Author: Maria Runs

Last week was the final week before the holidays and as with all the weeks before, it was pretty much the same, although I didn’t do yoga on Monday morning and I have no idea why (I think I had to be in work earlier for a meeting, but I can’t remember).

Red Velvet tea and TV one evening, and a really tasty noodle recipe from the Fearne Cotton book (a peanut butter sauce with smoked tofu, broccoli and courgettes)

Anyway, early morning runs on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and our final yoga class on Wednesday evening. Some people talked about possibly re-starting in the actual yoga venue in September, but I can’t imagine that at the moment. Also some people seem to interpret the “1 metre plus” as being 1 metre, and forgetting the plus part (which means additional measures like masks, windows open, additional cleaning etc)- I can’t imagine doing yoga in a mask, and I also don’t think it would be that responsible of me to go as once back at work in September I’ll be exposed to all of the germs that come with being in a room with 30 children all day. I am hoping the online classes continue.

Early morning run weather/ waffle/ iced tea matching my nail varnish

I had planned a trip to the Waffle House on Friday with some colleagues, and after chatting about it Andy decided he fancied waffles for dinner (on Thursday) so we made the hummus and avocado ones- so tasty.

And then we reached the end of term- and it felt very strange indeed. A couple of us had arranged to head to the Waffle House for a late lunch (we finish early on the last day of term, and Friday pm’s has been our planning time so we could head off once everything was sorted)- they were doing takeaway only, with a smaller menu, and you had to order online. I was a bit apprehensive about it, having still not been anywhere like that (no takeaway, no coffee shop, certainly no supermarket or anything) since March, but it was actually quite good to see how well it worked and how everyone managed to keep at a distance when collecting. We then went and sat in the park and had a catch up. Although there was a huge group of people (at least 30 adults plus loads of kids) and that was a bit frustrating to see as the limit is still 6 people outside meeting up.

It was good to mark the end of term (and year) in some way, because so many of the other events (like sports day) have not happened so it has felt rather strange and a bit of an anticlimax. I was given some lovely gifts from colleagues and children/ parents, including these gorgeous cakes- the penguin was a particular favourite of mine of course!

In the evening I watched a live podcast of a teaching related comedy one (Two Mr P’s) and that helped make it feel a bit more like the end of term too.

Saturday was standard with a run with my dad and brother, breakfast in their garden, and then relaxing at home. Our tomatoes have finally started turning red so it’s been good to eat them after tending them for so long.

On Sunday I had a run around some of the WGC 20/20 route, and then did a bit of pottering in the garden. We had been working our way through Mrs America which I really enjoyed. I thought I would find it annoying (I gave up on Mad Men after a few episodes because the sexism was so frustrating) but I found it so interesting to see how the movement developed, although you could also see how the scaremongering worked and how that it still used today by some political parties. Worth a look on i-player anyway.

We had seen on a Queer Eye episode a recipe using pickled grapes, so we adapted it a bit (pesto pasta veggies, some quorn and then pickled grapes). To make them you basically soak them in red wine vinegar for a few hours and they are so tasty. I love pickled anything so this was a win for me.

Do you like pickled foods? Have you been out to eat yet? I definitely don’t feel like going to a restaurant any time soon, although we would not tend to do that regularly anyway. I think it was good for me, mentally, because I have built a lot of things up in my head to be bigger than they actually are.

Last Saturday I headed over for a run with my dad and brother. Dad had mapped out a new route, partly through woods and taking in a small section of the Jersey Farm route- we are very conscious that we don’t want to be running on the parkrun route on a Saturday morning. We had lovely views across the valley at one point, and again really enjoyed running together. My brother had stopped off at Simmons (a bakers) and picked up croissants for breakfast. I’d still taken my water and tea with me, and we had a lovely breakfast in the garden.

When I got home Andy had been digging up more of the concrete lumps that are hiding in our garden- we have a big pile of junk now! I made some fudge for end of year gifts, using condensed coconut milk (partly as an experiment, but also Ocado didn’t have any normal condensed milk)- it turned out pretty well.

I also did some pottering in the garden and of course had tea sat out there. I kept seeing loads of butterflies feeding on the flowers.

On Sunday morning we had some family coming over, so I postponed my run to the afternoon because I didn’t want to set an alarm. Oh how I wished I had done that! It was so hot! I went through the woods (lovely) but then ended up on the golf course and of course there is no shade there!

