Juneathon Blueathon

Clematis

Lupin

Viola

Anemone

A full on day at work, followed by weeding the flower bed and mowing the half acre, left me with neither the time or energy for a run. Well, that’s my excuse anyway.

The flower bed at least brought some colour and joy, although I am perhaps, rather too fond of blue.

Today’s Juneathon Mileage: Nil

Juneathon Mileage to date: 38.14 miles

Juneathon Day Two:Crosstraining on the Beach

Juneathon, Day Two and I am on the doss already.

Well, actually, it’s cross training day according to Hal Higdon’s Marathon Training plan and, never one to shirk cross training, I whipped on my runners, grabbed Teen Girl and headed off for a walk/jog on the beach.

Much to Teen Girl’s disgust, of course, I brought my camera along.  Well, I could hardly resist the colour, could I?

Wildflowers in sand are all about being tough and strong while yet maintaining a delicate demeanour. There is all the intensity of colour but on a much smaller scale and it seems, if they can manage it at all, they’ll lie low, quivering gently amid the marram grass.

Bird life abounds too, Not that you’ll get to actually see much of it. But the journey through the sand dunes invariably sets off the relentless natter of the stonechats. Meanwhile a solitary blackbird sounds his cheep, cheep, cheep alarm call as a sparrowhawk surveys the scene from a convenient signpost.

And there are terns. Lots of them. The sign warns pedestrians to be on alert for tern chicks. They nest on the ground and so are easy prey or the nests themselves fall foul to unleashed dogs or careless pedestrians.

The ship wreck is on its last legs. Grounded in 1984, it stands testimony to the power of wind, rain and sea. Previously ghoulish and majestic as it loomed from the sands, now it barely whispers of its glory days as surrenders to the elements.

And the Juneathon damage? Barely a dent at 2.5 miles. But a grand 2.5 it was, full of wildness, the beat of the sea and the promise of more to come.

Juneathon Mileage: 6.5 miles

A Little Light Exercise

 

Well, shock, horror, I am sticking to the evil doctor’s orders and engaging only in light exercise. Already I can feel my muscles turning into a quivering mass of jelly.

No, it does not help that they were already encased in a very generous coating of blubber, in the first place.

Or that my endorphin store is shot to pieces.

All that warm sunshine that makes an appearance when I am work bound? Wouldn’t you know? That, has scarpered. Now, we have persistent heavy showers.

Maybe you know the kind I am talking about. The kind that makes grass and weeds flourish. The kind that makes it impossible to push a lawnmower around. The kind that makes you long for the three weeks in the Dordogne, now.

And I am fed up of the telly. Of golf played in sunny climes, and tanned athletes shimmying along on their bikes, and football played in the warm balmy evenings in Lisbon.

Nuala Carey was the last straw. There she was on the weather forecast jawing on about how hot it was all over Eastern Europe. And about how Russia  has record breaking temperatures. “Meanwhile, over in Western Europe…”

I didn’t hear the rest of it. Just the sound of my runner hitting the TV and falling, with a dull thump, on the floor.

What’s a Red Hen to do?

Overwhelmed by the overgrowth of it all, and compelled to get myself ambulant again, I took to the garden. Ripped the flower bed apart, leaving-I think-only the good stuff in. Transplanted lettuce and rocket into large pots. Fed the flowers in the window boxes. Relished being down there in the dirt, scraping away.(Well, I am a hen after all…)

And I delighted in the old-fashioned elegance of the lupins.

And in the little faces on the violas.

And even in the raindrops, as their little skin of surface tension tried to hold each one on the lupin leaves.

It’s amazing what even a little light exercise will do.