Author: Maria Runs

Last weekend started as always, with a run (listening to WMN), the parkrun quiz (10/15 that week) and then pancakes.

The weather was lovely first thing, but it soon clouded over. Never mind, a good time to get on with all the weekend jobs (cleaning, tidying, washing etc). Early afternoon we decided to have a walk, as there was a higher chance of rain at 4pm. As we were out we could see huge dark clouds in the distance and heard a few rumblings of thunder. We got home, washed our hands and then the heavens opened. It was crazy, with torrential rain, hailstones and lightning overhead. I don’t mind rain, but I was very glad we were home before that!

I made some rosemary roasted nuts (from the Fearne Cotton book- so many fab recipes in there) and then we settled down to begin our project- the WDW Lego castle. We listened to a podcast while we worked, and basically finished the first layer.

On Saturday night we watched The Lovebirds (with Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani), which was a comedy film (reminded me a bit of Game Night) and quite funny.

I also found out that parkrun UK used one of my photos (in my new apricot top)!

On Sunday I decided to run a bit more of the WGC 20/20 route. I went past the golf course and then instead of turning right (like last time) I followed the signs left for around a mile before turning back on myself, and finishing the loop. I found fields and woods only a few miles from home that I’d never been to.

Just wonderful.

Once home  (and I’d had a shower and breakfast) Andy’s parents popped over to sit in the garden, although sadly after around 30 mins it rained so they had to go home.  I was a bit worried about it, because of being back at work (in an enclosed space with children, exposed to all the germs from those families etc) I feel I am now more likely than ever to have picked it up, but it was their choice and we made sure to sit a long way apart.

I made some Chelsea-style cinnamon buns (a sort of mixture of two recipes, using the dough from the cinnamon bun recipe and adding in the dried fruit filling), and we had one in the afternoon after a few garden jobs.

In the evening we finished watching The last Dance, and then somehow the weekend was over.

Do you have any weekend rituals or routines at the moment? Do you tend to stick to the same routes or do you like exploring new areas?  I have such a bad sense of direction that often I have to get out google maps on my phone to work out where I am, and I also worry about accidentally ending up in a field of cows or something. This 20/20 route is fairly well marked with only one confusing part (a sign for a public footpath but then closed gates in front of houses with no clear path through).

So this week was back to being in work all the time instead of the rota system we have had up until now. I did some yoga before heading in on Monday morning.

Tuesday morning run scenes and Monday night dinner

And if anyone says re-opening of schools, then please picture Ross from Friends as he screams “We were on a break“- because schools were never closed! Anyway, on Monday Andy made a katsu curry for dinner (using quorn pieces)- with lots of pickled cabbage and some edamame beans, it was very tasty (and I am not usually a curry fan). The weather was due to be warm and I didn’t really want to be running at half 5 in the evening, and I’ve enjoyed my early morning runs so far, so I decided to set the alarm for just after 5 on Tues, Wed and Thurs for early morning runs. As I need to leave by around 7.20, I could only fit in 4 miles, so no Tuesday 10k for me. I do like the start to the day- the first ten minutes after waking up I do question my sanity, but once outside and moving I feel so much better. I wasn’t sleeping much anyway so was often awake at that time, so I figured I may as well make the most of it. The bonus is that when I get home, we can have a pot of tea and maybe watch some TV, or have a walk and catch up on the day.

Although on Tuesday around 2 miles in I thought that my shoes felt strange, and I then realised I was wearing non-running trainers. The drawback of running at 5am perhaps. I felt totally mortified though because I posted a pic on Instagram of my shoes, and then saw everyone was doing a Black Out Tuesday in solidarity with George Floyd and all of the protesters. Everything felt so trivial all of the sudden- being at work I just had not thought about anything that was happening in the wider world that day. I signed up to the Brooks challenge where they are donating a dollar for each signup for the Equal Justice Initiative (their website also has lots of useful information). I listened to the latest JVN podcast where he talked to a DA about how they can fight police brutality and made good points about making sure you use your vote (council elections, the police commissioners as well as general elections). I thought a lot about the film Just Mercy (based on a true story of a lawyer trying to help someone on Death Row, linked to the EJI), which must be one of the last films we went to see before the lockdown. The British Podcast email had a collection of educational ones to listen to, and Change.Org sent a list of petitions to sign this week. But of course there is a lot more to do.

