Apparently, I am capable of an 8m 30sec mile over 3.5 miles.

This means that I am fitter than I was at university, when my best was a 9 minute mile on the running machine. Over one mile.

And, I would like it noted, this time last week, I was only just getting over bronchitis.  Heck.  The Friday before last, I was bedridden.

Of course, now I really, really, need to pack for the conference and the hiking, and I'm so entirely stoked (can I, as a Brit, use the word "stoked"?), that I'm seriously considering taking running gear and using the gym at the hotel.  Before anyone thinks I've taken leave of my senses, I do have my knitting for the trip planned out. A pair of socks, then a hat (needs concentration, so for the car journey home mostly, and for driving about) and a cowl (no concentration required).

I am also entirely sweaty.  Shower.

xxx

• Sort out the agenda for Div Meeting
• Email out agenda for Div Meeting
• Send email refusing to be Senior Section CoOrdinator
• Laundry
• Take bedspread to laundrette
• Find out what this afternoon's play is actually aboutPeople finding God. In Essex. Mixed Reviews. Taking an online date, this could backfire terribly... Oh. It did.*
• Tax Return Drat. Need to find another statement!
• Find Brownie six books, email old six lists to Snowy Owl
• Related. Email Brownies who are moving up to the Guide Leaders
• Try to work out when to get hair done. Get hair done (maybe after theatre?) Sunday morning
• Take stuff to charity shop Sunday morning
• Early dinner and dancing on Sunday
• Perhaps go for a bijou run (I am getting fidgety and flabby and PMS-ing. Yes, I know my definition of flabby isn't very flabby. It's still relative)
• Photograph Jo's Socks. Upload along with baby knitting photos.
• Give Jo her socks.
• Pack for three days of conference plus two days of hiking next week. 
• Either add some cash to the 3G card on the iPad or locate the laptop dongle Or check WiFi provision: free in all locations.
• Knit some more on Sir's Fair Isle Then I measured it. My gauge was off, from the swatch, by SIX stitches per 10cm. I have frogged 22,000 stitches and begun again with 50 fewer stitches per round.
• Decide whether V's socks are still too big and sort out a smaller needle while south of the river.  Cast on a third time if required.
• Sew poppers onto baby shoes, and wrap them up to send.
• Descale the kettle. Buy new kettle when it becomes apparent that the scale was holding it together.
• Clean the fish tank Don't really have time.
• Collect parcel from sorting office Monday night
• Collect prescription.

I probably ought to get out of bed and get more coffee inside me.  Oh, and as for the living inside my stash/library thing (which may extend to DVDs too, as I seem to have enough of those to keep me going for a while), it was all prompted by buying a copy of "Howards End is on the Landing", in which Susan Hill reads from her home library for a year. I don't have enough will power for that.  However, the to be read pile has 20 books in it, and that's getting silly.  The yarn stash threatens to take over the sitting room, and, in addition, there are books that I have no recollection of buying, have owned for 15 years, and still not read. Enough.  It's not even as if they're on an outer wall and providing insulation!

xxx

*So, on the basis that a free theatre ticket is a free theatre ticket, I went to see God of Soho. I think that my internet date was a bit up tight about such matters - which is fine. Not everyone is broad minded.  And, as the appalling language continued, I was intrigued - and very aware that he was standing next to me hating it. So, I suggested we left in the interval. It's maddening: I rather wanted to see the ending (apparently it was happy), but I was cold, and uncomfortable, pulled in by the acting but faintly repelled too.  And it would only have become worse.  Oh well. We meandered up and down the south bank instead, spent a perfectly nice afternoon, however, I never want to see him again. Anyone who thinks that cheese-driven nightmares are a good topic of conversation on a first date is probably not quite right. That and he kept saying 'yah'.

Apparently we weren't the only ones to leave early.

xxx

There is more than enough yarn and books to not need to buy any for the next six months. So, until my birthday in March, I intend to.

Exceptions: books for presents for other people, possible GGBP reprints, special knitting commissions from Mum or Dad.

xxx

Not exactly ill, but certainly not well. Wheezy.  No longer hacking up phlegm, but, then again, with an interesting dry cough.  Poor lungs.  They probably want extra steroids, but I'm not willing to throw those into the system until I'm done with the antibiotics (so, Wednesday).  I can only deal with one set of side effects at a go!  I feel OK - until I try and do anything slightly strenuous, and then, well, I feel the effects.

