Hot and cold weather, gardens and bluebells

The last couple of weeks have flown by- I feel like I’ve hardly stopped to take a breath.

I’ll try to do a quick recap of the last couple of weeks:

After my little parkrun adventure to Northala Fields, on the Sunday I decided to run along Cole Green Lane, which is the old railway line near me. It was my first run of the year along that way, and I thought it might be muddy but it wasn’t too bad. I did an out and back route for just over 7 miles.

When I got home I had a cheat’s version of Cafe Coho’s pancakes- pancakes topped with Koko yoghurt and defrosted summer berries.

Monday- more chopping up trees in the garden after work

Tuesday- only just made it to running club where I wished I’d worn a vest and not a t-shirt as it was so warm (it was 26C at 7pm!).

Wednesday- lovely yoga of course.

Thursday- a yoga session at work (someone has started coming in for the staff which is brilliant). As I don’t like to run for 3 days in a row (and like to run on Saturday and Sunday) I tend to do a 4th run on a Thursday, so I stopped on my way home for a short run around the lakes. It was so hot (28C) and I rushed home for a shower as then we were off to see Grease at the cinema.

Grease was great, although it started 5 mins after the show time (as opposed to the normal 25 mins of adverts)- this caught a load of people out. Also, it was not a singalong version but that did not stop the people behind us wailing like strangled cats…

Friday- I stopped off to see my parents on my way home from work as it had been my mum’s birthday- we sat out in their garden for ages and it was just lovely.

Saturday- I met Dad at Ellenbrook Fields. We ran together and until the final mile I was managing to chat to him. I finished in 27.12 which matched my first ever parkrun time at St Albans. When I mentioned this to Dad he told me that I really should have run more slowly at the start to give myself a chance of getting more pbs!

After pancakes at theirs, Dad offered to help clear some of the junk from behind our shed (left by the previous people), so we spent a while in the garden clearing out so much rubbish (old incinerator bins with no bottom, lumps of concrete, bits of old trellis and broken bird feeder tables…). Andy’s parents then came over, bringing us some plants they had kept in their garden for us. We all headed off to Crews Hill for the garden centre (it is basically a road with garden centres lining it). Once we got home we had to spend another hour or so planting everything. After having our new fence put in the other week, we can now actually start to plant close to it now. We’ve got a couple of little crab apple trees, and bought a few other plants (some gorgeous blue ones) to go on that side by the blue shed.

One the other side we had a few gaps, so got some pink plants to go on that side, as we have a pink magnolia and a little apple tree with pink blossom.

On Sunday morning I went for a run to Panshanger park- our clump of bluebells had started to flower in the garden, so I thought they might be out in the park- I was right!

It was such a beautiful morning, and the bluebells looked amazing, but again it was really hot and I felt pretty thirsty by the time I got home. I’d only run 9 miles (compared to the poor people running the London marathon). I’d taped the race so after a shower and breakfast I sat down to watch it while I got on with my work. It was pretty exciting, but I don’t envy the runners at all.

Once the work was finished, I went into the garden with the aim of weeding a little area at the back. There were (or so I thought) a few lumps of concrete, but it turned out that the entire bed was made up of concrete lumps covered with a thin layer of soil. I managed to lift most of them, but some I could only flip over.

(Flower bed and lumps of concrete, plus the newly cleaned area behind the shed).

What I thought would be a quick job took me 90 minutes- who needs a gym?

This week has been just as busy- on Monday evening I was out at the Herts parkrun volunteer evening (which I’ll do a separate post about).

On Tuesday our club run was aiming to be 3.7 miles for the runner who died 3.7 miles from the end of the London marathon (you can donate to his Just Giving Page here). We did an out and back to try and get the distance right, and it was pretty chilly each time we stopped to regroup- such a change from the previous week. One of the people out running had run London on the Sunday and was telling us about it- it seems that so many people started too fast (for the heat) and she had not seen that many people collapsing before.

Wednesday was yoga, and Thursday was yoga, run and cinema (Rampage= questionable CGI but totally relaxing as it was just silly).

Where has the spring gone? Do you have summer and winter running routes?

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6 thoughts on “Hot and cold weather, gardens and bluebells”

  1. That is a lot of gardening! You did well, especially in the heat.
    Where I used to live I had certain routes I could only do in summer but now where I live most of the places are fine – well lit and OK under foot. It helps living by the sea I guess because that’s always nice to run along.
    I do quite like the Rock as someone you can watch easily. He does a good job of the roles he takes on.

  2. All your gardening is so impressive. I’m really not very good at that kind of thing!

    I definitely have “seasonal” routes but that’s mainly because there are some places that aren’t well enough lit for the winter and others, like trail runs, that I save for the end of the year when I’m not particularly training for anything and want to build a base. Most of my go-to routes are ok at any time.

    1. Thanks- I am not very green fingered but I do like the process of gardening. We have good advice from our parents and try to choose things that will not need too much tlc either.

  3. Love all your new plants. The blue one looks like lithodora- much beloved of bees. Good selection of runs too, so chilly now – the heat is a distant memory!

    1. I am terrible at knowing the plant names, but hopefully the bees will like the selection. I look forward to later when the foxgloves and hollyhocks all flower as the bees seem to like those too.

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