On with the rest of the week…

We found a Pudding Stop sticky toffee pudding in the freezer so shared that for pudding and it was delicious.

I was excited to see some big flowers on my courgette plants, and now we actually have some teeny courgettes growing too.

On Wednesday I took part in the global running day earning some Strava badges and also getting some shoes out of the box (I’ve had them for a while as I bought them in the sale). Yoga was back on, and I really enjoyed the session. I’d bought an eye pillow from the Hitchin Lavender farm, so had that on during the final relaxation and I really could have fallen asleep on the floor of my office.

Thursday morning run scene and a hot chocolate for the evening

Despite the weather starting off warm, it was windy and rainy and cold- we have to have all the doors open at work (to keep the fresh air coming in) and even though I was wearing a thick jumper and long sleeved top (in June!) I was so cold, so once home and after dinner we had a hot chocolate to warm up. We also found this Tony’s bar lurking at the back of a drawer so opened that too.

On Friday a big box of packet of biscuits (the ones you get in B&B’s) appeared in our staff-room from some lovely parents. Now our planning time is on a Friday afternoon (due to the bubble system you can’t have another teacher taking your group) and I had an online meeting, so I headed home to tea and biscuits while doing the virtual meeting. As someone who is not great at technology I was quite impressed with how the meeting went. I’d made some sourdough the night before and shaped it in the morning, so that was baked ready for Friday night dinner too.

I also really fancied some pb chocolate brownies, but after the bread baking (and we went out on a walk) I didn’t really have time, so I used a mix from the Superfood Bakery, and just added some peanut butter to it. Then it was time for Queer Eye as the new series dropped on Friday- hooray!

I made the mistake of checking facebook after that, and saw that our local paper had reported that the clock tower was going to be lit up in purple for Black Lives Matter. A good thing, only you would not think that from the comments. I know you are not meant to read the internet comments, but some of them were so nasty (the people whinging that all lives matter-I liked one reply which was something like “save the whales doesn’t mean kill all other animals…”). And the hypocrisy of people complaining about the protests, when a few weeks before for the VE day weekend lots of people were out having street parties (when that wasn’t allowed) doing congas and all sorts… To be fair there were plenty of people trying to explain (leading to some heated arguments), but it did shock me the number of people who were perfectly OK with having their racist views on a public place like that.

How has your week been? 

After my as-now standard 10k run on Tuesday morning, I had breakfast in the garden and then decided to have a go at making bagels.

We had ordered my favourite cream cheese with our shopping (Nush stuff, made from almonds and is gorgeous) and there is no better combination that a bagel and cream cheese.

I was not looking forward to the boiling part (you poach them for a few minutes once they have risen, and before you bake them) as I had visions of the dough disintegrating into the water, but in fact it was fine.

They were super tasty, and not as hard as I had imagined so I would definitely give them another go. I used this recipe (and halved it because I didn’t think they would keep for that long after) and it was one of the simplest ones I’ve come across.

I had lots of work to do, but then as now we are allowed to leave the house for exercise more than once, we had a nice walk in the evening together once it was a bit quieter. That is pretty much our only change (I’m still not comfortable with the idea of going to a shop or takeaway or anything like that).

Wednesday was another day with a run first thing, breakfast in the garden and then doing more work. I was trying to get all my work finished by Wednesday so I could have the Thursday and Friday off, but famous last words and all that… Anyway, yoga wasn’t on so I made us some bread to have with soup for dinner.

Thursday was a happy day. As I’d run to Ellenbrook fields last week and found the route OK, I messaged my dad and asked him if he wanted to meet me there, so we did. He cycled there and we met there just after 9am. We ran a loop of the fields together, chatting the whole way around. We spotted so many birds (woodpeckers, chaffinches, even a skylark hovering above the grassy field), and chatting as we ran was just so enjoyable and not the same as a phone call. Our final km along the runway (the finish of EF parkrun) was pretty fast, and then we stood around in the shade for ages after, chatting some more. I always just leave my watch running, and according to Strava my moving time was 2:17 but the elapsed time was 3:16 so I think we must have chatted for an hour after before I had to run home. 13.1 miles in total for the second half marathon of the month.

