on this second day of August

I am trying to ignore the news of increasing Covid-19 numbers all around Europe, and England. Numbers in Scotland are still looking good but it takes just one or two super-spreaders to kick it all of again.

I have been really anxious all week, which has not been helped by the fact that I had to interact with more people than I am comfortable with. For example, I had to renew my driving licence. This is a doddle for anyone with a UK passport as it can be done online but for me, it involves a paper form which has to be collected from the post office, new photographs, which have do be done in a shop. Photos have to be countersigned by someone not related to me and not living with me. Finally, another post office visit to post the application. My hypochondriac self conjures up a tight chest just thinking about it all.

Apart from worrying, I spent most of my second holiday week doing very little, thinking that I should really be DOING something with the children. 

Pippin is recovering well from her surgery but she is cross for not being allowed out. She does not appreciate a walk on a lead. The cat flap is firmly locked during the day. She spends the night locked away in our spare room, with food and litter tray, which to my surprise she knew how to use. We'll get a pathology report from her lumpectomy early next week. Fingers crossed it is benign. I am so glad I shamed myself into getting insurance for the cats after years of just insuring the dog. 

I noticed teeny tiny cucumbers on my pickling cucumber plants! I am am terribly excited and can't wait for the fruit to grow big enough to harvest. I took a walk to the woods to pick the last few remaining wild raspberries. It looks like the blackberries are nearly ready, too. There weren't enough raspberries to make jam but I'll make a combined raspberry/blackberry jam later in the year. There is also a bag of redcurrant in the freezer. I'll make jelly with these. We ate an amazing Pad Thai made with freshly harvested courgettes and carrots. Oh the flavour! This is our first successful carrot harvest ever. The garden is wild and there is a whiff of late summer/early autumn in the air today. I am not ready for that. 

I started a new running programme because my running club virtual programme is taking up too much time and I lack the motivation of running mates that pull me along. The warm-ups and cool-downs alone are 1.6 km each, with quite demanding workouts in between (for example 5 x 1 mile speed workouts). I discovered that my nifty running watch together with the app can actually coach me and there are several training programmes to choose from. I chose a 10km training programme by a chap called Jeff Galloway simply because he believes that walking breaks are ok and indeed good to achieve a goal time for a set distance. It has a bit more variety than my previous training plan, for example cadence drills and acceleration/deceleration drills. Obviously I had to watch all the videos that come with the plan to find out what this even means! I like variety because the suffering is different for each element and on the whole more bearable. I had to do a benchmark run to establish what I can do and today I did my first training run. It was varied with 4 sets of each the above mentioned drills (30 sec each) and 4 x 800 metres at a preset pace that was determined based on my benchmark run with 3 min recovery walk between. Warm-ups and cool-downs were blissfully short, 5 min respectively but of course I was miles from home when I completed all the drills because I started with my old warm-up and cool-down routines in mind. I rated the session as hard and now the nifty watch/app is adapting my next run based on how I did. I don't actually know more than a week ahead what I'll have to do, which adds a bit of excitement to the whole exercise. I know, it doesn't take much to add excitement to my life. Best of all? The watch tells me what to do and when. It beeps three times to alert me to a change and text appears on the watch face telling me what is up next. Amazing what technology can do. 

Tomorrow, we'll swap our old car for a new to us small Honda Jazz. Our old seven seater car is on its very last legs. We discussed not getting another car but with kids still needing lifts to various clubs (someday soon I hope!) this is not practical just now. Then we discussed getting an electric or a hybrid car but we can't afford either. Cars are expensive! How can people afford new cars? Our new (second hand) car is proper orange, which as long term readers know is a favourite colour of mine. It is too small for the whole family but nowadays, it is mostly just the two youngest travelling with us so not a big problem. We can fit a tow bar for our camping trailer, which makes me happy. I don't really care much for cars as long as they are safe I am happy. 

Sam is coming for dinner and I think he'll stay the night because he has an early shift at work tomorrow (we live closer to his work than he does). He asked for a roast beef dinner, my least favourite Sunday meal of all. I prefer eating vegetarian these days, with the odd Bolognese sauce or bacon roll for variety. Alas, I am not cooking and will not complain (much), the trimmings are always good and with garden vegetables aplenty, there is something to look forward to. I started cooking family meals again, reluctantly but it is the only way I can eat what I like most. 

Thanks for visiting today, it is lovely to see new readers and commenters. Have a great week all!