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.

Close Encounters Of The Deer Kind

by Russell Turner - 21:54 on 20 May 2018

City Limits almost lost a bass player and drummer yesterday evening when we had a much-too-close encounter with a deer on the road to Skye. There must have been feet in it, if not inches. We survived, and the gig turned out to be a good one, enlivened by the group in the corner who kept up the Seven Nation Army chant all night. It’s a song we don’t play (I don’t know why not), but the riff found its way into our final number, 500 Miles, to general hilarity.

It was 3am before I got to bed (the musician suffers for his calling) but I managed a late start to the day, despite an over-attentive Willow who likes to stay close after breakfast if I’m still in bed. At least this means she’s not out murdering wildlife.

I managed the latest training run in the afternoon, brought forward from tomorrow when a deluge is forecast. My made-up plan called for 100 minutes and 8-10 miles but I’d already decided to reduce it to 60 minutes (proper Yorkshire Marathon training doesn’t begin until July so I can be flexible) but two minutes after setting out, too quickly, on a windy, humid day I reduced my target further, to a fast 5k – and knocked 20 seconds off my previous best. It seems that progress is still being made.

The new marathon sponsorship page got off the mark a couple of days ago, thanks to cash handed over by Fortrose Post Office for the sale of five Tess books. All the proceeds now go to fundraising.

There’s another way in which people can contribute, without it costing them a penny. Sign up on my GoRaise page and every time you shop online the retailer (if they’re part of the scheme) makes a contribution. You pay nothing extra. There’s even a handy widget you can install on your browser as a reminder when you enter a participating website.

Shame I didn’t know about it a couple of days ago when Matchgirl spent vast amounts on London to Brighton preparations which could have gone through GoRaise. There’s always next time.

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