Category: Stuff I love!

So, half time finally rolled around. What with extra meetings, parents evenings and other things, I was pretty shattered by the time it arrived. I was just imagining laying in bed all day (something I never do, but I sometimes like the idea of it) when I got a message from my dad asking me if I fancied parkrun in the morning. Well, I couldn’t refuse!

Andy got me some flowers for Friday evening as the last week had been so manic.

He picked me up as we chose the newer one (I am on the way to that one, whereas I drove to the other one as I passed their house on the the way). This time I brought gloves with me, as it was a chilly morning. You have to park a little way from the start (7 min walk for us) so I wore my jacket and we left them in carrier bags near the start as we knew we would get cold on the walk back.

My dad got me into parkruns last year, but this year has had a knee injury (apparently at 60 he is too old for the op…) and over the summer had the OK to start running again. October was his parkrun target and we went a few weeks ago to the first Panshanger one, although he ran a bit ahead of me that time. This time we ran together – it was lovely to have a catch up and chat, and enjoy the beautiful views. He kept doing little spurts to overtake people, and I would catch up, but in the final half k he put on a great spurt and I could not keep up. The course is undulating, but finishes with a very steep climb, so I knew I could not catch him. There were less people at the start than the time we went before, but I was still surprised to have finisher token 81- normally I am in the high hundreds- my first ever one I finished number 82 but the weather that day was shocking so not many people came!

Dad had finished 3 places ahead, so we queued to have our chips scanned and then headed back to the car. It was just such a great start to the day- I am really pleased for my dad that he is back running again- he is not competative at all, but he really enjoyed doing parkruns and when he first got his injury that was what he wanted to get back to doing. I didn’t get a pb overall, but I did get a pb for the course (I didn’t realise that the parkrun stats keep the different courses separate to each other)- 29.32, which was still pleasing.

Ages ago I mentioned to Andy that I wanted to do 25 by Christmas. He took this to mean a sub- 25!  I don’t think I could manage that (especially not on this course as it is more hilly and not on roads) – I meant doing 25 runs. Well, this weekend was my 23rd, so you would think I am well on track. But, we have a few weekends away (including a trip to Brighton for the 10k race there), and I am marshaling on one free weekend, so I think I only have 2 Saturday’s left between now and the end of the year! We shall have to see if I make the target or not.

I made myself caramel apple french toast for brunch- I have not had this in a few weeks! I made the french toast as usual, then chopped an apple and cooked it in the pan, and then drizzled with a little toffee sauce (from the Lake District). Delish.

Then I put on some music and spent a few hours cleaning and tidying- when work gets busy our house slowly turns into a tip so it was very therapeutic to return it to a livable state.

Someone at work gave me some beautiful flowers after our very busy week.

I even tidied my nail varnish collection!

A little later I went out to the shops.

The fountain in Welwyn is always dyed pink in October for Breast Cancer awareness, and it looked rather pretty in the autumn sunlight.

I had parked a bit of a way from the town centre, so I got a chai latte to drink on the walk back to the car, and enjoyed crunching all the leaves.

When I got home I got on with some work while I waited for Andy to get back from football- it was such a great start to the weekend as I felt like I achieved a lot, but also relaxed and had some good “me” time.

How have you been enjoying this wonderful weather? I am at a wedding tomorrow, but I am not sure that the lovely weather is going to last until then.

Not to be confused with PMSL, which I think of every time I walk past a Starbucks. I wish they would not use the abbreviation.

Anyway.

To re-wind a bit first. The last few weeks have been very busy- late meetings at work, evenings out (on a school night!)- including seeing Michael Palin, and going into London to see Ken Burns (he makes documentaries). Last weekend Andy promised me a trip out on Sunday if I got all my work done on Saturday, so I worked pretty late and we had a lovely day out. That is for another post though.

For a few weeks I have been wanting to visit my Nan, but I had a cold, then a cough, and then another cold, so I could not risk it. This week I was free from germs at last, so went to see her after work.