Was that all too much information?  Tough.

I've been productive, though, between all the random bits of work that have gone on this whole weekend. I've knitted a baby hat, knitted two flowers for baby hats, made some progress on Sir's Fair Isle, and knitted half a sock: Jo will have new socks by the time she's home from her hols, and then I'm onto socks for V.  I've prepped for Brownies (although, that silly little felt creature was not a penance to make at all), done the laundry, gently tidied up, changed the sheets, and organised a home delivery of food, and found some lost gloves.  I've watched 3 episodes of Dr Who, 3 episodes of Jeeves and Wooster, Sirens (failed to watch a documentary about the Regency because the presenter's voice was incredibly annoying).  This all seems like a lot.  Most of it was done in bed, or while on the sofa.  Tidying: one thing at a time when I got up to make tea. The bed needed doing, and I had a surge of energy on Sunday morning, so I took advantage of it.

And now?  Well, I'd like to be at work. I'd like to be out. And I'm just not getting quite enough air in.  At least, that's what it feels like.  Perhaps I should check my peak flow. Not done that... hmmm. 90-95% of normal levels.  That explains it. Not low enough to do anything about, but low enough to feel grumbly!

I hope, at some point, to upload the photos of the hats, and the socks. I think I'd like the socks to be complete first.  So, I must knit.  First, though, I probably ought to brush my hair.  Before the Ocado man arrives, and I need to use my feminine wiles to persuade him to carry things up the stairs for me.  These things generally work better with brushed hair, rather than hair at a million different angles.

xxx

The plan, as partially delineated in the previous entry, did not involve getting bronchitis, sinusitis and being put onto antibiotics. Nor did it involve having to work at 9pm tonight (or 8am this morning) from my sickbed. It did not involve being told not to run a half marathon next weekend, nor did it involve codeine. But, the codeine is good...

So, in lieu of anything useful, I present

The Berlin Pictures

And, the beginning of Sir's Fair Isle.

Lush, isn't it?

(No, I haven't been watching too much Gavin and Stacey recently. Not at all. Nor am I waiting for pay day so I can buy series 3 and the Christmas Special. Not at all)

xxx

Frankly, if I don't have a list here, I might just lose the plot. It was rather a full weekend, with promming, Christmas present shopping, seeing Mum, seeing the Duchess of Cambridge's Wedding Dress, and then collapsing in a heap of fair isle

• Make cute felt creature for Brownies Friday week, establish how much felt required, buy Think need a packet or so more: only needs 1/3 piece per child, but then I'm assuming that they can cut straight... plus we can't use the black felt because, well, it's black.

• Put poppers on those booties, mail. Need poppers. Damn.
• Get glue, card, 20 piece jigsaw puzzles and a pen refill
• Chiro 9am Tuesday, Dentist 12.15 Tuesday
• Find out where health insurance checkup actually is before FridayOr cancel it due to being ill.
• Concert Thursday: work out logistics of getting thereOr cancel it due to being ill
• Morris Wednesday(work out logistics of going for a run on Wednesday) Or cancel due to being ill.  Well, apart from the run, which was ace.
• Acquire, after payday, a Train album.  For they rock.
• Rugby 7am Sunday morningOr cancel due to needing to be at work at 9am.
• Work 9am 10am Sunday morning
• Sort out tax return, and file it (n.b. may need to phone pension people for correct version of statement) still need statement, which has been requested.
• Chase up publishers who have failed to produce any royalties this year
• Chase up lost cheque from doing children's crafts at folk festival
• Tidy the sitting room well it looks less ghastly.
• Do some laundry
• Go to bed before 11.30pm every night
• Dinner out Tuesday
• Brownies Accounts
• Brownies Admin (print off new register list, having added new Brownies to list)

It could be worse. At least I have more than enough bog roll.  Lidl were selling packs of 24 rolls, and I bought. For the convenience. I don't think they were any cheaper than anything else, but 24 rolls means that I don't need to think about bog roll in the near future.

