Run, cycle, rooks, bang, run, run

Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire countryside – not a bad area for a ride

Finally, I’m a fully-fledged volunteer responder! After over 800 hours ‘on duty’ I got a call to pick up and deliver a prescription for an elderly lady. I’m not expecting a knighthood but good to have helped in some small way.

A day off exercise on Monday, replaced by yet another trip to the local dump as the clear-out continues. Later it was back to pointing the new walls in the garden and more preparation for the building of the next bit.

Back to the running on Tuesday – still with normal running shoes and tender feet. We all ran up the village together before my wife did her hill reps and our son and I ran laps around the old hill fort at Badbury Clump – just over 9km (5.6miles) on a glorious morning.

Mowing later and the realisation (say it quietly) that I may have overcome the rooks. For a long time, when I went to feed the chickens, I’d scare a few rooks from the chicken run. That hasn’t happened since I made the cut-out of the hawk and stuck it on a pole in the run. On Tuesday I did scare a rook away as I went to feed the chickens – and lo and behold, I saw that my hawk cut-out had fallen over. Coincidence? I think not.

The old tree stump was removed in the afternoon and we had friends over for supper which was really enjoyable.

Wednesday was more of the same on new garden walls. Realising that we have neither the regular shaped stone or the necessary skill to build dry stone walls, we are going to adopt a new strategy and build it with mortar from the outset – more like an ordinary brick wall.

On Thursday I cycled with three friends – all of us over 60 and all retired (at least in part). A little over 64km (40 miles) around Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire lanes at a reasonably gentlemanly pace with a coffee stop – a social ride and none the worse for that.

In the evening there was an explosion (well quite a loud bang) in the sitting room and the power in the whole house tripped. Everything came back on except for the internet router – which has nasty looking black marks where the cable goes into the mins plug. I assume the plug is also a transformer and it’s that has gone in a very terminal way.

We all ran on Saturday (nearly 8km – 5 miles) and I ran with my son on Sunday (13km – 8 miles), with more garden walling in between.

I write this sitting in the car, parked where I can get a signal for the free wifi we are entitled to because of the broadband package we have for the house in Bournemouth. Not ideal, and no useful browsing to find interesting stuff to include this week.

As you might have guessed, no contact at all from the broadband provider to the house here …. quite bereft without it!