Yes, I know there is a mistake in the title. I'm trying to make the whole thing less serious. Two weeks left until this bloody run and I am bored. Bored of running, bored of healthy (ish) living, bored of the thought of a sober weekend in two weeks time.
That is however, getting less sober by the minute. Next weekend is mahoosive with Book Club including the return of a brand new member all the way from Melbourne, followed by a mad dash to Redditch and a 40th birthday. I will have to drink on Sunday to sort my miserable self out but then that was going to be it until the race. I'm already rethinking this. I'm currently on an alcohol free lifestyle, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays so I thought that maybe a whole week off just to run 10K could be excessive. Proper marathon runners have a week or so off the sauce don't they and I'm only doing a quarter of that so technically I only need two days off. Well, as there aren't actually eight days in a week meaning I can't divide a week into quarters, so let's call it one and a bit days. Which really means I could drink on the Friday night and then run on the Sunday morning - nearly 36 hours see? Sorted.
The lack of boozing has been boring me the most. I've always had No-Alcohol Mondays, religiously; but over the last year or so I've added Wednesday into the mix as that is what that funny 'Change for Life' advertising advises. That's just about do-able due to a sadistically timed 8am meeting at school on a Thursday. Adding Tuesday to it as well though just makes the beginning of the week hardly worth getting out of bed for. I work on Tuesdays and I always find a day's work flows more freely with the promise of wine at the end of it. It does mean that I'm doing exactly what all the health advisors tell you not to do and that is binge-drinking from Thursday through Sunday. Last Thursday evening, Stuart said that I had had three glasses of wine by 7.30! The only blessing is that at least as my body isn't used to it I pass out at 9pm thus limiting further damage. Seb's at school now so that leaves the opportunity for a little snifter with my Pa on a Friday lunchtime. Yesterday, I found myself drinking gin and tonics in the armpit that is the Baton with my bezzie at 4.30pm, because, erm, well, just because really. Sunday lunch is a boozing religion in my family and I've discovered over the last few weeks that slow consumption of wine continued when we get home on a Sunday afternoon makes me much cheerier at about 6pm than a miserable early-evening hangover. Maybe healthy living isn't so bad after all?
So, my running. I've upped from two runs a week to three whilst I am officially 'in training'. Monday and Wednesday mornings and Thursdays after school. As you will have gathered from my description of my Sundays, Monday morning runs are pretty much a lame stagger back from school and round the block a bit whilst sweating 90% alcohol. Wednesdays are the days that I'm trying to build up mileage and it is a slow and painful process. I do feel a sense of achievement when I've added a nanomillimetre onto my distance from the week before but it is just so dull. I do actually enjoy running for about 7 minutes. Add another 35 minutes into the equation and I am pissed off and knackered. Thursday I co-run (b'doom) an after-school running activity with a colleague. (This is compulsory timetabled time for me, I'm not doing it out of the goodness of my heart, just in case you were thinking I'd changed.) This is probably the shortest distance I run but Lordy it is FAST. I'm not quite sure what speed I reckoned 10-12 year old boys ran at when I signed up for this but I struggle not to be last. Thank goodness for "Fred" let's call him who is hitting adolescent laziness and gets a stitch within seconds of starting off. Somebody needs to hang back and look after him, poor chap.
I've instructed Shelley, Sam and Stuart to keep a check on my enthusiasm in the future and remind me that 10K is where I should peak. If I looked back at this achievement through rose-coloured spectacles and started attempting to sign up for a half marathon at any point I should be bound and gagged and locked in the under-stairs cupboard until I have come to my senses. Sam rightly pointed out that there was no point making these sorts of plans as I will just get pissed and sign up for something at 2am in the morning and then it will be too late to do anything about it. She's got a point. Shit.
Anyway, must dash. There are only a good couple of drinking hours left in today and Sober Suicide Monday is looming heavy on my mind. Cheers!
Sunday, 29 September 2013
Saturday, 7 September 2013
Bye Bye Baby
Sebi starts school next week. I'm sure he was actually only pulled out of my stomach about five days ago. When the hell did all this happen? I'm obviously in denial as I only got him out of a high chair a month or so ago, (he's small OK?!), and until last week I was still helping him go to the toilet for some reason when actually he has been completely capable for a year or so. I think it may all be a bit of a wrench come Wednesday.
We went for our final visit to his teacher on Friday. She asked Sebi to draw his family and then wanted him to put the drawing in his work folder. He refused, predictably. I didn't realise that it was so important but the teacher was not backing down; that piece of paper was going in the folder. There was a huge stand off. Our meeting was about three times as long as everybody else's as Sebi sat cross-legged on the floor, (on top of his drawing), with his back to the teacher, and I tried to make light of the situation: "I have no idea where he gets this kind of behaviour from", followed by an unnaturally high-pitched nervous giggle. I was beginning to regret talking about my own teaching experience with this teacher as she was obviously wondering how I could possibly handle a class full of boys when I had absolutely no control over this particular one. We compromised with the fact that Seb would do another drawing to put into his work folder and he could take the original drawing home. He nonchalantly strolled over to the drawing table and looked me in the eye whilst doing the smallest, crappest scribble on a piece of paper and handing it to the teacher. If he knew how to stick two fingers up and what it meant, he would've done that to all of us at that precise moment. I feel Miss Lockyer may have met her match in the same way that I have.