After brunch and a shower I had to squeeze in a bit of extra work (I shouldn’t have said anything about having some work-free days) before getting ready for afternoon tea. Some of my team at work had decided to do one over Zoom, so I baked some scones and prepped my snacks. I opened the peach and lavender jam from the Hitchin Lavender farm (I bought the jam last summer)- I love peach jam, so summery. Topped with a little Oatly creme fraiche so it tasted even more summery. (I also had some veggies, oatcakes and hummus- someone (even though they know I’m veggie) asked if a carrot was a fish finger!). It was so much fun to catch up with everyone and although we did talk a bit about the wider opening of schools next week, we also just chatted about everything else. Everyone is getting into gardening so it was nice to compare notes.

I did not want to watch the 5pm briefing (I’m finding it increasingly stressful to watch because I feel like everything is way out of my control and just not sensible at the moment) so I watched Springwatch while Andy watched the briefing.  I also found my first courgette flower on one of my plants- how exciting! We had a walk before dinner (beans + marmite + violife cheese on sourdough). Mmm.

We started watching The Last Dance after hearing so many good things about it, so that’s been good evening TV.

On Friday I did some yoga (I am so slowly working by way through the 30 days with Adrienne- I think this was Day 11!), and then had a walk to stretch my legs. I thought they would feel worse after the 13 miles, but I think as I had a long break in the long run they were actually OK. My ambition to not do any work failed yet again as I had more bits to deal with, but I also spent time doing some things on my list at home (including rolling all of our Ocado carrier bags, as they used to take them back but don’t at the moment, so we just bunch them up and shove them in the cupboard under the stairs- after 10 weeks it is getting hard to find space!), sorting out my new house plants and organising my desk a bit better.

Colour coded of course.

We used our Vitality code to hire a film for Friday night- The Day Shall Come- (about the FBI using undercover agents to try to entrap people into terrorist activities) which was very good but also just bit depressing.

Saturday was the standard 5 miles before the parkrun quiz (and you can see one of my new plants)- 9/15 this week, so better than last week but no pb!  Once that was finished I made us pancakes for breakfast, with berries and maple butter.

Then I made the Pret Love Bar (they have been publishing some of their recipes on Insta) – it is basically a flapjack topped with caramel, chocolate drops, nuts and seeds. I didn’t have any pumpkin seeds so I used some coconut instead.

We had to prep some quiz questions for later on (Andy borrowed a very funny idea from Joe Lycett) where you blur out a picture of a castle and have to guess which one it is (we included Cinderella’s castle). Andy’s car had not been working (the battery had gone flat) so after getting a charger he wanted to test it out, so we popped over to see his brother as he had  cleared out  their garage and found some bits they’d borrowed from us ages ago- it meant I could give them some of the flapjack too as it made rather a lot!

We managed a quick walk before dinner and were just ready in time for the quiz, which was good fun as always. Then we watched the space rocket launch and went outside to see if we could spot it (but we couldn’t- we did see the ISS though).

On Sunday I headed back to the new paths that I’ve been finding, and looked for more of the WCG 20/20 route.

I took my time, stopped and looked at lambs, birds, and of course the signs! 6.5 miles and that was plenty as it was so warm.

I’d made cinnamon rolls the night before and so they just needed baking and topping (using the rest of the cream cheese and a little maple syrup) for breakfast before heading out to the garden. While Andy did the tough jobs like moving the concrete slabs that he’s been digging out, I did jobs like planting out sunflowers, putting pumpkin plants into bigger pots, a bit of weeding, splitting my spider plants and potting on a little house plant.

I had persuaded Andy to do No Mow May (to encourage flowers for the bees) and you could do a flower count- there are a lot more daisies in a metre than you would think!

 Then it was time to pack my work bag yet again and wonder where the last week had gone.

Have you ever made bagels? Is there something on your list that you would like to try but have not got around to yet? Have you made any changes since the lock down guidelines changed? (I know they have since been even further relaxed in England but I am still sticking to essential travel and exercise)

Saturday morning started the same way for me as it has for the past eleventy weeks- a run, quick shower and then the parkrun quiz.