I did find a penguin pebble which I just loved!

When I got home I had a peach, and the peach was perfect and juicy and sweet and just what I needed.

I decided to do a lush hair treatment because the ends of my hair are getting quite dry now. I usually get it cut maybe 3 times a year, and as it had been cut at Christmas I would have gone in the Easter holidays. When it became apparent that I would not be having it cut any time soon, I took a “before” photo, and this week decided to do the “part way through” (because I am not braving the hairdressers yet- it’s now been 4 months since I went to a shop and from what I hear they are worse now as loads of people are relaxing and not keeping their distance any more…).  Anyway, I couldn’t see much difference at first but then looking at where my hair is against the lettering on the t-shirt it shows it has grown a bit.

End of March:

Beginning of July:

These lockdown locks are here to stay a bit longer. When I’ve been running in the morning I’ve washed it and blow dried it for a bit but it takes ages to dry, so I’ve been plaiting it and going to work with it damp- it will still be damp when I take the plait out when I get home. I sometimes use straighteners to tidy it up a bit, but I have probably used them a handful of times since March. I’ve got this lovely hair oil from The Body Shop which I leave on as an overnight treatment every now and then. I think I just need to make sure I do a deep condition each week to stop it drying out any more.

How do you look after your hair? Have you braved the hairdressers yet? 

Last week was the penultimate week of term and as always things start to feel even busier as all of the extra end of term/year admin has to fit in around a regular week. Tea (particularly Bird&Blend tea) has been getting me through! After watching Frozen 2, I started watching the behind the scenes series on Disney + which is so interesting as you can see how the various creative people (songwriters, animators, story creators) work together to develop the story.

I really appreciated doing some yoga (Day 17- I’m slowly getting there!) on Monday morning to set myself off in the right frame of mind before a fraught week (I had meetings/ training before or after school every day and sometimes at both ends of the day).

On Tuesday I did a warm up and then the 3.1 miles to have a go at not-parkrun. I didn’t need to stop at all when crossing roads (I mean, I slowed to check, but there were no cars coming) and I was pleased to get home in just under 30 mins (29:46). I only remembered to log my time on Sunday though!

I got rather wet on my Wednesday morning run, and then really enjoyed yoga in the evening. I will miss these classes in the holidays (they are term time only). The final Pret style cookie and some cherries was a very good post-yoga snack.

On Thursday I did another run in the morning (thankfully not quite so wet as the day before). I’ve been getting into a good sourdough routine at the end of the week- on Thursday I get the starter out of the fridge and feed it, and then later on in the evening I mix up the dough (in a mixer with a dough hook)  and leave it to rise overnight. On Friday morning I knead the dough (by hand) and then put it in the basket. Once home I heat up the oven, tip the loaf into the tray and slice the top before baking it. We then have delicious bread on Friday (and freeze any leftover slices).

We decided to do another Choose your own adventure with Kimmy on Friday- it’s good fun and as we tried to choose differently from last time we got to see various new clips. It is so clever the way it works.

I’ve said before that I have enjoyed my early morning runs at this time of year, and one bonus is that when I get home we can have a pot of tea together, and then maybe have a walk (or I’ll get on with some work before dinner). The drawback is that I only have time for a certain length of run- I did quite like doing a 10k on a Tuesday when I was working from home, but I would have to get up way before 5am for that and it just does not seem worth it. I am thinking that once the holidays are here I will get back to a slightly longer run on Tuesdays at least.

Do you like behind the scenes things? On a tangent the podcast Soundtracking with Edith Bowman was really good- each week she would discuss a different film soundtrack, and have a guest on there who worked on it (director/ musician and so on).

What is your favourite type of tea? Usually I would choose Earl Grey (B&B do Earl Grey Creme which has vanilla which is lovely) but I have been loving some of their other special blends such as Peach Cobbler (black tea with peach). I’ve nearly run out of Red Velvet tea and it’s not on sale all year so I am keeping my fingers crossed that it’s in their Christmas in July sale…

Last week was again a standard week- yoga on Monday, a run on Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning and Thursday morning, online yoga class on Wednesday evening, and a few walks in the evenings too.

I did some more fence painting. My mum had made caramel shortbread so when we popped over for my dad’s birthday she gave us some to take away- delicious with freshly picked raspberries too.

