Blurry eyed

I've got an art and craft fair today at West Bridgford, so have set my alarm clock nice and early, trouble is I'm not used to doing early mornings - I've just gone and put a slice of lemon on my museli, and milk in my hot water - hope the rest of the day gets better!

11.15

11.15 is the question, what is the answer, Is it
(a) the time I got back from the Brinsley wreck.
(b) the amount of plasterboards I got on the walls tonight.
(c) The cost of a Vegetarian curry (inc delivery)
or
(d) the amount of miles that I have just run.

If you ansrewed d then you were correct . I went out for my first run since my massage and was planning to take it easy and not get carried away. Going to the running club has an amazing way of pulling you around a run with out you realising your doing  a faster pace than normal or further milage than you thought you could do. 
So go on join your local running club and find like minded people who can pull your standard of running up and believe me when I say you don't need to be fast to join a club, they cater for as many people as they can.

Colin

If you go down to the woods today....

I've seen quite a few exciting things while I've been out on my runs; foxes, owls, a pot bellied pig called Elvis being taken for a walk, but today we got see a proposal - almost.
My friend and I parked up in Colliers Wood, and was a bit suprised to see a bloke there dressed up very smartly with bow tie and all, and a nearby picnic table was festooned with helium balloons and champagne, and then when we told him that it all looked very exciting, he said that she'd be there in another 10 minutes or so, and he'd know the answer then/
We went off and left them to it and completed a lovely run in the sunshine, and when we got back some two hours later or so, they were enjoying a picnic hamper - aaah .  We gave them a big wave, and then headed back home.

Can You tell what it is yet

I've been working intensely on this piece for the last week; swealtering in my attic workshop with my heat gun, while the sun's been shining brightly outside.  I'm  hoping that it will be good enough to be acceoted for the Derbyshire Open Art Competition, I've not entered a competition since I was at school, so I'm really nervous.  The piece incorporates my silver birches, which I love making so much, and which I think are typical of much of the rural landscape where I live, and as I was keen to emphasise the  Derbyshire feel, I've worked on the weather worn stone wall, but was struggling to think of a name....., then on Friday night, my friend's boy saw it, and was like "wow, is that Drum Hill?"  It turns out that unknown to me I'd created his favourite scout camp, which IS in Derbyshire.  The name then became obvious "Scout to the top"
Its nearly finished now, I just hope Colin has some time to frame it, obviously its not a priority given the state of "The Wreck", so we'll just have to see.....

It would be quicker to build it...

I'm busy trying to create a mixed media landscape picture for submission to the Derbyshire Open Competition - its taken so long to create my 5 bar gate and dry stone wall that it would probably have been quicker to have actually built them.  This afternoon I allowed myself some time off for a run, with the excuse that I was researching viewpoints and thinking about how best to compose my picture.  Its been a lovely day for a plod around the woods, although in places it was much muddier than I anticipated and at one point I did wonder if I should retrace my steps, but decided muddy would be more fun!
The provisional results are out for the hilly 100, and as always Col did much better than he said he had - he actually did his very hilly 10mile stretch in 61minutes 49 secs - its one of the hardest legs of the race, and he was the quickest for team Ilkeston, and thats on the back of hardly any training - whereas I will train and train and wouldn't even be able to pull off a 6minute mile pace for a mile ..... not fair!
Jackie

Hilly 100

I was up at 4am and picking up another willing volunteer to run leg 2 and 3 of the hilly 100 relay around Stratford . It is as it suggests hilly and some of the runners who are making up our team I think are in for a surprise?   Well it was a little misty but not Windy like last year. I was running leg 3 the same as the previous year ,but with not much training under my belt was looking for a time of hopefully under 70 Min's . I actually managed under 72 Min's which is great .Also this year I didn't lose my support team as Mr Sharratt was made to go in the car than try and keep up on his push bike .The other bonus was that he wasn't offering cheese sandwiches on the way round (whats that all about) I now going for a cold bath to revive the legs. 

Colin

Singles night!

I'm feeling very old - a fellow freecycler has just requested some singles from the 70s and 80s because she's a teacher and her class are  going to be doing a project on "that era", and....  I'm guessing that a few of them are going to be thinking "a single what?" .  Me n Col have still got most of our old records - I threw a few away that were a bit embarrassing, and I swapped some for others, and still much regret swapping Blondie's Parallel lines, I can't even remember what for now.....  We re-invested in a record player a few years ago, its funny how records still hold their charm, even though there's the inconvience of having to change sides after only a few tracks, but even though most of my favourite stuff was on cassette, it doesn't hold the same magic....It seems a shame that we live in such a disposable era, most young people growing up today, won't even have a collection of CDs, even people of my age group seem to have chucked out their records for cds, and chucked out their cds for ipods.....  We live in an era where we know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.