Author: Maria Runs

And just like that, Midsummer was here! It was a miserable day- Josie (the yoga teacher) had suggested an online class as the sun rose to do some sun salutations in the garden, but it pretty much poured all day so that idea didn’t make it. I met Andy in town and we got a hot drink from Caffe Nero instead.

I was feeling OK after my fainting on the Saturday night, but I called the GP just to be sure, and they called me back on Tuesday to talk me through it. If it happens again they will investigate further but it could be a one off (here’s hoping). I felt a bit nervous about going out running, so stuck to laps on the streets close to home just in case I needed to walk back/cut it short.

These roses grow by a roundabout and they smell incredible- they look beautiful when covered in raindrops too.

We were all set for watching England play the Czech Republic- nuts seemed to be our lucky snack as we had them for the first win against Croatia and then didn’t for the Scotland match (which we drew). It worked!

On Wednesday I had yet another webinar and it was a bit of a rush to get home for (they start fairly soon after the kids leave but go on until after our site manager locks up so you have to be home for them)- thankfully Andy made me some tea and even bought me up some biscuits- of course that always helps the online training go by better. Then as it was warm I set up for yoga in the living room again. It’s very enjoyable to have views of the garden as I work through the class. We had a belayed midsummer yoga session and it was definitely better than a rainy Monday morning session!

Thursday was a bit of a stressful day work-wise, but on Friday I had booked a massage at my favourite place in town for after work. I had not been for so long, and was a bit worried about what it would be like. There used to be a waiting room but now they ask you to wait outside and then you go straight to the treatment room. Masks on, hand sanitiser to use and so on, and sadly no diffuser in the room, but I felt comfortable (which is good as it’s meant to be relaxing).  Katie had even made her own oil using fresh mint leaves from her garden, so it smelled incredible. There was some awful popping and cracking going on, but I felt the difference straight away as I could properly look over my left shoulder again.

Afterwards I walked into town, picked up a couple of desserts from The Pudding Stop and got a cold drink from Pret. Almost a “normal” after work thing.

On Saturday I did a (not)parkrun and a bit in my new apricot top- it says “i love ellenbrook fields” (as there have been hints eg on WMN that it won’t be coming back- it still isn’t on the permission list so I am not holding out much hope). Once home I tried a bake at home Pret vegan croissant for breakfast (very tasty) plus a mango pot I’d picked up in town after my massage. We should have been in Brighton for the half marathon, so I thought I would replicate a weekend-away breakfast.

We went to see Andy’s parents in the afternoon and sat in their garden for a few hours- the rain held off until we were driving home.

A lot of my social media had been filled with people moaning about how come Wembley gets to be filled with fans but parents cannot watch sports day in person. I am trying very hard to not respond, because I hate getting into arguments in that way, but in the end I could not help myself. Yes, if you are a parent then it is disappointing that you don’t get to go to school and traipse around a field all morning watching children throw beanbags into hoops. But here’s the thing. The fans at Wembley were either double vaccinated or had taken negative tests. Schools do not have the authority to demand this or the capacity to track it. Plus none of the kids are vaccinated, so there is a much higher chance that someone would test positive at an event. But mainly, we all agreed as a society that education is important- schools went back for all pupils before many other leisure places reopened. One positive case at a school event could potentially shut the entire school for 10 days (and the school would not even provide for the vulnerable/key worker children because either all staff would be isolating, or the kids would be…). Schools need protecting because we want them to remain open. (I do appreciate that not everyone is aware of the requirements for the football fans but I am getting a bit fed up of all the negative press of people complaining about schools yet again when the staff are trying their hardest to keep up with guidance and rules etc.)

Anyway, normal service back. It was Stitch Day (he’s Experiment 626 and it was June 26th) so of course I had to wear some Stitch clothes. I did some pottering around in the garden and later in the evening enjoyed a vegan cornetto.

On Sunday I headed off for 10 miles on some of the centenary route- I’d forgotten how hilly it was in places and did a fair bit of walking too. Enjoyable though. I had pancakes when I got home, and then did some more fun jobs like painting the gate another coat. It’s nearly there now. Look at how many splatters I made though- the paint is very watery compared to the fence paint.

