Tuesday

Good morning.  Yes, more rain overnight.  It is supposed to be fine for a while this morning but then more rain and maybe some 'thundery showers'.  Nice!

Well, yesterday turned out very pleasant.  The morning was pretty sunny and the afternoon stayed dry until around three thirty before the predicted rain started and even then it was light and intermittent until later.

I got the bus into town for the walk but only just arrived in time - when I do the walk again, I will take the earlier bus to avoid the rush.  It was very pleasant walking alongside the river and then back through the university campus before joining the river again, a total of 45 minutes.  There were about fifteen or so in the group, one of whom was an ex colleague of mine so it was nice to see a familiar face.

S knows me from the past although I haven't seen her much since we both retired at the same time.  Because of that, she recommended that I walk near the back with the slowest 'sub-group' - and fair enough, given how terribly unfit I was.  Now, I'm not a competitive person when it comes to others although maybe a bit more so with myself, but I knew I could walk better than that and during the fist part of the walk I caught up so I was just behind her in the first group.  I didn't say, just enjoyed the walk while S kept looking back to see where I was (and not seeing me - I have changed quite a lot since work).
So, at the end of the walk, we had quite a laugh when she realised I was just behind her!

There's a local walk on Thursdays starting at the Melbourne Sports Centre - I beg its pardon, I mean the Chelmsford Sports and Athletics Centre - on slightly less smooth terrain.  It's a longer walk that yesterday's so I may take the bus there and then see if I feel like walking home again.  But not until after next week by which time the new shoes should be well walked in!

And next time I will take my camera and snap a few views.

As I planned, on the way back to the bus, I popped into the running shop and popped out again well over half an hour later with some well fitting shoes and some bone conduction headphones.  Not cheap but - as I keep saying, what's the lump sum for, eh?  And that's more or less what Dave and Beth said to me yesterday too.
I've charged up the headphones and need to get them connected to the phone - I'll do that when I'm feeling brave enough!  I might do a session of C-5K this evening so I'll give it a whirl then and if I can't, I'll take them back to the shop and let the man in there do it for me - he'll know!

When I got home, the first load of washing on the line had dried and the second load was ready to peg out.  The third load then went in and they dried inside.  I did most of the ironing in the evening so it was all most satisfactory!

Tuition was fun.  My student likes a challenge and the year group work wasn't particularly challenging so, with mum's agreement, I started them on some of my 11+ material (they're not taking the 11+), including some non-verbal reasoning which they don't do in school.  They really enjoyed that.

Then it was home for dinner and to do that ironing while watching some TV rubbish.  I was so tired that I went to bed before half past eight, fell asleep more or less straight away and finally woke after six this morning.  Maybe I should do more walks - or maybe it was the shock of spending so much money that caused the tiredness!

Today is pretty busy.
At about eleven thirty, Beth, Linda and Julia are turning up for a girls' lunch at mine rather than eating out as we often do.  I'm not doing anything special but even so it will take a fair amount of work and I want to make it all inclusive, for me on SW and for Beth as a vegetarian, so I'm doing some macaroni cheese, some actifry chips (yummeroo) and a salad with a fruit platter afterwards.  I make a cheese sauce that has no butter, working better with SW.
The idea is that everyone can have everything (if they want).

Because of this, the morning will be busy, what with cooking and clearing and getting things ready.  The afternoon will be fun with loads of chat and catching up.  We try to meet up once a month but it doesn't always happen.

Then it's tuition followed by the ironing I didn't manage to get done yesterday.  And at some point I want to start laying out stuff for packing on Thursday/Friday.

Should be a good day, don't you think?  I hope yours is too.  xx