28 miles to go

I wasn’t planning to write anything again until the end of the month when I will have hopefully completed my 100 miles in the month challenge. But the snow actually, finally, kind of, settling on the streets of Bebington meant that my long run hasn’t happened today and, after much vacillation and angst about letting the mileage slide I’m ensconced on the sofa with the fire and a good book. Also, Bev, my neighbour, who is normally great at chivvying me along, has sacked me off for snowballs and sledging instead of twisting her ankles on black ice with me so that’s the last time I big her up in a blog!!!

I haven’t read a book in what feels like months. Lots of articles and news headlines and memes and tweets and quotes. But nothing longer than a couple of pages for a while and I’ve realised that it requires some considerable amount of concentration and, ironically, mental relaxation. To let the flow of words cascade and slowly envelop and draw you into a finely brush-stroked world where the small details and background matter as much as the denouement. It takes patience.

I’ve chosen, therefore, an old favourite that I knew I would like, but where I couldn’t remember the plot. This lack of recall occurs quite a lot and one of these days I’m going to go on those brain training courses that get advertised ad nauseum on my social media feed (Facebook seriously knows too much about me!). For now though, it’s a happy affliction because I’ve just smoked fifty pages without so much as a wriggle of my backside and I’ve loved it.

I’ve broken off to write because I’m about to cook the dinner and the chapter end has fallen. I recommend ‘The Crow Road’ by Iain Banks. So far, not much is occurring but the bittersweet and very funny descriptions of normal life. There is a whiff of a bit of a background mystery that may surface later on but at the moment I’m getting to know some nicely flawed people.

But back to my running, or lack thereof. It’s only because I was supposed to be doing seven miles that I felt a little panicked that it couldn’t happen. After today I have eight days left and 28 miles to go. One of those days is a babysitting day and another is Mark’s funeral, so potentially only six days left. And what if it snows again and gets really icy and … ?

And breathe. Anne has suggested prosecco and fish and chips instead of cooking so I think I’ll stick another log on the fire and pop the cork. Cheers!