After pottering around some more, we enjoyed some of our garden produce for dinner- pizza topped with homegrown yellow courgette (plus pineapple and pepper) alongside homegrown salad.

Do you like pineapple on pizza? 

Although the beginning of the week started well. I had a lovely surprise from my wellbeing buddy at work- she left me this vegan chocolate from Rhythm 108 and I have to say it is definitely a new favourite. After work I met Andy in town and we picked up our free drinks from Caffe Nero. I had a really tasty mint lemonade which was so refreshing. For dinner we had a Cook katsu alongside some freshly picked salad, and some pickled grapes. I really love the pickled ginger that you get with a Wagamama katsu, and this is close enough (just cut them in half and leave them in a bowl with some red wine vinegar during the day).

Mint lemonade, delicious chocolate and a katsu with homegrown salad and pickled grapes

Tuesday was more overcast but OK- the rain stayed away for my run and then the day got quite warm. My mum had given me a special porridge bowl (it has markings on the side for the oats and liquid, and instructions for how long to microwave it for)- it was too hot for porridge but overnight oats worked well in the bowl too.

Following the delay in the unlocking of things, Brighton half marathon finally postponed their race until October. Confusingly, when I had booked it in the middle of last year, for Feb 21, they said that if it had to be postponed, they had agreed a date of 3rd October with Brighton&Hove council. Then it was delayed from Feb to June (not the October date), and now it’s going to be 10th October, so not even their original delay date… Anyway, luckily we could change our hotel date and running a half marathon in June was never going to be my best day as I don’t run well in the heat.

The Make My Day Magical Baby Yoda hand cream smells like taffy and is absolutely amazing

When I got home I decided to paint our gate (well, make a start on it anyway). It was too hot at the weekend to be out in the sun, but by that time of day it was shaded. It was so fiddly though, and the paint was quite watery so I made a big mess on the card that I’d put down. I was planning on doing the other side and second coats later in the week, but the weather did not play ball!

My Vitality top and medal arrived so I thought I’d wear the top on a run. It was so warm on Wednesday that I set up yoga in the living room. Usually I go in my office, but the sun shines in there all afternoon and the window doesn’t open that wide so it’s not the best when it’s very hot. It was good to take part in the class with the view of the garden- it reminded me of actually going to yoga as the space we use looked out onto some gardens (and sometimes in the summer we would take our mats outside and take the class under the trees). During the nidra session the rain started, and got heavier and heavier. I was thinking I would be soaked on my run on Thursday, but it had stopped raining and was just so humid.

Andy had bought these Wicked Kitchen cinnamon rolls and they are the closest to the Starbucks ones that I have found- so often they are more like pastry whereas these are the bready dough which I prefer in a cinnamon roll. A good replacement if we were away for the weekend and wanted a quick breakfast to take with us.

On Friday the rain properly fell down- crazy flooding everywhere. We managed a quick walk before dinner, partly in between the rain (and thankfully when it started up again it wasn’t too heavy) and then watched the football.

On Saturday I went for a run with Dad, followed by breakfast in their garden. Our run was very enjoyable- we did our “classic” (not) parkrun route, in reverse (we run to Jersey farm, do a lap and run home a different way). We saw a few runners on the Jersey farm route (it’s a two lap course but both laps are slightly different)- one guy said to us “4 weeks to go” when he saw our parkrun tops, and then as we finished he passed us again and said “actually, 5 weeks to go!”. Even something small like that is so nice to have, and I really hope that it doesn’t get further delayed….

Andy was off into London for a work thing, so in the afternoon I decided to have a long walk in Panshanger. Now, I love seeing the cows, but I am not a fan of being in the same field as the cows- I prefer to look at them over a fence. These ones are meant to be a docile breed, but they still have huge horns, and as there were calves everywhere I didn’t want to annoy them. 

Thankfully I made it through – some were right by the path but seemed intent on just eating grass.

Of course I stopped at the amazing Planted Coffee van (all their food and drinks are plant based and they do an amazing assortment of baked goods). I went for an iced tea to accompany my walk, and then a piece of rocky road for us to share later (novel because it usually isn’t even veggie let alone vegan due to the marshmallows normally containing gelatine).