My run was very enjoyable, listening to With Me Now, and heading down some different streets to my recent runs. It was pretty breezy, and I think that was keeping people home because I didn’t see very many people out so not much crossing the road required. One road had blue ribbons on all of the trees- for the NHS maybe?

The quiz was a personal worst for me- 8/15 (too many maths questions!), but I do like doing it because it reminds me that it’s Saturday and keeps me a bit connected to the parkrun world.

Then we had Swedish cardamom buns for breakfast- I have had this recipe earmarked for ages and only just got around to making them. Grinding the cardamom seeds (and getting them out of the pods) took a while, but honestly the are better than cinnamon buns. So so good. Although I could  not quite follow the twisting instructions, so I made them into normal swirl shapes.

After being fairly sunny first thing, it got quite overcast and so I did some bits around the house, baked some lemon and lime bars and did a bit of work. Later on we popped over to (socially distance) drop some things off at Andy’s and my parents houses- Andy came with me so he could say hi, as usually I’ve been dropping things off on my way to or from work (as I work in St Albans which is where they all live)- it was his first time out of WGC in over 2 months!

Also, how tiny is this marmite jar? We had ordered the big jar (500g maybe?) but it was out of stock so we got this as a substitute instead- it won’t even last a week!

For dinner we tried a recipe from the recipe book I got for my birthday (Happy Vegan)- coconut cream spinach pasta. It was really tasty and very easy- basically cook up some pasta and then blitz all the ingredients for the sauce in the food processor- it was optional to top with chilli flakes, and as I am not a spicy person I opted for pine nuts instead. It was really tasty and we will definitely have it again.

We watched some Killing Eve as we tend to save series up and then watch them over a week or so, instead of having lots on the go.

On Sunday I headed out for a shorter long run (7.5 miles) as I had run 13 on Thursday. Home to another cardamom bun and then a day of relaxing in the garden (well, until the government “kindly” published the early years guidance for wider opening of schools, on a Sunday of a Bank holiday weekend, at the start of half term…..).

When we sat outside having a cup of tea I noticed that my yellow jumper was totally covered in bugs, but of course none of them show up on the picture!

A while ago I earned a 25% off Lulu voucher for a Strava challenge, and it ran out on Sunday and I’d been umming and ahhing about whether to get anything. In the end I chose some shorts (be brave) but the code didn’t work. I tried a few things, and in the end was helped by messaging them on facebook.

On Monday morning we headed out on a long walk- we have had a library book for ages (months of course) and although they are closed and have extended the loan, we had heard that if you posted it through the door, they were being dealt with by staff, so we went the very long way around to town. Some parts that we walked through were much older so I was keeping my eye out for old post boxes, but mainly saw GR ones.

Once home I sat outside in the shade and worked by way through some old magazines- reading a February running magazine in May is quite funny because half of it isn’t relevant (although I do tend to skim past the kit things anyway- I know what I like!).

In the afternoon I made some peanut butter cookies (we had one for dessert with some salted caramel oat ice cream), did a bit of work and a bit of sorting in my office- I’ve moved things around to accommodate my new plants.

We watched the Prince-Andrew style press conference (no idea why, it made me so cross) and then did a bit of weeding and tidying in the garden before pesto pasta dinner. We watched Supersize Me 2, which was  interesting, but there were parts I actually couldn’t watch.  So here are some flowers to think about instead.

Do you like marmite? Do you watch series all in one go, or have lots on the go during a week? Have you seen Supersize Me 2? And if so, would you have reacted in the same way as the people did at the end? 

Monday started with some yoga, and then a walk, before lunch of focaccia (made with the sourdough), and finished with a homemade Pret cookie in front of the TV (finished Bosch so onto Cardinal).

On Tuesday I had a run (6.6 miles- I did wonder why I didn’t round it up to 7 as usually if I go over half a mile I’ll go to the next one) first thing and a bigger breakfast as I had meetings from 12 in work. I have been looking for the next section of a public footpath, and finally found it, so I headed up there and was rewarded with lovely countryside views. I shall be going a bit further in half term I think.