On Tuesday morning I decided to have a go at another (not) parkrun, as for the last couple of weeks I’ve logged my Saturday time but we have been running together and chatting, so I thought I’d see if I could go a bit faster.  My runs on my own are enjoyable headspace time, and I tend to plod along at between 10 and 11 min miles- perfectly good but I do miss the push I get from parkrun to give me a little bit of (relative) speed. I did a mile warm up, saved the run and then started a new run.  I had to slow down a couple of times when crossing roads as there were cars coming, and I got to 3.1 miles just over 30 minutes (30:11). Much quicker than the 34 ish mins we’ve been running recently. I am not particularly motivated by time, but I fancied a different focus. I tend to do the same route in the mornings because it’s fairly quiet, so having something else to think about is quite nice.

Our new pond plants arrived so we put them in- literally the easiest gardening ever! They came in special baskets with special aqua compost, and you just read the label to see how deep they needed to be, and popped them in. Done! (The digging and lining of the pond was not so easy!)

I often hear the foxes at night (and see the “presents” they leave for us) but on Wednesday morning when I was getting changed for my run I saw a couple in the garden. There were some beautiful clouds on my runs too- different shapes and patterns each day.

Thursday morning the clouds were similar in shape but much finer. Also one of my sunflowers bloomed- it reminds me of marmalade!

On Friday I was very exited because Hamilton was going to be launched  on Disney + ( a recording of the Broadway version).  I was up early making bread so we could have a fairly early dinner, and then we settled down to watch it, with some iced tea and sweets. I really enjoyed it- I wasn’t sure how well the energy and music would come across, but it was as gripping and enjoyable as the stage show. Although I did not appreciate the close up of King George III with the spit going down his chin! I also really liked that they had an intermission (although only one minute- we had to pause it!).

On Saturday I drove over to home and my brother met us to have a run together. We ran on a farm loop that I’d run with Dad a few weeks ago. This time we had to wait because one of the paths goes through a field and there was a bit of an antsy horse- thankfully there was someone nearby who held the horse while we ran through. The path then goes through a barley field and it was very deep at times. Then it was home for breakfast in the garden, more fence painting and then watching the With Me Now pod link up to parkrun restarting in New Zealand. It was so enjoyable to watch, and I just love that wherever you are in the world, parkrun has the same template. It seems like it will be a long way off for us in the UK (we are still having more deaths than when the lockdown was introduced) but it will be ready for us when we are allowed.

On a side note, parkrun announced that the New Year Day Doubles would be no more, and predictably some people have taken the news very badly. I have loved taking part in them, but this year the attendance figures were so huge (some event had triple their normal numbers) and with that comes things like inconsiderate parking, which can jeopardise the future of the event.  We still get an extra one on that day, so although it’s sad to see the doubles go, we should all be happy that there can still be an extra one (and hopefully by 1st January 2021 parkrun might be back?).

I also made some of the Pret almond butter chocolate cookies (honestly, the best cookies ever) and we did a bit more of the lego Disney castle.

In the evening we watched the film Irresistible, which was a sort of comedy written by Jon Stewart about an election in a small town in the USA. It was quite good but a bit depressing about how much politics relies on money.

Then on Sunday I went off to run the final part of the 20/20 route. I thought that the path would still be flooded, so I tried to work out where it would meet the road. Handily someone in my running club has been completing the route fairly regularly, so I looked up her Strava map which helped me a lot.

After going through a lot of overgrown paths and around a little village, I was into the golf club at Brocket Hall. I’ve only been there for afternoon tea before, and the grounds always look so beautiful but I didn’t realise that there was a public footpath there until now.

I got a bit lost in the golf course as there were lots of public footpaths criss-crossing the course. Because the route is both clockwise and anticlockwise, there are always  two arrows, so it’s good to look and work out which direction you should be coming from to help work out the angle. Anyway, the last arrow I saw directed me up and to the right, and the road went this was for a bit before bending left, so I followed the road. I saw a few more footpath signs but no 20/20 signs, until eventually I reached the edge of the golf course and some woods. There was a map and when I looked I was on the bottom left when I should have been the top right. I think I added around a mile on! I retraced my steps to where I’d last seen the sign, and probably about 20m further up was a post on the floor, in the shade of a small tree. No wonder I hadn’t seen it. There wasn’t anyone around to tell though, as the post would need putting back up again.

