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May's Journal
July's Journal
08/06/2022
[17:20] And here we are at the middle of the year. Or nearly, sort of, almost.
A lot has gone on since I last wrote. So as per the 'new' (really not at this
point) usual, I'll detail herewith what's been happening in the mild hope that
you might find it moderately interesting. If nothing else it'll give me some
useful insights into what went on in my life when I'm in my dotage. But
anyway...
I decided it was time for some new glasses (did I mention that?) in early May,
and went and got my eyes tested, going to select some new frames from Boots
with Rel (she's the one who'll see me more than anyone else these days) a week
later when she was in town. This followed a very busy weekend for her when she
paced someone for the final stage of a 100 mile race along the Thames Path
immediately after being a bridesmaid at a friend's wedding. Running in makeup
and a glittering hair accessory was apparently quite the site for the person
she was with. Immediately after coming to see me and helping me choose my new
frames she headed off to the US for an international board meeting. So it was
all go for her for a week or so. Mostly for me during May I was either getting
up early to patch and reboot hosts, or trying very hard to concentrate on doing
VMWare training, and failing at the latter. Over the middle weekend of May I
was on call while our primary finance system was upgraded. While I was
tethered to my house to be able to access a computer quickly, Rel was out
running another of this year's 50 mile races. This time across a section of
the North Downs Way. This is a race I've done before, so I could track her
online and remember every single hard uphill she navigated. For not feeling at
her best post-US trip she still managed to be my best time by a few minutes,
which is par for the course as she really comes into her own running this
distance.
The last week of May was something special, though. After taking a train up to
Rel, we then took trains north and into Scotland, staying overnight in Glasgow
before joining my whole family (father, mother, brother, newphew) on the Isle
of Iona (we actually met my parents in Oban, and my brother and his son on
Mull). This was my first trip back to Iona in about 35 years, and I was struck
by two things immediately. First that I'd been away far, far too long, and
second that it is still in the top two of my favourite places on the planet.
I was much heartened to find that Rel loved it almost as much as me, if not
just as much. Aside from it being a bit windy on the first day or so, the
weather was as near to perfect as it could be, which showed off the whole place
just as much as possible. The only negative was that over the last few weeks
I've been suffering from the worst bout of achillies tendonitis I've had in a
very long time, so wasn't really happy doing very long runs. Especially as I'd
only brought off-road shoes and to get to some places a bit of road-running (on
the only road there is) is necessary. We still managed to almost completely
explore the isle (3 miles by 1 mile), and I got to remember that most of the
place is perma-bog, with only a few semi-hidden paths providing the chance to
keep your feet relatively dry. However, at the end of the week we'd seen as
much of the place as one could and still stay safe. Other highlights of the
week were a boat trip to Staffa to see puffins and Fingle's Cave, and a short
run down the coast of Mull to explore some beaches, do some swimming, and
generally have a bit of alone time away from the rest of the family. We even
managed to get a bit of a tan, and might have burnt without sun cream on.
We all left Iona together and Rel and I stayed the night in a reasonable Air
BnB in Edinburgh before exploring the Royal Mile and even power hiking up
Arthur's Seat with our full rucksacks before settling onto the train south of
the border. I stayed overnight with Rel before coming back home again to start
work again yesterday.
Obviously the day began with patching and rebooting early on, so I'd spent some
of the afternoon before staging firmware updates and the like to make things go
a bit more smoothly and quickly. Also as I thought things might go on a bit I
got up super-early to get my run in beforehand. My achilles tendons still
aren't right, so I've booked a physio appointment for them as well as to find
out if anything can be done about the quad issue I've had in my last two road
races.
Looking forward to the rest of the month, Rel arrives tonight for a few nights
before she's off to volunteer at an aid station for another 100 mile race. I
think she'll be doing an overnight stint, which might be interesting, but at
least she won't be running. Towards the end of the month she'll be off to
Burundi with work to look at some of the projects she's been setting up, and
won't be back until her birthday. I might not even get to see her then as she
has a visitor from Kenya or Tanzania arriving the day after her birthday so I
can't really go down to see her or she come to me. In fact it's possible I
might not see her until eight or nine days after her birthday, which is a bit
sad. I guess we'll see what we can fit in.
For now though, I think that's it. I'm off shortly to meet her at the train
station and then we might take a quick cycle to where I think there is a
Renault Twizzy that she wants to look at in the flesh with a view to buying one
(something I have disrecommended). Then we'll pop in to Tesco for some
supplements to dinner and then settle in for the night with food and Britbox.
See you in July, if not before (unlikely).