So the baby is off to school. I am embracing my freedom with both hands and have had no more new baby wobbles. I had the delightful company of my gorgeous 7 month old Godson this morning for a couple of hours, and I loved every second, but when I handed him back I was relieved that I was at the stage of not having to watch my offspring every minute any more. A colleague of mine asked me this week if I was going to try and find another job to fill in the other three days that I'm not working now Sebi is starting school. Erm, no thanks. She assented that of course the children were still very young but then looked a little shocked when I said I was a part-timer by trade these days and could never see me going back to a full-time position. There will still always be miles to be run, books to be read and lunches to be eaten, won't there? Bring. It. On.
Monday, 2 September 2013
Lefkas: The Sequel
Returning somewhere that you had the time of your life when you went previously is always a risk in case it doesn't live up to expectations. Take some of your closest friends with you and that risk doubles as they might arrive and wonder what you were making such a fuss about.
The Renner family's more immediate problem however, was that they didn't actually arrive; well not on the first day anyway. We were flying from Gatwick and we drove down and parked; Kate and Ralph were getting the train. As we were getting the bus to the airport from the car park, Ralph sent Stu a text saying that they were just having breakfast and aiming to get to the airport for 2pm. The flight was leaving at 1.10pm. Before Stu had a small heart attack I told him that Ralph was definitely on the wind up. Another couple of texts confirmed this and we all had a big laugh about it... until their train broke down five minutes later. So, they missed their plane and ended up doing a 24 hour marathon via Corfu and arriving a day later than expected and at least a grand worse off! Yowch.
They took it in their stride and we were soon into a happy routine of swimming in the morning and booting the kids into kids club in the afternoon indulging in some serious R&R. Another great bunch of people this year by the pool and lo and behold only one couple that seriously got up my nose. They were mind-numbingly and painfully dull. I was slightly chastised and told that they were probably just very shy. I'm not convinced. They were EVERYWHERE. Surely, if you're shy you don't stand in the middle of a group of people at the bar? If you were really really shy you would be watching the group of people at the bar from behind a bush? Talking of bushes; Jon (one half of my favourite couple from this year) decided that the boring/frumpy exterior was merely a cover up for this dreadful woman being a filthy dirty minx. I remain unconvinced.
Remaining with that thought however, Kate and I were lying by the pool one day discussing our fellow holidaymakers. I was expressing the opinion that everyone was a little too perfect for my liking and it felt a bit like Stepford Wives on tour. This led into the discussion about which of the ladies had ever taken it up the bum, which ended up with us howling with laughter on our sunbeds. They were probably looking at us thinking we were such nice girls too! Maybe not actually?
Kate and I did some drunken night swimming in Gen and Jon's pool. It got progressively darker and darker as the complex turned all the lights off until we decided it was time we headed home. Kate couldn't find her flip flops in the pitch black and so I crawled on my hands and knees feeling for them all around the pool until she remembered that she had actually come out with bare feet that night!
Sebi became famous in his own right by doing a dance to Gangnam Style at one of the pyjama parties. I was obviously seriously impressed but didn't realise what an overnight sensation he had become in Lefkas until we hit the pool the next morning and all the older kids were shouting out "There he is!" "Alright Sebi?" "Great dancing!". Seb was un-phased by all the attention and carried on floating about with a number of Mickey Mouse theme buoyancy aids. I think he gets his night-time behaviour from his mother and his daytime modesty from his father...
Ralph and I are both pretty dominant, strong-minded, obstinate and stubborn creatures. I joked a lot before we went on holiday about how I was going to drink a bottle (or two) of wine every night and have a go at him. It all went according to plan and we had some very heated debates. One night, he asked me to tell him exactly what I thought of him. Some sober bit of my mind nagged me that this probably wasn't a particularly sensible idea so I asked my dear husband what I should do. Stu decided that I could tell Ralph exactly what I thought of him for precisely 30 seconds and then Ralph was not allowed to say anything in response. It got better and better. I think I crapped on for at least a minute in the end and then there was a deathly silence... We all remained good friends in the morning though as Ralph (professes) that he can't remember anything I said. The final battle of our holiday war ensued on the way to the airport on our return journey. Ralph decided to follow me even though I said there was no need as even a monkey could navigate the 25 minute journey from our villas to the airport. Nevertheless, we set off, in convoy. Then I got lost. Ralph found his way there before we did in the end, although I had put him through another "we're going to miss our flight", unnecessary panic. In the check-in queue I admitted defeat and that we ended the holiday with him being absolutely right and me being totally wrong. Stu and I were laughing that some people who were still in their swimmers by the pool when we left for the airport were ahead of us in the queue then.... Ooops.
