Digest 20250316

Another week has gone by, quite a good week actually. I had an almost meeting free work week with a nice task to focus on and no major problems for once!

It’s also been a very productive weekend. We went into town yesterday to get Fiance some new jeans and look at some suits for the wedding. We didn’t find anything (he also only has about a 2 hour tolerance for shopping) but we got some ideas at least.

Today I was wide awake at 6:30 am so I got up and had an early breakfast and managed to get out for a long run by 9am (more on that), relax with a videogame, do a couple of hours of garden jobs, catch up on blogging and relax with a level of Two Point Campus! I should get up early on the weekend more!

The bathroom renovation also continues (more on that) and I’ve managed to get almost up to do on my backlog of reviews!

Movement 🏃‍♀️

I’m feeling back on track with the Walk to Modor! My Fiance did a mad day last weekend while I was out and did 30,000 steps (mostly on my treadmill!) which put him way ahead of me but over the week the gap has almost closed because I tend to do more daily with my lunchtime walks, and especially if I go for a run!

Currently I’m at 270 miles which puts me at Amon Sûl (Weatherotop) and I have no fucking clue what than means! Apparently it’s a watchtower halfway between The Shire and Rivendell.

I’m happy to have increased my average daily steps a bit too, I’m now on 7,663.

For my Star Trek: Locutus of Borg virtual challenge I’ve made fast progress – already at 35% (56.9km) – so I decided to only track my runs for this from now on.

My running is going well, I think. I got back on track this week and completed all 3 runs in the programme. There are 2 shorter 25 min runs in the week which I decided to do after work now it’s lighter. I was quite tired and those were hard work, but I did it.

Today, being up so early, I was able to have a good breakfast (porridge, banana and Greek yoghurt) and let it settle for a couple of hours before I went out, and still get to the park before it got too busy with Sunday strollers. There were lots of other people jogging, it felt quite nice to be a part of that gang – the healthy people who get out early and exercise!

This was the longest run I’ve done yet, the “magic half-mile” workout made up of 15 mins warmup + 2 min cadence drills + run 0.5 mile + 10 cool down which all took me to 4 .06 km (I know miles v km is confusing, I think it’s because the coach programme is American but I track my data in km!). The warm up and cool down are a combination of walking and jogging, but I managed to do almost all the half mile at a slow jog with only a little bit of walking to catch my breath!

I’m very proud of myself for this! And all before 10 am!

Garden 🏡

I got quite a lot done last weekend and this weekend in the garden.

I hacked the buddleia down to about 30cm sticks, hard pruned the apple trees some more (I wasn’t aggressive enough last time and they’re too big!), and pruned the roses. I also finally moved the Mexican Orange Blossom that was bizarrely planted in the front of the border and has annoyed me for years. It’s still quite small, so hopefully it’ll survive moving to the back, but if it doesn’t I’m just glad it’s not blocking the front any more!

Last weekend we also ended up at a garden centre unplanned after a failed attempt to go for a walk and a tea in a country park, I forget that Google maps is useless for directions to the car parks at these places and tries to take you down stressful single track lanes (and bridle paths)! Next time we go I’ll more thoroughly research where to park! But anyway, it worked out because we had a nice tea and cake and I bought 4 plants – a euphorbia, rudbeckia, a blue cornflower and another heuchera – to fill the borders a bit more.

Fiance mowed the lawn today too so it’s looking very tidy out there now.

And very yellow! We have lots of surprise daffodils appearing (I planted some but not all these!) and lots of primroses. I assume the daffodils have been long buried and can finally get enough light after all my work clearing the ivy/St John’s Wort/brambles  last year! Plenty of forget-me-knots everywhere as well, so we should get a good show of blue soon.

Bathroom

The bathroom continues! We do feel terrible for our cousin/fitter over how long and difficult this job turned out to be! He was definitely getting quite frustrated at times, and ended up staying until 8pm a few nights this week. He’s got  kids so I do feel bad. We gave him his thank you card and a little thank you gift early!

We worked out he put around 1,300 tiles on the walls! It was 9 days of tiling!

He has done an amazing job though. I think the reason it took so long and he was getting so frustrated is he’s such a perfectionist and does impeccable work!

It’s now grouted, and we’ve got the shower and shower door fitted, and the toilet almost fitted, so it’s coming together! Hopefully tomorrow he can get everything finished, but I’m not sure how long it takes to fit the cabinets, sink, bath panel, blinds, mirror, and finish the toilet. There is a bit of patching up to do in the ceiling too (where the old extractor fan was), but we can finish that ourselves.

We are very much looking forward to be able to use our new bath and the jungle shower! And I know the cats miss rolling around on the floor in there!

What else?

• I am nearly up to date on my book reviews. You may have noticed the flurry of posts!
• I bought my first Kobo store eBook and after a bit of confusion, managed to work out how to use Adobe Digital Edition and load it as an ePub into Calibre. Next step is to get it onto my Kindle!
• TV is so good at the moment! We’re dying for the next episode of Severance but also it’ll be the season finale and we don’t want it to end!
• New season of my favourite Righteous Gemstones too, that first episode with Bradley Cooper? Fucking WOW! I’ve also dipped back into Mythic Quest, and Abbot Elementary. Oh and High Potential on Disney+ is great! (I love Caitlin Olson in anything but she’s perfect in this!).
• However, I remain unconvinced by Daredevil: Born Again.. I don’t know why but I’m not vibing with it yet.
• I haven’t mentioned Gladiators before but we love watching that on a Saturday night, and the quarter finals have been so good, cannot wait for the semis! It’s such a fun show and we love Legend, he’s hilarious!
• I’ve had a couple of opportunities to wear my new Bare Minerals Barepro foundation and I’m still very impressed by it! I do need to spend some time practicing my potential wedding make-up now, especially my eyes.. I was never good at eyes and I’ve not even attempted eyeliner in about 8 years!
• I still have too many creative projects I want to be doing all at once (I think I have 7 craft kits of various descriptions waiting and my stump work book and piles of photos for long neglected scrapbooks!), but I’m thinking I’ll pick up embroidery on an old stained jumper next, once fully on top of the book reviews.
• I often think, if I was mega rich, I could retire now and have no problem filling my days! I can’t imagine being bored.