Week Four 6.6.17
Steps 3266 km 2.64 cal. 249 time 25m
The new schedule: a brisk 5-minute warm-up walk then 3 minutes of
running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running, 2 ½ minutes walking, 3 minutes
running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running.
Back to morning running.
Fruit for breakfast – I sometimes feel the need for an apple with my cup
of tea. We watch another episode of
Fortitude as the thought of BBC’s Louise and Dan on the couch is just a little
underwhelming in comparison to great drama.
The Arctic landscape is bleak and the murders brutal. The two policewomen are reminiscent of
Laurel and Hardy. The sheriff’s smile
makes my blood run cold.
Should I watch another episode?
Got to get moving.
Outside, the weather is blowing a storm. Trees are down in the village. But I love the wind. I set off at a brisk pace and am soon jogging
easily. First up is Gotye with Somebody
I Used to Know – I can’t resist singing along.
Then comes Grace Jones and my running takes on a whole new rythmn.
I think of a place I used to work in London, Bond
Street. The mind makes strange
connections. It was a family business
dealing in high quality, high tensile bin bags. Amanda was the boss’s daughter, selling bin bags over the phone
with her educated banter and plummy tones.
She and her millionaire boyfriend had gone to see Grace Jones in concert. It was back in the late 70s and I was a
Blondie lookalike who’d never heard of
Pull up to the Bumper.
Mirror Man and Electric Dreams send me into a different,
more nostalgic, more romantic mood. The
garden takes on a summer haze and I picture perfect afternoons spent in the
arms of perfect men (isn’t imagination a wonderful thing…).
With Happy Mondays Twisting my Melons, I start to wonder
about the rest of my day. Writing, a
lunchtime walk with Al, a dental appointment, shopping, and cooking
dinner. And planning a trip to
Berlin. It could be worse.
Time is up.
A mercredi?
Week Four 8.3.17
Steps 3626 km 2.95 cal. 2.79 time 27.5m
First, let me note that I forgot to progress to week four
schedule on Monday. Just realised!
Today, I’m thrilled to see an increase in my stats. Almost touching 3k and running is much
easier. Too late for the olympics, but
keeps me out of walking netball. I’m
aiming to be able to run for a bus, leap on a moving train or take part in my
future grandchildren’s egg and spoon race without flushing purple. All looks good at the moment.
Only downside today has been the music. Japan.
Just Japan. I like a bit of
Japan in a bar, as an alternative to jazz, but after 27.5 minutes of David
Sylvian droning on, replacing lyrics with dum, dum, dums and la, la, las. Ad infinitum. Well, I must say I pulled out my earphones and considered the
various methods of pruning my wayward garden, wondering at the same time when I
had turned into a person who prunes.
But I didn’t skip ahead on my MP3.
I simply put in an earphone every couple of minutes to see
if anything with a bit more life had arrived.
Not a bit of it. And, as I began
to write up this blog I decided to leave the MP3 running, just to flush out the
last remaining dirges. The net result
of this is that I shall begin on Friday to the outrageously fabulous Hendrix
and his wailing guitar. Good.
Back in the house I couldn’t be bothered to do the cool
down. I know. I should have. Nobody’s
perfect.
Instead, I shall shower, listen to Charlton Heston reading
The Old Man and the Sea while I concoct a pork curry for the slow cooker. Requested by my son.
When we are on our own, I tell Al, we will eat at lunchtime
and in the evening, we’ll sit by the sea for aperos then come home for romance
and cheese.
A vendredi?
Week Four 10.3.17
Steps 3718 km 3.04 cal. 289 time 27.5m
Woke up to the most beautiful blue sky and sunshine at my
bedroom window. And, yes, the birds
were singing their hearts out.
Toast and marmalade for me, peanut butter for Al.
Today, we are being encouraged by the BBC to listen to a
very affable man and his adoring colleague.
They want us to count penguins.
More interesting to me is mapping the surface features of Mars. And wondering why Sally is wearing her
grandmother’s lacy blouse. Oh, and she
has a dog on her lap. There are more
dogs. Ones that behave badly. Apparently, according to an expert, we
shouldn’t reward bad behaviour. Who knew? BBC in depth investigative insight at
its best.
In a random universe I shouldn’t have been surprised when
Susie Quatro appeared, unchanged in style, if not in physiology. We switch off.
Round and round the garden.
I’ve actually started to wear a track.
Lots of dew on the grass, but the weather is pure summer bliss. I fill my lungs and remember the bike ride I
had to work in Cambridge in the midst of lorries and cars and untrained
cyclists from all over the world. With
my three-year-old son on the back, we would could the different words for rain
and snow. I remember getting to
twenty-six.
Hendrix sings in one ear and plays guitar in the other. He shoots his fickle woman, muddles through
a purple haze, before turning up all along the watchtower. I try to work out why he is such a genius
and decide that genius is not something that can be defined. I just let the music penetrate my soul and
take me back to parties, youth, laughing, dancing, joie de vivre.
My track is turning muddy.
My favourite primrose is flowering next to the compost bin.
Daffodils that have survived the storms are brilliant,
brilliant yellow.
Madonna injects me with vigour. She’s a dancy kind of girl.
Good for joggers. I remember
being surprised that such a scraggy, untalented young girl had become so famous
when I returned to England after two years in Greece. Holiday was the song that got her noticed, apparently. All I saw was a Cindy Lauper lookalike who
couldn’t really sing. Much better now.
Hard not to be envious of her jaw and waistline.
Time’s nearly up and I’m not in the least exhausted. My knees are fine. No twinges in my muscles.
Alice in Chains delights me with a version of The Man Who Sold the
World. Better than Bowie? Would that be blasphemous? I remember my grandmother’s warning:
comparison is odious. Where did that come from!
My final seconds. A
perfect start to my morning. And as
Marianne Faithfull begins Broken English, I pull out my ear plugs and go
inside. I’ll switch off my MP3 player
when she’s finished.
Happy days!
A la semaine prochaine?
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