Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Dust And Panic
by admin - 18:05 on 02 June 2015
In just two days' time Matchgirl and I leave The Rural Retreat and The Pride in the capable hands of Soo and Tony. This has caused Matchgirl a certain amount of panic, as she thought she had three days until we head south to the Lake District, where she'll make her debut as a fell-runner in the Grasmere Gallop (in the hardest 17k event, of course; I'd prefer the Teddy Dash).
The panic doesn't concern the event, for which she's trained long and hard and overcome Stiff Knee Syndrome with barely any Google-inspired angst. Her worry is that, if the cottage isn't cleaned and tidied to her satisfaction, our cat-sitters will call us slobs behind our backs and tut at dust on bookcases, cat hair on curtains (now a permanent fixture), and lack of sparkle in kitchen and bathroom. The fact that I have a different dust threshold is no help.
However, her home-based worries may be A Good Thing because they've taken her mind off the forthcoming race. Matchgirl has run up hills before – she even claims to enjoy the practice – but she's unfamiliar with Lakeland terrain. I used to live there; I know why only Herdwick sheep thrive on its precipitous slopes.
Fortunately for her, we'll travel to the Cumbrian hills on four wheels, not two, so she can fill the back seat with running shoes and gear suitable for every meteorological eventuality. Yesterday, on the Cairngorm hills, it snowed. Anything is possible.
Chatterbox Update: Distribution and collection is over. Seven copies of the Spring edition were returned unsold; 1,020 were snapped up by eager readers. It's a record.
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