lambs in the field a few doors away. Unfortunately, they were far away and I could only get a crap photo.

lambs

Then I saw some cows but they were hiding behind the hedge.

cow

I did get a photo of a bald sheep though.

bald-sheep

Tomorrow, I’ll go for a run. Promise.

Juneathon Day 2

Walk: 1.5 miles
Lambs: far away
Sheep: bald
Cows: hiding in a hedge

Janathon Day 28 – Promises, promises…

One comment

Woke up. Remembered yesterday I’d sort of promised to the Janathon community I’d run on each of the last days of Janathon. Swore a lot.

A promise is a promise though – even if it’s only a sort of promise – but I toyed with the idea of asking if I could be let off because my running shoes were still wet from yesterday’s run, but then I remembered the whole of the internet has seen my shoe rack

shoerack

so probably knows I’ve got a few spare pairs (to my shame, I’ve got running shoes I haven’t even tried on yet), then I also remembered Louise went out in damp running shoes the other day which is even more hardcore than those fifty mile ultra-marathons she takes part in and so I realised damp shoes probably aren’t a good enough excuse to back out on my sort of promise.

I had a good reason to go out though – I’d asked the Janathon sheep expert, @Jovial Gnome (who has pet sheep and assures me they are only pets and not future roast dinners), if he knew what the dumpy sheep with the squashed faces were, as there are some near me and I was too scared to Google ‘sheep with squashed faces’ for obvious reasons and he said to take a photo and he’d have a look.

So, armed with my phone, I set off on my run and when I got to the sheep field the bastard sheep were right over the other side and even if my phone had a 20x optical zoom (which it doesn’t), the bastard sheep were facing the wrong way and I’d only manage a close up of their woolly bums, which would be nice, but not what I was after.

A couple of fields down though were some more sheep facing the right way but I’m not sure if this is the same type of sheep I saw before with the squashed faces.

sheep

Still cute though. Any other sheep experts out there?

My own parkrun and magpies on sheep heads

4 comments

My Twitter timeline this morning was full of people going off for a parkrun, so I decided to do my own parkrun in honour of Juneathon. Except it wasn’t going to be in a park and it wasn’t going to be with other people but it was going to be a 5k. So, you can call it a 5k if you want to, but I’m sticking with parkrun, so there.

All was going well until I got to the slopey bit that goes up to the little shop and because I’m planning on doing the Great Kent Bike Ride tomorrow, decided I should rest and walk up the slopey bit but then I thought what if I was doing an Ironman? Would I walk in the swimming bit because I had to get on a bike after but then I thought yes, I probably would but there’s not much chance of me doing an Ironman anyway because a) I can’t swim; b) I’m too scared to cycle faster than 10mph; and c) I’ll probably never do a marathon because I keep whinging about how there’s nowhere to train round here.

Anyway, I stopped being a wimp and pretended I was an Ironman and ran up the slopey bit then got on the trail and there was a man running towards me and I wondered how long most runners wait until acknowledging the runner running towards them and I usually keep my eyes down until they’re right near me and then I look up and smile and say hello or grunt or whatever I’m capable of doing at the time and then there was another runner coming towards me when I was going through a gate and I thought oh no, more running etiquette dilemmas – do I stand here holding the gate open for her or just go through it? and it’s not the type of gate you can hold open for someone anyway and so I went through it and hoped she didn’t think I was being rude and if she had done the same to me, I wouldn’t have thought she was being rude but anyway, she smiled and said hello so I don’t think she was too bothered and then I went past the sheep field and there was a sheep with a magpie on his head and he didn’t look too bothered, he was like ‘yeah, I’ve got a magpie on my head, so what?’ and then I got back to the house and I’d only done 2.94 miles and I was determined to do 5k and so I carried on and it took until I’d done 2.97 miles to get past the house and I went up the road a bit until I did 5k and then I walked back.

Job done. Innit. 

Janathon Day 13: Donkeys and potato shaped animals

6 comments

I asked Twitter if they wanted sheep, cows or donkeys. A few people asked for sheep but Ben asked for donkeys and so I thought if he can be arsed to run 255 miles (not a typo) so far for Janathon, then the least I could do is be arsed to go and take a photo of a donkey or two for him.

donkeys

The donkeys were photo’d after we’d been to the farm shop where I bought a potato shaped like a rabbit (I originally thought it was shaped like a pig but have since changed my mind and decided it was a rabbit).

bunny_shaped_potato

And a potato shaped like a hippo.

hippo_shaped_potato

I didn’t buy them just because they were animal shaped, honest*.

I saw some sheep too. 

sheep

I didn’t see any cows though, so it’s just as well no one asked for any.

This bike ride was done in my new Adrenaline Women’s Iso-Viz Jacket. As you can see from the photo, it has nice long sleeves (so many jackets have sleeves that are too short for my gangly arms)

mountainlife_womens_jacket

and it’s slightly longer at the back, making it perfect for cycling.

mountainlife_womens_jacket_side

It also has taped seams to make it extra waterproof. The only thing I don’t like about it is that there are no side pockets. It has a back pocket and a chest pocket and that’s it.

So, we’re nearly at the halfway mark for Janathon – keep up the good work!

Stats
Cycling: 7.05 miles
Donkeys: 2
Sheep: Lots
Cows: 0
Rabbit shaped potatoes: 1
Hippo shaped potatoes: 1
Hi-viz jackets: 1

*I so did.