It was fairly overcast on my walk back, but it didn’t rain until I was home.

We had an Italian inspired evening with a pizza and then watching Luca, which I really enjoyed. The story was a lot smaller than a typical Pixar, but very sweet characters. Andy had been to Pret on his way back from London and picked us up an almond chocolate cookie too.

I then had a bit of a weird night- I went to sleep feeling fine, but woke up at half 2 feeling sick. I went to the bathroom and was just so dizzy I had to lie on the floor for a bit. I wasn’t sick thankfully, and started to try and get back to bed. I fainted just outside the bedroom- luckily Andy had woken up and saw me fall backwards and helped me in to bed (I thought I had just lay down on the floor in the hall, and when he ran over to me going “oh my God” I thought that he was making a bit of a fuss, but when we talked about it in the morning he said that I fell backwards out of the room and totally fainted- no wonder he was worried). I slept until 10:30 which is so unusual but I felt fine when I woke up. (I did speak to the doctor about it who said that it can happen with no clear reason, but if it happens again in the next few months they will investigate further). Anyway, on the Sunday I took it easy- no run obviously- we watched some TV including Penguin Town, did a bit of gardening and had a walk in the afternoon.

I did have a lot of excitement when I saw a little frog in our garden- I was doing some weeding and moving a few old stones and it just started hopping- it was so small (maybe an inch long) and I wouldn’t have seen it at all if it hadn’t moved. We are trying to make our garden better for wildlife- we added a pond, we’ve got log piles around, lots of flowers for bees and a patch of lawn that we don’t mow any more. Hopefully this is a good sign that it’s working.

Do you have much wildlife in your garden? Do you like cows?

After the lovely weekend with the day out at Wimpole Hall, it was back to work after a great half term break. The poppies were out in our garden, adding a huge burst of colour.

It was super warm, so I got out my shorts for my morning runs. I wanted to say I “braved” wearing shorts, because I do feel a little uncomfortable when I first start wearing them, but that made me cross with myself. It’s hot, so I should wear shorts if I want to. I am not sure what I think will happen, but I just feel way more exposed, even though they are a bit like cycling shorts in that they are longer. Anyway, they kept me cooler but of course meant that any stinging nettles or brambles stung and scratched my legs. The plants have all gone into overdrive so they are all growing across the paths- in some places if you didn’t know the path was there it would be hard to find at all.

Yoga wasn’t on, so I just had my regular morning runs on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, plus walks on a few evenings too. My knee felt a bit stiff on the Wednesday so I did a gentle 5k and that seemed to help. Not sure why.

On Friday I totally got my hopes up for parkrun returning as they had crossed the line for enough landowner permissions. I’d listened to Free Weekly Timed (I don’t always as I am not massively keen on it) as they had Nick Pearson on there, and he said that although they were awaiting the announcement from the government (which I think by that time we all knew it was being delayed as so many stories had been leaked to newspapers etc), they had some scenarios that meant it could still come back in June.  They have had some criticism for announcing that on Friday, but to be fair to parkrun, the government were meant to announce sooner, so it should have tied it.  I also think that the pressure for landowners to have agreed by that Friday meant that more were across the line. Writing this later, when we know it has been delayed by 4 weeks, I am still hopeful that it will happen then (especially as technically it could have been back in March….).

On Saturday I went for a run with my dad, and we were surprisingly speedy- just over 30 minutes which is our fastest (not)parkrun for a long time. We had breakfast in their garden, and then I pottered around at home. We popped out to a car garage as we are still going through the process of going down to one (electric) car. Andy works from home, but my car is a bit too small for a holiday away (it’s fine for a weekend).

Our salad has been growing like crazy, so it was such a treat to be able to harvest it and have it with dinner straight away. You don’t get fresher than that.

Sunday was of course long run day- 11 miles to Panshanger. I was up early as it was going to be warm, plus I wanted to be back for the football. The cows were finally back in the park, and I was quite relieved that they were all over to one side, sheltering in the shade. I am not a big fan of cows, but these breeds are meant to be very docile so it’s OK for people to walk/run through the fields. Even so, they are huge and have huge horns so I would prefer to be on the other side of the fence!

Once home I had a lovely rehydrating drink of coconut water, salt and lime juice, and then made pancakes. A bit of pottering about and then it was time to enjoy the football.