The signs exiting the golf course weren’t great either, and I only found the right way because I knew I should be heading to Sherrardspark Wood across the road. Apart from that though it was all fairly easy to find (and that’s taking it from me- I do get lost a lot). In the summer holidays I am going to run the whole thing and I’m really looking forward to that as it’s lovely and varied.

Then we had waffles and finally finished painting the fence- hooray! The last couple of panels were a team effort with Andy holding back the big plants while I squeezed in the gap and painted while trying hard not to get covered in green paint myself!

Andy’s parents then came over and we walked down to the hospital, because as part of the celebrations for the NHS birthday a spitfire was going to be flying over several local hospitals. It was leaving Duxford at 4.20 and apparently would be over the QE2 at 4.28- it was pretty much bang on time. It had “thank u NHS” written on the bottom, and did a couple of loops before flying off to the next location. Lots of people had come out to watch (the most people I’ve seen in months) but I was very impressed with how everyone stayed apart. Once home I realised I was pretty hungry so had a little afternoon snack of biscuits topped with cheese and lingonberry jam, and cherries.

In the evening Andy was watching the football so I decided to watch Frozen 2 while painting my nails- I’ve not painted them since lockdown began because I’ve been doing decorating and gardening, and there doesn’t seem to be much point in doing that if they are going to get chipped. So in celebration of finally finishing painting the fence, I thought I would treat myself. Andy even brought me up a cup of tea and a cookie at half term- perfect.

Such a lovely end to the weekend.

Have you seen Hamilton? What did you think? 

Have you completed a NYDD before? And what do you think about them going?

 

On Saturday morning I drove over to my parents and my dad, my brother and I went on a 5k route. Dad had mapped out a new route for us, starting in the same way but coming back a different way. It rained on and off, but only for a few minutes at a time, and it was a nice temperature.

Look at my pumpkins! They were only raisin-sized last week!

Once back at theirs it rained a bit more- my mum and dad sheltered inside and opened the back doors, and my brother and I stood outside in our coats! They put a table by the back door with some croissants on, and I had brought my tea and water with me so I was all sorted. Dad kept saying he  felt guilty for us being outside, but I reminded him I was an early years teacher so very well prepared for being outside in all weathers!

As we were heading back there on Sunday, I didn’t stay too long, and once home got on with a few hours of work, before pottering around in the garden later on. My plan had been to paint more of the fence panels, but it kept raining for maybe 5 minutes every hour, so it just would not be dry. Maybe next week!

We watched From Up on Poppy Hill, a Ghibli film, on Saturday night, as a break from all the documentaries.

Then on Sunday I was off exploring the next section of the WCG 20/20 route.   For anyone local, the map is here. I’ve been going anti-clockwise from home, out and back, and have made it close to the town centre (Sherrardspark Woods), so this week decided to go in the other direction. The route went through a local nature reserve- I’ve seen signs to it from the main road, but it always looked like a very small field so I hadn’t bothered going there. It was actually a good mile or so of footpaths through woods, past fields (with long horned cattle), with little bridges over streams.

It was wonderful and I cannot believe that I haven’t been there before. The route then goes through a golf course which was a bit scary because it had loads of signs saying that it was private properly, keep to the footpath, look left or right for golfers and so on, but the signs weren’t that easy to see. The footpath wasn’t obvious because there were loads of paths criss-crossing the golf-way. Anyway, I found my way out! It then took me along the farm track that I’ve not run along since I was chased by dogs (thankfully no dogs today) and then into Stanborough Lakes. The route at the far end directed me down some steps and under a bridge, but the path under the bridge was totally flooded, and I’d run over 5 miles at this point so decided to re-trace my steps. I was going to go further and then head home the more direct way through town, but this way was fine.

There were wet footprints on the steps so someone had braved it, but it was ankle deep at the part closest to me so I didn’t fancy it.

Once home I had a shower and waffles (with peanut butter, maple syrup and fruit), and then we headed over to visit our parents- first Andy’s and then mine. It was my dad’s birthday in the week so we gave him his card and presents and my mum had made caramel shortbread- good choice! We were so lucky with the weather-  we were in my parents garden and had to leave (as Andy wanted to be back for the football) and as we were walking through the garage it started bucketing down!

There went my plan for painting the fence while Andy watched the football anyway! I had a bit of work to get on with so I did that, and then we had a walk later on once it was dry.

How well do you know your local area?