Juneathon 2009 Days 28 and 29 – 17 miles, cows, sheep & sunshine

9 comments

Saturday morning I spent being a WAG, and my feet hurt so much in my new boots even though I only had to walk from the car to the bench, it felt like I’d run 20 miles, so does that count for Juneathon? 

And on Sunday Shaun took me on a new route on the bikes and although we went past sheeps and cows, I didn’t take my camera with me so there’s no photographic evidence of my bovine based excursion.Road sign

But today, on the penultimate Juneathon, I thought I’d go back in search of cows, this time taking my camera, and hoping I don’t get lost.  I get to the bit where I think I’m supposed to turn off but there’s road signs and I don’t know what they mean and maybe they mean I can’t go down there (and I still don’t know what it means as the website I nicked the image off doesn’t say) and so I turn round and carry on going up the hill and I think no, I definitely needed to turn off where the road signs are but I decide to go a bit further to see what’s up the road but not much really so I turn round and go down the road I was supposed to go down in the first place and I get back to the village and decide not to go home yet but to cycle through the village and go a way I’ve only been in the car before and there’s a lot of traffic but I’m brave and don’t go on the pavement and then I’m on a quiet road again and there’s a road I remember Shaun saying something about that it’s a mile loop or something but I can’t remember what as I probably wasn’t listening as usual and I decide to carry on going straight ahead and little while later I get to the road I just passed and I think aah, I’ll go down there and go back that way then and I decide to stay out longer as I still haven’t seen any cows and sheep and I don’t know why as there were plenty of cows and sheep yesterday but my quest isn’t over yet and so I carry on going and I go past a field of blue flowers

Blue flowers

and I decide to go the way I went the other day that leads me out onto the main road and just as I get round the corner I SEE COWS!! 

Cows

Woo hoo.  And sheep.  Woo.

 Sheep

And one of the cows decides to demonstrate why they’re not very good at playing hide and seek

A not very well hidden cow

but then the cow comes out of its not very good hiding place and it’s the prettiest cow in the whole world

Unhidden cow

and it’s right up against the fence and I want to stroke its nose but I don’t know if cows bite or not and so I decide not to stroke the cow and I eventually tear myself away from the prettiest cow in the whole world and a bit further on I go past where we saw the ducks shagging in a most violent manner and there’s brown and white sheep

Brown and white sheep

but they’re a bit camera shy and run away

Brown and white sheep running away

except for one greedy fat bastard sheep who carries on eating

Sheep eating

and then I go down a steep hill I don’t remember going down before and I get to the main road and I decide to be brave and cycle down it to home and that’s today’s Juneathon done and as tomorrow is the last Juneathon for this year, I’m going to test out my new running watch and attempt a run and as Joggerblogger has entrusted me with the responsibility of choosing this year’s Juneathon Winner, you’d all better start getting your bribes in now.

Route

Splits

Stats day 29 (cycling)
Distance: 17.30 miles
Time: 1:43:02
Speed: 10.1mph
Calories: 475
Fields of blue flowers: 1
Cows: some
Sheep: also some
Hills I don’t remember: 1
Pavements cycled on: 0
Days to get bribes to me: 2
Juneathon’s completed: 25/30

A little (Raleigh) Shopping

6 comments

I don’t care if my scales say I’m 9st 2, my scales are lying.  Either that or my mirror is as I am turning into a dumpy country thing and I have no intention of being fat and forty, so I think today I will run and then I remember this

Raleigh Shopper

is living in the garage, having arrived yesterday and after giving it a test run last night, decided it’s the best bike in the whole world, even though when I was given a pink Raleigh Shopper by my parents when I was about 10, I wasn’t very impressed, as I hankered after a racer like my brothers had and didn’t want to be seen on a stupid girl’s bike and especially a pink stupid girl’s bike with a basket but now I love my stupid girl’s bike and will even buy it a basket especially although I won’t be going so far as to spray it pink. and so I decide to take my stupid girl’s bike out for a couple of miles and then come home, get changed and go out for a run and so I get my SGB out of the garage and venture outside on a bike on my own for the first time in about 30 years and I get to the tree a mile away and I think I don’t want to go back yet, I want to go further and maybe I can do the 7 mile loop I looked at on gmaps but it was ages ago I looked on gmaps and I can’t remember what the route is and so I just keep on going and I see lots of bunnies and not dead ones this time and there’s a car coming up behind me and I try not to wobble and remember what Shaun said about they don’t want to hit me and it overtakes me and woo hoo, I don’t wobble and it doesn’t hit me and I go past a road and I wonder if I should turn off there but I still carry on going straight and  I see some horses and I think that makes a change from sheep and I go past some houses that the owners probably think are posh but they look new and like they should be in Essex and after a while I get to a residential area and I think hmm, I think I’ve gone tReebok 5 Series Roweroo far and so I turn round and go back the way I came and I can hear something behind me and I don’t know what it is but it sounds big and it overtakes me and it’s a trailer or something with HUGE wheels and I think I don’t want to end up under them and then I’m back at the tree and the road is very narrow and a car comes along and there’s only just enough room for both of us and I pretend not to be scared and then I’m home and decide not to run but because I am sort of hardcore, I try out our new rowing machine which is harder than the one in the gym and after 15 minutes I’m knackered.

Route

Stats:
Distance: 6.91 miles
Time: 40:53
Speed: 10.1mph
Calories: 212
Stupid girl’s bikes: 1
Bunnies: lots
Horses: some
Trailer things with HUGE wheels: 1
Rowing machines: 1
Runs: 0

Road 1 Me 0

6 comments

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