welsh hills again

What's new here up our hill in North Wales? Not a lot.  Last week we had a socially distanced cup of tea outside in the garden with some friends.  On Friday we bought take away fish and chips from our local cafe, brought it home and had a post fish and chips zoom call.  This was the first food we had eaten since lockdown which had not come out of our kitchen.  It is a good job that I generally like cooking.  On Friday lunchtime we sat down to listen to the First Minister's press conference, hoping to hear of some further relaxations to lockdown rules, only to realise that it is another week until the review date.  If we lived in England we would now be able to see our children and grandchildren, in a socially distanced way and outside, but here very local restrictions remain in place.  I don't generally have a problem with the slow and cautious way in which Wales is approaching its lockdown rules, indeed whether you agree or not, there does seem to be ...

The night before the Chester 10k I spent the whole evening grumping stompily about the house. What on earth was I thinking? Why on earth had I set myself up to do this? In November when we registered for the 10k my running was going well. Yes I was super slow but I was running three times a week and slowly getting faster and going further. Ian promised to run with me. There were months to go before the end of March. We had shared a bottle of wine and were sitting in bed with the details of the Chester 10k on the ipad. "Come on. I'll run with you," said Ian. Yes ok then, why not? But when March arrived nothing had gone to plan. I had taken five weeks off training with first a sore knee and then a chest infection. I had tried to get back and been running again for four or five weeks but I was way behind in what I had intended to do. The furthest I had run since starting again was 7k. I really didn't think I could do 10k. I was just going to embarrass myself. Stomp, ...

2019 finished with a lovely Christmas down in Devon with younger son and his family where, for only the second time in over forty years, I did not cook Christmas dinner!  I don't mind cooking Christmas dinner at all but it did feel rather luxurious to be cooked for.  We were sleeping in the campervan despite the cold as older daughter and family were also staying.  That sounds a bit daunting in the middle of winter.  Actually the first ten minutes when you come out of the warmth of the house, go into the cold van and get undressed are the cold bits.  Then with two of you under the duvet you warm up surprisingly quickly.  And in a house of early risers you have the morning bonus of waking up at seven or later, rather than at around six, or, on Christmas morning, four thirty.  We understand the girls were sent back to bed but even so Christmas Day in the house began at around half past five! Here is Ian on story reading duty.  Both the snugglin...

I was astonished to find when I came back to my blog yesterday that it has been more than three months since I blogged.  In fact my Spanish friend asked me this morning if I only blogged in the summertime!  So many reasons:  busy with family and with selling the house (which is progressing but slowly) and the easy lure of Instagram which makes you feel you are connecting with people without the need to sit down and really think and write.  But I would miss it very much if I stopped so here is a download of what is in my head this cold and windy Tuesday up on my North Wales hillside. Gulp.  Well I have somehow gone and done it and committed to doing a 10k run in Chester in March.  At the moment the idea of running for 10 kilometres is quite as daunting as the idea of running 5k was back in January when I started to try to learn to run using the Couch to 5K programme.  I have been idling along for the last few weeks, running a bit less because of a pro...

Well a whole month has whizzed away since I last blogged and its hard to know where the time has gone:  a visit from a dear friend who lives in France was the focus of the beginning of July.  I love the way that a visitor makes us get out into this lovely part of the world in which we live rather than gardening and working and sticking to our admittedly delightful routine.  A highlight was a walk on the beach at Newborough Warren in Anglesey  (Llanddwyn in Welsh) and a meal at Dylan's in Menai Bridge looking out over the water.  Newborough Warren is large and wild, fringed by pine forest which is home to red squirrels, and crowned by an island accessible at low tide.  You can look across the sea to the mountains of Snowdonia or away out west towards Ireland.  Why do I love the west?  I do not really know but the North West, Wales and west Wales, North West Scotland and the South West of England all draw me and the sun going down over the sea alway...

It is a month since I did that first parkrun, a month where I had a few days off for a sore knee and later a week off for a bad sore throat.  In between times I have tried to keep up with my running but I was starting to feel intimidated by the idea of parkrun and I thought I had better do another one, quick, before I began to feel that it was beyond me.  Part of the problem of having run one now is that I do know quite how hard it is, not for everyone but for me! So this morning off we went.  It was a bright clear day, sunny but cool, perfect running conditions.  I really didn't feel like going.  This was one of those occasions, of which there are many, where the fact that Ian and I were going out together helped to keep me on track.  I suspect that either of us might have slipped away and not done it if we had been on our own, but somehow neither of us said "Shall we just not bother" and so off we went. There were fewer people than the last time I ran...

When I started this running lark in January I had no ambition to run real distances.  I didn't want to run a marathon but I did think I would like to run 5k, maybe, if I could.    Going from being unable to run at all to running for thirty minutes, using the wonderful Couch to 5k app, was amazing.  I never thought I could run for thirty minutes without stopping.  In the early weeks I was daunted by the idea of running for five minutes!  But I did it and a few weeks ago I found I was able to keep going.  I was astonished.  I was delighted. But I am slow, the original snail runner.  When I completed Couch to 5k a few weeks ago I could indeed run for thirty minutes (yay!) but I was running just over 3k in that time.  I have got up to about 3.7k  but I had never run for 5k (actually I think I might have once, when I was about twenty nine, so around thirty five years ago) when I arrived at Bodelwyddan Castle this morning to do my first...

