As good as a rest

Avon & Kennet canal towpath

16.05.2014

It has been such a long day that I'd forgotten when I set out to write this (can't say sat down to write as I am standing at the kitchen counter) that I've already been for a run, so I was going to put it down as a cross training day. In fact at 6.30am I ran up to Hillyfields and did a couple of loops of the Parkrun course, trying to get it down to 7.30m/m per loop (it is very hilly). I was a bit slow, but hit 6.45m/m going downhill (!)
Later, the cross training consisted of an 18-mile (ish) round cycle ride to Paddington and this walk along the towpath, in highly adaptable black dress, with stilettos in bag and trainers on feet, because I needed to find the crematorium where my dear old Uncle Peter was being dispatched. He was a lovely man, terribly charismatic. A farmer and gardener like my old dad. The service at the crematorium was moving, and the nostalgia in the pub afterwards so sweet. I'm so glad I made it, although I nearly didn't, as after the relaxing stroll along the towpath, I ended up half jogging a mile in the wrong direction on the A4 (!) A man pointed out my mistake in a shop in Woolhampton, and gave me a lift to the crematorium. In the event, then, a highly active day. Warm, bright, sunny and, cycling home at 8pm, suddenly too exhausting. I had to stop for a banana, as I had perimenopausal hot flush/low blood sugar shakes and suddenly turned as weak as a kitten. The banana saw me right, as did husband's curry waiting on the stovetop. Pea and potato. Enough protein, with yogurt, I hope.
Uncle Peter, when he was in his spry 80s (he was 92 when he died last week) told me he had a horror of becoming a bent old man, so he used to brace his upper back against his walking stick, placing it across the broad of his back with his forearms resting on the stick either side. I do that with a broomstick while waiting for the kettle to boil. Like Peter, I have a dread of the dowager's hump.