Food and 4X4s!

Today was one of those days where I didn't have an awful lot planned but seem to have ended up having a busy day. My two youngest children are staying with Nanna for a few days, so the house is much quieter than normal - especially in the mornings! This meant that we could have a bit of a lie in, not getting up until 8.30am - what decadence! After a quick shower and cup of coffee I decided to take the three big children to Festival Place. I needed short sleeved school shirts for Hamish, and had failed to find them locally. Joshua (13) decided that if he had to go shopping he was taking a friend with him, so friend was collected en route. Shirts were bought, along with shorts, t shirts, boxers, and even a denim skirt for me (I bought the children ice creams so that they couldn't come into the shop and had to sit outside waiting for me)! Joshua's friend managed to lose a £5 note - but that was the only mishap we had, and I bought them all lunch at Subway.

Came home in the early afternoon, did some chores, took some bags of rubbish to the tip, did the supermarket shopping (at least it was cool in there) went to the post office, and then back to the post office with the parcel I had left at home. Met Stephen for a quick coffee (me) and very early supper (him) at Bottega dei Sapori and then home to make supper for the children.

While the children ate their supper in the garden I got changed for a run. It was still hot when we set out, we were slow and I was moaning about how hard it was and how it was too hot (still about 24C) to run, and whose bl%dy idea was this anyway for the first half of our run (a long uphill stretch). At about 2 miles in to the run I stopped complaining and things did seem a bit easier - but not much. We did 4 miles at just over 9 minutes a mile. It was only as we pulled into our road that I realised I was starving! I guess the observant reader will have noticed that I didn't actually eat much today! No lunch or midmorning/afternoon fruit snack! I think this may have been the reason I found the going so hard.

It is either that, or I spent so much time trying to get out of the way of 4X4 drivers who don't know how to drive their Chelsea Tractors! We do live in a rural area, with lots of single track lanes and a large farming community, but I do wish that people who own 4X4s would learn how to drive them. On a single track road with a verge on one side, it is possible for the 4X4 to mount the verge without much harm to the vehicle. It is not necessary for the vehicle to remain dead central to the road thus making it impossible for the runner on the side of the road to escape from a mauling by the high hedge on her side of the road - the mud (or dust in this weather) on the wheel arch is a lot easier to deal with than the nettle rash and thorn scratches on the runner's bare arms and legs! Apparently later models of all vehicles have been fitted with brakes, which mean that deceleration as the vehicle passes a runner is possible - but this fact does not appear to have been adequately communicated to the owners of cars in this part of the world! Please, if you are in your car and you pass a runner slow down! Then the runner can gauge where you are in the road a bit more easily, and won't end up with a face full of gravel and dust as you pass her!