I got home to find Andy cooking dinner, and we had a lovely chilled out evening, watching Central Park Five (by Ken Burns- which is really worth a watch when you are in a serious mood) and then cheering ourselves up with Gogglebox! Hurrah!

Saturday I was out fairly early on my long run. I ended up doing 9.5 miles (I got home and my watch said 9.43, so I ran up and down the road until I got to the half!)- it was fairly slow, but I wasn’t worried about speed, I just wanted to do the miles as I don’t think I have run over 8 miles probably since doing the trail half back in the summer.

Yes, I have posted this already, but I love it. Great breakfast. Although I was a bit silly as when I got home I noticed that the kitchen floor needed sweeping, so I did that, and when getting the dustpan out I saw the dusting stuff, so dusted the living room and bedroom, and then realised how full the washing basket was, so put on a wash. Then I had a shower and suddenly after that the hunger hit. Silly me.

I got on with some work, and then popped over to see my parents. Then I had to go to the shops, and I was very excited as Starbucks had emailed an offer where if you bought a pumpkin latte you got a free slice of pumpkin bread. Free pumpkin bread? Yes please. I parked a little way from town and walked in as it was just gorgeous weather. By this point it was about 4pm, so pumpkin cake was going to be my late lunch.

Alas, when I got there they had sold out of the loaf cake. Boo.

I did look at the sandwiches, but nothing appealed so went for a cinnamon roll. (I had already ordered the drink- pumpkin latte minus the coffee, which is way sweeter than a chai latte, but I was having a bit of an energy crash so it was needed). It was so good to be sitting outside in late September without a coat on.

After getting home I did some more work and then got dinner ready (a rare occurrence now).

I roasted veggies (red and yellow pepper, courgette, red onion) with some oregano, then added some haloumi pieces, cooked some giant cous cous, and served with rocket.

On Sunday we went out for brunch with some friends. I was awake early so was trying to find coverage of the Berlin marathon on TV (according to their website, BBC2 and Eurosport had the rights) but it was not on at all. Grrrr. Shelly Woods won the wheelchair race, but I suppose she does not have a high enough profile to tempt the TV bosses….

Anyway, we went to a new place (The Bakehouse) which was really good- I had French toast with banana and maple syrup, but was tempted by home-made granola, fruit salad, or banana and raspberry loaf. After that I wanted to get a few bits in town so we walked around in the sunshine.

Fat Face were having a sale, so I picked up these two dressed that I had my eye on already- they didn’t photograph very well, but they both have short sleeves in a darker colour, so there is a sort of double neckline. Also some more shampoo from Lush as I was running low, and a new Essie nail polish. We decided to walk down into the park, so went to Starbucks to see if they had any of the loaf (the voucher ran out today)- luckily they did, so we got a drink to have whilst walking through the park.

On the way home we stopped to get some garden bits (a fence panel has come down, but our neighbours’ landlord has not replaced it, and so all their weeds are coming in our garden, so we picked up a roll of bamboo fencing to cover the gap), and also put up some pictures, and then it was time for a bit more work.

I wasn’t going to have another run, but the weather was so good, so I headed out for 5 miles around the fields before it got too gloomy.

For dinner I hadn’t planned anything, but had been flicking through the Oh She Glows book and saw this lentil oatmeal bowl. I had the ingredients, and it sounded good, so I gave it a go. Although I missed out the oats (it  said you could) and just had lentils.

Lentils cooked with herbs and tomato, with tomatoes, avocado, sourdough topped with sundried tomato pesto, and some tomato and basil hummus.

Then I had half of the loaf (I saved the other half for Andy, as he had gone to Wembley to watch the NFL). It was tasty, but not particularly spicy. I had a chilled out evening catching up on TV and doing a spot of baking (again, for another post).

Did you have a good weekend? Any other annoying abbreviations or acronyms?