For the first time the programme for this week had no intervals of walking and running and it was all running.  I think mixed fortunes is the best way to describe how week seven went.  I decided to do the first run of the week by walking down the steep track to the river in the valley and treating the walk down as my warm up.  I did not get this quite right.  I tried to time it so that I didn't start the five minute count down until I was far enough down the hill to begin running near the bottom.  The change from walking to running actually happened just a little too soon as I got to a house on the right of the track and here the track was very deeply rutted and muddy so the first few minutes of running were not pleasant.  When I got to my usual running place all was well and I managed the twenty five minutes of running without a hitch.  I walked back up the track, treating that as my cool down, feeling pretty smug.  Too smug, too soon.  When...

It felt like a bit of a come down this week to go out for my first run of the week and find it was meant to be two runs of eight minutes each with a walk in between.  I was on such a high after I managed to do my twenty minutes last week that I was expecting to do more.  I am sure there is method in the madness of whoever put the couch to 5k programme together.  Certainly run number one felt easy enough.  I ran down by the river again and contemplated the fact that it would become very boring if I never ran anywhere else! Run 2 was on Saturday after a busy Friday where we had a lunch out in Manchester and a meal with friends in the evening.  I had been the designated driver so I hadn't had anything to drink but we had taken in a lot of food over the course of the day.  Perhaps that was why I felt so sluggish and slow.  This one was two runs of ten minutes each with a walk in between.  I suppose I had been due a bad run.  I hadn't really had...

I was on a real high after run two of week five, having achieved two runs of eight minutes each.  The next run was meant to be twenty minutes long.  How could that be?  And yet while I was daunted I was also really interested to see whether I could do it.  The Couch to 5k programme hadn't let me down yet so maybe, just maybe, it was doable?  After all they would hardly set people up to fail would they? So I was all ready for Thursday last week and what felt to me like the breakthrough between trying to learn how to run and actually running. And then it snowed. It looked very beautiful but it did not look like the kind of conditions I could run in. I thought I should do something to try to keep the fitness going so I had a go on our exercise bike.  I only managed about ten minutes.  I don't know what it is about the exercise bike but I really hate it.  I find it intensely boring and it feels intensely useless.  If I am outside...

A couple of days ago I looked at what was in store for week four and did not like what I found!  Running for five minutes at a time and much more running altogether looked like a real challenge.  I decided I would run somewhere different for this.  We live high on a hillside and there are limited opportunities to run on the flat.  Weighting the scales in my favour by running on flat ground seemed like a good idea!  So this morning I drove down to the bottom of our valley and parked the car so that I could run by the river.  I felt a bit guilty driving down rather than walking, but I was pretty sure that if I added the steep haul back home to my run I would be overwhelmed by the jump up in physical demand and might just have to sit in a corner and cry! So down I went, parked by the little river, where the water was rushing and leaping over the stones and set off, Jo Whiley encouraging me from my phone on the couch to 5k app.  The first run was fo...

Run one.  Well, today was run one of week three and I was nervous.  This run required me to go for three minutes for the first time and three minutes seemed a big jump from ninety seconds.  We went to yoga this morning and I was feeling very stretched and ironed out by that.  I had missed breakfast so by the time we got home I was starving and immediately made scrambled eggs with tomatoes and spinach.  I decided I shouldn't run directly after that and sat down to do some knitting instead.  An hour or so later I looked out of the window.  It was raining gently.  This did not make me feel like going out. However one of the good things about this fitness drive is that Ian is also doing the couch to 5k and I find that the fact that I am not alone motivates me when I might well give up if I was.  He ran before lunch and came in reporting that it wasn't so bad.  Now he is fitter than I am so that didn't mean I would think the same but it did...

I was a bit daunted by the idea that, having achieved my three sessions for the first week, I was expected to run for a bit longer in week two.  I should point out that "a bit longer" means ninety seconds instead of sixty, followed by two minutes of walking, repeated five times. So the first run of week two and I did notice the small increase.  For some reason the app was refusing me access to Sarah Millican as the voice of my trainer so I chose Jo Whiley instead.  I liked her too.  She probably gives you a little more of her own experience and that is quite motivating.  So I survived the first run of  week two and, in the day's break between runs one and two, my new bra and running trainers arrived. I cannot tell you that the bra is a thing of beauty but goodness, it works!  I did a bit of research on the internet and bought a bra called Panache, recommended by a women's running magazine.  Have you ever noticed that caravans which trundle alo...

I downloaded the couch to 5k app onto my phone and was delighted to see that I could have Sarah Millican as the voice of my trainer!  Sarah is funny and dry and far from skinny.  I don't mind being told to run for sixty seconds in her warm Geordie voice. Well the first decision was what to wear to have a go at this.  A couple of years ago I decided that, after six years or so,  yoga was clearly here to stay and bought myself some new yoga gear so I have leggings and yoga tops and very lovely they are too.  I also have lots of gardening t shirts and jeans but I haven't really got any equivalent of tracksuit bottoms which it makes sense to jog in.  In the end I found a loose pair of exercise bottoms which used to be my yogawear before I upgraded.  Then the question was what to wear on my feet.  I know that it is important to wear suitable running trainers but I feared that if I didn't get started until I had all the gear I might miss the moment wh...

Last week, a trip to Derbyshire to help younger son and his wife with installing their new kitchen. This week a trip to Oxford to do some jobs for older daughter and her family and some for younger daughter in her new flat.  I think Ian should buy a nice white van and have it fitted out with his tools.  This would stop us going through the process of packing the car, unpacking it and packing it up again only to unpack it when we get home.  Beats the gym I guess. It is very good to be able to help adult children like this, although it is Ian who does all the work if I am honest.  I hang around making tea, carrying the baby or walking the dog, gardening if there is a garden. Now weeks stretch in front of us with no long distance DIY.  There is work to be done of the paying variety and lots of work in the house and garden too. The garden is at that stage in the year when everything looks tired and needs revitalising.  Veg needs to be sown into the beds ...