I had a mini pannetone left over from Christmas, so I made that into baked French toast with some cherries and peanut butter. Mmmm so good.

After a bit of a busy (and hot) time at work (moving out all the “unnecessary” furniture, so I decided to do a bit of Disney drawing once home. This time I chose Pascal (from Tangled). I also finally got onto another item on my list- sorting out my recipes. I had a few notebooks with recipes stuck in them, recipe cards from supermarkets tucked on the shelves in between the books and so on. I had bought a big ring binder and a-z files, so went through all the recipe, got rid of any I don’t like, and put the rest into the file. I feel so much better and more organised  now.

As it was mental health awareness week I listened to Phone a Friend, which I really enjoy (It’s George Ezra and his friend Ollie, and they talk about mental health issues and other things)- I find it very comforting and not too heavy going.

Allison had mentioned this fun website where you can Disney-fy yourself, so I created myself on there.

I went for a Frozen themed one to match our last Disney trip.

Wednesday I had a run (5 miles)- it was very hot, soooo much hotter than Tuesday!

In my new Happy Vegan book there was a recipe for an ultimate sandwich, so I made a version of it for lunch (because I didn’t have all the  ingredients)- toasted sourdough, hummus, miso, carrot, beetroot- it was so tasty.

The main colour in our garden right now is this pinky red, but the peonies are on their way out. The final one always makes me think of Beauty and The Beast with the petals falling on the floor one by one.

Yoga on Wednesday was good too, although very warm and there wasn’t much airflow in my office even with the window open, plus I felt a bit self conscious as our neighbours can probably see in.

Thursday was exactly 4 years since Ellenbrook Fields parkrun started, and I’d had in the back of my mind an idea to run there and back. It’s over 5 miles away, so it is a fair long way, but gentle rain was forecast so I decided to get up early and head over there.

I was looking at the postboxes on the way, and when I stopped to look at one on a post (middle right pic) I noticed one in the wall behind it- I was so excited when I found it was a VR one (bottom left)!!

EF parkrun starts with a little loop and then you do a big lap of the fields, through open fields, woodland, a field of cows (eeek) and finally along the runway, so I decided to do the big loop and miss out the little loop because I had to run home too. Although once I got close to home I was on about 12.5 miles, so I did a run around the block to make it up to 13.1 miles- may as well have a half marathon for May.

EF had asked for photos on their facebook page, so I spent a bit of time looking through, and found one with my dad, brother and mum- I think from my 100th as my mum came along to that and had made piles of cakes. I did get really tearful looking at it, because I find it hard to work out when we will be able to get together like that- not even at parkrun but just seeing my parents and family in general. At least we are all still keeping in touch and have good times to look back on.

I was glad to have been out because I then had a big pile of work to get on with, so I actually appreciated sitting down. My office got very warm though (it gets the sun in the afternoon) so I ended up taking my laptop downstairs and doing some work in front of the TV as it was cooler in there (the battery only lasts a couple of hours though and when I’m accessing the remote stuff the battery icon doesn’t show up so it’s a bit risky!).

For my birthday I’d been given some vouchers for Patch (they sell lovely house plants)- Andy decided to order a couple too, and they arrived so we had a very big collection of boxes!

I’m pleased with how they look, although we did it across two orders so they haven’t all come yet. The red poppy in our garden started to flower and it’s enormous!.

On Friday I had to wait in for a delivery (Andy had solid meetings from 7.30) so I felt a bit spaced by the time we went out for a walk (plus my mind was boggling from all the logistics of the potential wider opening at work…). Heading into the garden always helps, and lots of the geraniums have started flowering.

In the evening we decided to rent a film- as we have Vitality we used to get a cinema ticket each fortnight, and they replaced that with a rental, only because we have Netflix and Disney + and Amazon Prime there has always been so much to watch. We’d heard good things about The Assistant, so we watched that. It was good, but quite draining too, so needed Gogglebox after for a little bit of light-heartedness.

Do you round up your runs to the next mile/ km? Have you seen any good films lately? I’m enjoying the new Kermode and Mayo TV show where they talk about film and TV and we have added a few more things to our list after watching that.