I finished my holiday as every by drinking a bottle of champagne on the plane on the way home. Delish. Stu wasn't drinking as he was driving from Gatwick but so I didn't look gluttonously alcoholic, I asked the flight attendants to chill some champagne "as a surprise for my husband". I then told Stu that he had to look surprised and delighted as the champagne was delivered that he was not going to drink. Lucky chap.
The Renner family's more immediate problem however, was that they didn't actually arrive; well not on the first day anyway. We were flying from Gatwick and we drove down and parked; Kate and Ralph were getting the train. As we were getting the bus to the airport from the car park, Ralph sent Stu a text saying that they were just having breakfast and aiming to get to the airport for 2pm. The flight was leaving at 1.10pm. Before Stu had a small heart attack I told him that Ralph was definitely on the wind up. Another couple of texts confirmed this and we all had a big laugh about it... until their train broke down five minutes later. So, they missed their plane and ended up doing a 24 hour marathon via Corfu and arriving a day later than expected and at least a grand worse off! Yowch.
They took it in their stride and we were soon into a happy routine of swimming in the morning and booting the kids into kids club in the afternoon indulging in some serious R&R. Another great bunch of people this year by the pool and lo and behold only one couple that seriously got up my nose. They were mind-numbingly and painfully dull. I was slightly chastised and told that they were probably just very shy. I'm not convinced. They were EVERYWHERE. Surely, if you're shy you don't stand in the middle of a group of people at the bar? If you were really really shy you would be watching the group of people at the bar from behind a bush? Talking of bushes; Jon (one half of my favourite couple from this year) decided that the boring/frumpy exterior was merely a cover up for this dreadful woman being a filthy dirty minx. I remain unconvinced.
Remaining with that thought however, Kate and I were lying by the pool one day discussing our fellow holidaymakers. I was expressing the opinion that everyone was a little too perfect for my liking and it felt a bit like Stepford Wives on tour. This led into the discussion about which of the ladies had ever taken it up the bum, which ended up with us howling with laughter on our sunbeds. They were probably looking at us thinking we were such nice girls too! Maybe not actually?
Kate and I did some drunken night swimming in Gen and Jon's pool. It got progressively darker and darker as the complex turned all the lights off until we decided it was time we headed home. Kate couldn't find her flip flops in the pitch black and so I crawled on my hands and knees feeling for them all around the pool until she remembered that she had actually come out with bare feet that night!
Sebi became famous in his own right by doing a dance to Gangnam Style at one of the pyjama parties. I was obviously seriously impressed but didn't realise what an overnight sensation he had become in Lefkas until we hit the pool the next morning and all the older kids were shouting out "There he is!" "Alright Sebi?" "Great dancing!". Seb was un-phased by all the attention and carried on floating about with a number of Mickey Mouse theme buoyancy aids. I think he gets his night-time behaviour from his mother and his daytime modesty from his father...
Ralph and I are both pretty dominant, strong-minded, obstinate and stubborn creatures. I joked a lot before we went on holiday about how I was going to drink a bottle (or two) of wine every night and have a go at him. It all went according to plan and we had some very heated debates. One night, he asked me to tell him exactly what I thought of him. Some sober bit of my mind nagged me that this probably wasn't a particularly sensible idea so I asked my dear husband what I should do. Stu decided that I could tell Ralph exactly what I thought of him for precisely 30 seconds and then Ralph was not allowed to say anything in response. It got better and better. I think I crapped on for at least a minute in the end and then there was a deathly silence... We all remained good friends in the morning though as Ralph (professes) that he can't remember anything I said. The final battle of our holiday war ensued on the way to the airport on our return journey. Ralph decided to follow me even though I said there was no need as even a monkey could navigate the 25 minute journey from our villas to the airport. Nevertheless, we set off, in convoy. Then I got lost. Ralph found his way there before we did in the end, although I had put him through another "we're going to miss our flight", unnecessary panic. In the check-in queue I admitted defeat and that we ended the holiday with him being absolutely right and me being totally wrong. Stu and I were laughing that some people who were still in their swimmers by the pool when we left for the airport were ahead of us in the queue then.... Ooops.
I finished my holiday as every by drinking a bottle of champagne on the plane on the way home. Delish. Stu wasn't drinking as he was driving from Gatwick but so I didn't look gluttonously alcoholic, I asked the flight attendants to chill some champagne "as a surprise for my husband". I then told Stu that he had to look surprised and delighted as the champagne was delivered that he was not going to drink. Lucky chap.
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