clever crows, sandy sandwiches and tired legs.

I did something "naughty" on Friday. I didn't work. I just couldn't. I wasn't sick or anything, just had nothing left to give. And you know what? Nobody cared. I don't know if anybody even noticed. We don't get paid overtime, many of us are on precarious contracts and working conditions are generally not great with morale rock bottom in many corners of the University. I feel like I deserved that day of doing utterly mundane stuff like cleaning the vegetable drawer in the fridge and do the grocery shopping. I felt excited about the grocery shopping, not something I usually do. Normally, Richard is the one that dashes to Lidl just before it closes at 10 pm and picks up the essentials. I got a bit carried away and bought two blocks of tofu and a box of ten Cadbury cream eggs. Only one remains. We had a vegetable and fruit box for a few weeks but it wasn't great. What do you do with a single skinny leek and a tiny fennel and several kilos of sweet potato? It came with recipe cards which I assume could be used with the produce delivered. I am still puzzled about the recipe that required 62 tomatoes (sic). Two were included in the box. The cherries were the last straw. Who eats cherries in March?

James, Alistair, Jack and I drove to St. Andrews on Saturday to visit Annie. We had a picnic on the beach, a very windy picnic. I swear I still had sand between my teeth on Sunday morning! It was lovely to catch up with Annie, I do miss her when she is not here. Jack got himself worked up over two crows that teased him. It was hilarious to watch. They sat on the fence that separated the fragile dunes from the beach. Jack did not like them being there and chased them away. Many times. The crows had so much fun playing with him. They humoured him and flew up into the air but they didn't fly away or any higher than absolutely necessary, mocking the dog with the os so short legs. Then had a leisurely wander through town, quite pretty and bustling with people. It was a sunny warm day and the children loved the ice cream from St. Andrew's most popular ice cream shop (judging by the queue).

Sunday was a race day for James. It was his first road race and he did not like it. There was no club runners warm up and for some unknown reason, James refused to warm up properly himself. I suppose he is a teenager, that is reason enough. It was a fast race with athletes from all over Scotland, clearly the top runners for their clubs. The winner finished at 12 min 22 for 4 km. James was still fast but not anywhere near that time I don't think. He hurt his calf muscle, not surprising without the warm-up. I didn't say "I told you so". James runs for fun but participates in the occasional race. I don't know why really. We had a chat about this on the way home. I suggested that he either continues to run for fun and doesn't race, or that he picks up the pace and trains with commitment to be stronger in races. I think he'll go for the fun option and that suits me just fine. 

The rest of the weekend was uneventful, I read for a bit and went for a wee jog before dinner. My legs felt as heavy as James' probably did (but after far less effort). I made tofu Katsu curry with big fat Udon noodles. I love those fat noodles in the sloppy flavourful sauce, very comforting. The boys liked it too. So, a few nice days and now I almost feel ready for another week of mayhem.

Thanks for visiting 😊

P.S. Just in case you are concerned about me skiving work, I did my full contracted hours last week, with a couple of hours to spare. So really, I was taking time in lieu on Friday. Lots of overtime, always.