I shall now proceed to collapse in a heap of fair isle. When I have located the camera, I may share it. It's motoring along nicely, the way colourwork so often does.

xxx

Coming home from work via a 5 mile run with a colleague, and then a cycle ride, and scarfing down figs straight from the tree before going out to morris practice.  Licking my lips and enjoying the mix of the sweet tang of the fig and the saltiness from all that exercise.

A very late night Mars bar.

Finding food leftover from the Welshman cooking on Monday night, and eating it on Tuesday night.

A wink on the internet dating site.

Getting the chain back onto my bicycle within a minute of realising it had fallen off. Pumping up my bicycle tyres.

Not needing to go to a late night call on Friday night for the last night of the proms.

Three potential new Brownies.

Clean sheets.

Unjamming the printer with the help of a knitting needle.

Hugs from the Welshman

Gavin and Stacey on DVD.

Discovering 'Train'.  Sharing with another colleague.

Putting my foot down about sysadmin rights.

Hot baths.

Knitting and knitted socks.

Morris dancing.

Cooking rice without it sticking to the saucepan. With stew served alongside.

xxx

It has been a lovely, exhausting sort of a day. So exhausting that I needed a little nap.  Well. It has been quite the week. The August Bank Holiday? Towersey.  Wet, cold, windy, muddy - and excellent dancing, singing, crafting and pink hair.  I enjoyed.  The tent didn't leak (I love my little tent - it's been lovely to use it again), I had four blankets, which seemed to be the perfect quantity, and a slight sinus infection (ongoing - meanders between feeling like a stuffed up sinus and toothache).

Yesterday and today have involved an inordinate quantity of tidying Brownie and Guide Stuff. The cupboard at Brownies has had a good eight bin bags of stuff either identified for disposal, or actual disposal.  The tents/gas lamps/washing up bowls/mallets/gazebos/first aid stuff/spare clothing and so on that has been cluttering up my back garden and my shed and outdoor cupboard have finally made it into the Guide Loft.  I can manoeuvre my bike easily under the lean-to again.

Then there was a nicely boozy lunch (pink wine) and good company, and I got more and more and more tired, and came home, and slept for an hour. This helped.  Masses. I don't think I slept enough at Towersey, and I certainly haven't slept properly in the last week. Late nights, early mornings for running, and grand ponderings about what it is with married men... I mean. Really. Another one. This time, at work. He started, by sending a picture of sunflowers "could I not cheer up the server." Then a picture of a red rose. Then music, a mix CD.  Thursday's song was "Brown Eyed Girl"... and then I did some serious Google-Stalking.  He's got an unusual name. There can't be two of them, bicycle obsessed, living in that area: and when he sent a link from a favourite bicycle site in that area, with his age on, well...  Mid life crises.  Gah.

I refuse to be the object of anyone else's mid-life crisis.  It's not hard. I want a lovely, funny, clever, intelligent man who only has eyes for me, and doesn't have eyes for anyone else.  And who will put up with me.  OK.  Maybe that bit's the hard part.

Tomorrow morning I have a 10km race, so bed beckons.  However, before that, I need a list.

• Pack up dolly for Story
• Sew up hat for Felicity, and block, along with booties for Sophia.
• Find cards suitable for Felicity and Sophia
• Burn CDs M, pack up along with hat and silly toy and other CD
• Mail CD P (he was on the radio, and a friend was able to record it for me, which is good, as P was overseas at the crucial moment).  Cut all ties thereafter.
• Shift stuff into shed
• Pick the last of the figs I had one straight off the tree. Will save the other two for tomorrow night when the Welshman is supposedly cooking dinner.
• Kit some more on Sir's Fair Isle.
• Take stuff to charity shop Left that a tad late for this weekend. Deferred.
• Change Sheets Started, so will be finished.
• Brownies Accounts
• Laundry
• Transfer interrailling cash.

xxx

OK. So the last time I tried posting from email, I had no formatting. So,
this time, I'm going to put in a line break html tag.
Then I might try a paragraph tag.

After that, well, this should be italic, and this should be
bold and this oughta be underlined.
That was another break.

New paragraph, but can I manage a list?

• Item 1
• Item 2

Or an ordered list?

1. Item 1
2. Item 2

Well. It can only go horribly wrong, right?!

xxxxx