Are you enjoying the football? Do you grow any food at home?

A while back I signed up to the virtual Vitality 10k, as I’d enjoyed “racing” the virtual London Winter Run. Anyway, I realised that I was meant to do it this week,  and so on Friday I went to run it. It was meant to have rained first thing, but hadn’t, so when I was out running and it started raining it was very welcome, as it was warm.

I didn’t want to run crazily hard as I had a long run planned for the next day, but I wanted to pick up the pace a bit.

I managed some miles under 10 minutes, and was pleased to finish in 1:03 something. Not as fast as the winter run, but that’s no surprise.

From then the weather went downhill and it basically spent the day chucking it down. Luckily (?) I had a list of jobs to get on with so at least I could tick them off without wishing I was outside.

In the afternoon I was off to get my haircut. The last time it was cut was the start of January 2020, so this was pretty much 17 months to the day since the last cut.  I’d started taking pictures in March last year, and it’s quite strange to see them because with a gradual change you just don’t notice it.

March 2020

March 2021

June 2021- ridiculous- hardly even fits in the photo!

And after

I was off to a new salon, because the lovely hairdresser who cuts my hair had moved (and I was going to follow her of course). She is the only hairdresser who has not tried to make me put layers in my hair. I think because my hair is super thick, some people think that layers will take some of the hair away and thin it out, but it does the opposite- people usually have layers added to puff up their hair (that’s a technical term right there). Anyway, the new salon was in Hertford, which is near to me but I haven’t really been there. In the end I parked by parkrun and then walked the mile and a half there, but as it was pouring down it wasn’t that much fun.

I was quite nervous about going into the salon as sitting in the same place for all that time felt just the very opposite of what we are doing right now (limiting contacts and so on). But the new salon was much nicer (the one I went to before was in a shopping centre with no outdoor windows, plus it had a nail bar in it so always smelled very chemically)- bright and airy with the main door left open. A bit like with the comedy festival, I had forgotten how much better you feel after a haircut. The ends of my hair were just quite dry (no surprise there) and just all tatty as they were different lengths.

Hot cross bun after the haircut

I managed to keep it dry under my hood for the walk back to my car! I did a click and collect for a chai latte as I was feeling quite thirsty. They did offer me a drink but as you had to keep your mask on I wasn’t sure how that would work. I promise I won’t leave it another 17 months!

On Saturday I was up early for a long run, as we had plans on the Sunday. I went for a half marathon, doing a 5 mile loop and then an 8 mile loop. It was warm so I did lots of walking, but it was enjoyable and I was home before it was too unbearable.

The rest of the day was spent mainly relaxing (apart from moving some furniture around) and baking ready for Sunday. I had a few bits that had arrived (some end of term gifts for colleagues and some bits for me):

Caramel shortbread 

Including Disney themed (vegan) hand creams from Make My Day Magical (the Baby Yoda one smells like taffy!), and these cute plant pot holders/ coasters from Cottage and Castle on Etsy. To continue to chilled/Disney day vibes, we watched Raya and the Last Dragon which I really enjoyed (we both did).

On Sunday we were meeting Andy’s family at Wimpole Hall, and NT place not too far from us. Some of us are members and some had guest passes so we’d booked on to have a day there together.

We went to the farm, which I’d never been to before, but our niece and nephew loved. I loved seeing the Lil Sebastien. We packed a picnic, and I’d made caramel shortbread. It is one of Andy’s brother’s favourite bakes, and I can make it vegan using coconut condensed milk (they all thought I’d just made a non-vegan one which is a pretty good sign), although it wasn’t the easiest to transport on a warm day- I’d sliced it and wrapped it into bags but the caramel was still super gooey. Next time I’ll make cookies!  We ended up spending all day there- the grounds are huge so after the farm we had our picnic, walked around the walled gardens and main gardens, and then sat on the large lawn  in the shade of a tree until closing time.

Once home I had to make a plane costume for work (an up in the air themed day- I thought I would be Amelia Earhart as a good female role model) and then the final few bits to sort before heading back to work.

Do you like having your hair cut? I always used to feel so nervous because so many times I had left not feeling happy.