Sunday, 7 July 2013

Sunday Snippet - piece from Peru

It feels like the proverbial painting of the Forth Bridge - with more stops and starts than a stoppy starty thing! I have drafted, scrapped, re-written, scrapped again and now hopefully have a final draft that will become the final version though in my eyes still needs a lot of editing. At some point I am going to have to stop and say that is it. Anyway, the e-book is progressing... so time for a snippet...!



This was a proper local market, full of bright, big baskets of fruit and vegetables and rainbow piles of wool.  Not a postcard or bit of tourist tat in sight. It was a place to bring, buy, eat, drink, gossip, catch up and socialise. Even the local police officers were standing chatting, hats off, enjoying a beer.  Community policing at its best.  As we were getting back onto the bus the women  started piling up on the back of a Toyota truck, looking like a pyramid of colourful sacks. 
I pointed to them "It looks like they're trying for the world record of how many people can you get onto the back of a truck."
"Ah," said Paco, "The selling part of the market is finishing. That is the only truck or taxi that will take the women home. They have to go now and work in the house. The men stay and drink."   
Some things are the same the world over.

Sunday, 30 June 2013

June-athon went all Wrong-athon



Who stole June? Seriously, time flies and all that but this feels like a whole month didn't just fly but was transported via the Tardis!  It started with good intentions, oh so good and oh so intentional. Just a run and a blog every day - that was all. Then it just all went horribly wrong (you can see the demise as my last desperate attempts were a few words posted by iPhone!).

I won't bore you with detail but suffice to say it involved son going to America by himself (an exciting adventure for him and a slightly traumatic experience for me), and continued with migraines, insomnia, too much coffee and wine (some of these items may be linked!), ten hour days in the office job, and culminated last week in the dog having an op having been poorly.

So - I have still done a bit of running and a bit of writing - nowhere near the amount planned and definitely not daily. But sometimes shit happens. It just happened a lot in these past four weeks.

But dog's fine, son's fine and I'm fine. And so - new month, new challenge.
Tomorrow I start 100K words in 100 days. I'd aimed to have my e-book edited and complete by this weekend but haven't (see above for distractions, excuses, blah blah) so will be aiming to finish this in the next couple of weeks, while starting this challenge.

It is after all *only* 1,000 words a day. What could possibly go wrong...?! (stay tuned.. ;))

Thursday, 6 June 2013

Wednesday, 5 June 2013

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

Juneathon Day 4

Two for the price of one! Did a run this morning - Nike+ stopped part way through so have 2 seperate records of:
1.6 miles plus 0.64 miles

Reckon that's about 2.24 miles then!

Monday, 3 June 2013

Juneathon Day 3 - quick ones!

No time -busy day - doesn't work get in the way especially when you sleep in cos you had far too much of a good weekend...
So, today just a 20 minute walk with the dog and 15 mins of sit ups and crunchy things (my own technique...!)
And a v short blog...

But better than nothing!

Sunday, 2 June 2013

Juneathon Day 2 - lessons already learned

Day 2 of Juneathon - and after another night out (albeit sober one as I decided sensibly to drive following the previous night's excesses) I was debating if a golf lesson later today could count as 'exercise'. I decided not as, not only is it golf, but I don't even walk around the course as I'm a total beginner and just learning how to hold the sticks and look like a golfer (though there is no way I can do lady golfer fashion).
And my aim in doing Juneathon is to help with my running, and I know enough to know that you don't run on the golf course.

So I did the same run as yesterday - oddly it came up a bit shorter on my Nike+ but slightly quicker. So I have decided:
this is the run I'm going to do every week day morning - as I have to take the dog for a walk before work anyway I may as well run with him - and it will focus me on trying to quicken my pace.
Then at least twice a week - likely weekends - I'll go for longer runs to build up my distance. The last long run I did was 7 miles but that was many weeks ago and I need to pick it up.

And the other lesson I learned today is that I need a new pair of running pants as the tops of both pairs I have are too loose and I keep having to pull them up. And I may have to consider shorter ones as I get very hot.

So here are today's scores on the doors