2004-10-07 - 8:48 p.m.

Today's been a bit of a nothing day in the big scheme of things although I've been both foolish and embarrassed.

Foolish? I agreed to continue my running with Nigel after the fitness test and we are going to train for the Great South Run. Fer feck sake, what am I thinking? It sounded a wonderful idea when he put it to me, heck - it's only 10 miles!

(Remember the debacle that was the 12 mile walk?)

.....There'll be no taxis to pick me up when I'm doing a Paula Radcliffe and blubbing at the side of the road on THAT day, but on a more positive note, at least I won't be carrying a fat toothless dog who's more knackered than I am. When I exitedly told Phoe that I had a year to get fit enough to do a 10 mile run she just kinda nodded her head in a faux supportive way. She knows I tell you. She knows, just like a parent knows when their kid comes up with a wonderful (yet shit) idea. She knew and so did my Mom that 'Sketty's Worm Emporium' was never going to work.

Did I ever tell you about that one?

That was when I was going to make my fortune as a worm farmer but discovered that the required worms weren't yer usual fat long garden worms, they were small red angry ones and as their farmer I'd have to put my hands into their angry red mass and sort through them looking for babies (or sommat).

Blinkin' freaked me out when I got the worm farming video. That's a good one to show at Christmas when you want people to go home actually. I'd spent ages designing my paperwork and I wanted to have a giant fibre-glass worm on the roof of my car. Alas, the life of a sexy jet-setting worm farmer was not to be mine though.

.......I'd even designed some trendily patterned bins with 'Sketty's Worm Emporium' emblazoned across the front.

(Sigh)

Anyhoo, back to the point, Phoe knows that the great plan to get fit and run for 10 miles is going to end in another huge disaster for me.

...Which beautifully leads me to explain my 'embarrassed' statement of earlier. OK, I'm a woman and it's a woman's job to get pissed off and eat totally inappropriate things when the mood takes them. I knew that Nigel was coming for me (very like the bogie man) at 8pm and that I would only have half an hour to get something light to eat before we were going to run the sea wall again.

Sket's supermarket logic - chocolate honeycomb crunch ice cream and some kid's Party Ring biscuits as edible spoons! This covers eating something light (well, it didn't really) and negates me having to wash up any cutlery (Phoe's away which means I can pig out and leave stuff scattered everywhere unbeknownst to her Tidiness Nazi eyes).

Anyhoo, fit Nigel turned up 20 minutes early and caught me with my healthy and inspirational dinner of choc ice cream and biccies. Bless him, he didn't say anything but my debris was everywhere so he couldn't have NOT noticed. The good news is that my planned sugar rush (cough) helped me run much better and faster this time and we even did a bit extra by running on the sand (I was calling him a b*stard most of the way but I did it and he was proud).

My shins were really hurting again when we stopped but I can honestly say that the pain which had in the past crippled me for days has gone off already! My legs must be tightening up so Wa-hoo!!!!!

Oh, before I go, you want another quick Clive story?

The eldest of my Nan's kids (she had 7) was called Shirley and when she was married the top tier of her wedding cake was put into a tin and kept safe at Nan's house. I believe that it was traditional for this top tier to be kept as the christening cake for the couple's first born.

Time went by (I also believe that proper wedding cake covered in icing lasts a very long time if stored correctly) and Shirley gave birth to a daughter - Teresa. When the time came for Nan to retrieve the cake from the depths of her larder she'd noticed that there were items of food missing and other evidence to suggest that Clive (who used to like to run away)had been in there gathering provisions for one of his absences. You can probably guess what's coming.....

Nan opened the tin containing the cake and Clive had taken an enormous bite out of it, decided that he didn't like it (dried fruit), and had carefully put it back so that no one would notice.

I don't know what happened. I doubt whether it was used with huge teeth marks in it.

I'll have to tell you about the time he took an axe to all the other kids in a 'Here's Johnny' kinda way another time......

Families, you gotta love 'em :)

�

previous - next