My Gracious Silence

Reading previous posts ... I ran on Monday?  Really?  Huh.  This has been an odd week.  I could have sworn I hadn't run since Friday.  The Garmin says the last run was Monday was well.  I'm not as far off the wagon as I thought, then - and makes the sustained run/pace less admirable ;)  

I'm still going to repeat this week's run/pace workout plan, rather than moving on.  Particularly as I don't think I should stress the ankle until it's been seen by someone who has more of a clue whether I'm damaging it than I do.

 Another day, another few miles.  At least I'm getting somewhere; in the grand re-reading, the motley crew are stuck in the Council of Elrond.  A couple of days off, to accommodate travels and visits, proves to have been rather a good thing, as I was feeling rather good whilst running (not gasping and wheezing) and ran up a couple of hills (see previous brackets).

I am re-reading the Tome, in an effort to figure out where I am in the running and ... you know, it's really rather boring <waits for lightning to strike, then peers out cautiously>.  Endless then-this-then-that-then-long-fancy-name-then-weirdo-character.  Repeat.  Rinse.  Repeat again. Struggling to spot any character development.  It's all a bit unicorns against dark swirling clouds of stars, really.  Is this heresy?  I did read it as a teenager - I think it's about 20 years since I last re-read it - and I don't recall thinking it was all that marvellous then.  The years have not improved my opinion of it. 

Will plough on, if only to see whether I can find whatever groove others do in it.

I've decided that this whole running lark needs some focus - and I'm not ready for races yet.  So, shamelessly taking the idea from truepenny I've decided that I'm running (well, jogging right now) to Mordor, and started on January 1st this year (yes, yes, I re-started the whole running lark in October, but 1st January seemed like a better point to start from.  And I want to see the scenery as I go past).  The route I'm taking is www.ooblick.com/text/tomordor/.

Today's run took me to 27 miles this year (yay, I've run a marathon this month!), so I'm well out of Hobbiton past The Water and Bywater and now on the East Road towards Frogmorton with about 30 miles to go.

Believe me, Frodo will get there a lot faster than I will. 

Happy New Year to all!

It's been a duvet sort of a day; cold and raining, enough to make the day seem dark even when it was supposed to be light. I've been knitting and reading, and idly puttering around the internet; lazy Sunday. Apart from a quick run - back on a training program again, to get back to running without stressing ankles and knees and the rest. I've been jogging off and on all year, but decided to take it a little more seriously about 5 weeks ago, to run to some purpose.

I want to hibernate.

Quiet weekend after a family overdose; remind me never again to go on holiday without a car (mine or rental, I'm not fussy, I just want wheels). Working my way through laundry, otherwise taking a bit of the weekend off before the onslaught of the week and rather a lot of deadlines coming up.

Reading: Cryoburn - Lois McMaster Bujold (finished it, to be accurate - the advance reader copy that Baen has up for sale in eBook format). I love how Miles has grown up, and Roic too, and how the relationship between m'twisty lord and his armsman has developed. More than that would be spoilers, so I won't.

Otherwise vacation reading was more Ngaio Marsh and a couple of sale and purchase agreements with associated tax warranties and covenants. "Vacation" has a peculiar meaning when you're self-employed, and mobile broadband is a mixed blessing.

Wandered homewards via Mecklenburg Square. There were people in the Square garden playing tennis, energetically if rather erratically. The continuity across decades was rather comforting.

Reading: Death on the Air - the Ngaio Marsh kick continues.

Knee is rebelling; the one not operated on. I'm hoping there isn't another epidural in my future - but definitely no running for a few days.

Reading: Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold again. Comfort reading.

Cold and dark and grateful for heating. December bit with a vengeance yesterday, with ice on the lakepuddle on the way to work - thick ice, which suggests an odd micro-climate there. It was frosty elsewhere, with the sugar-dipped leaves on the grass that I forgot to cut towards the end of summer, but not obviously ice-cold.

The calendar is slightly frightening; somehow (and I should really know better by now) I'm working on two Christmas plays. Thankfully one is a one-night-only special, and the rehearsals are mostly on separate days, but the next couple of weeks will be a succession of is-it-panto-or-is-it-Treasure-Island-tonight? That said, somewhere in all that I also got 90% on my maths assignment (Open University - it seemed like a good idea at the time ...).

Last night's best rehearsal moment: the Court of Appeal judge who announced that "there are too many ho's in this". The generational gap was evident in looking at those who collapsed with laughter and those who wondered why we were laughing. He's playing one of Snow White's dwarves, by the way. Hi-ho, ho-ho ... wanders off to work, whistling

Reading: The Tax Lawyer - American Bar Association. For curiosity mostly, as my insurers would have a fit if I tried to actually advise on US tax law.

Fog blanket morning; porridge with bananas and raisins; coffee steaming gently, as the heating hasn't made much of a dent in the cold. No run this morning, it's a rest day as I'm trying to ease back to fitness gently, to at least try and minimise the risk of objections and refusals from joints and other parts.

Outside my room at work now is the chapel, wherein there is a new organ. Yesterday passed in a succession of practices and odd notes as the tuners settle it in. It takes a month to tune an organ, it seems, so I have a few more days of background music.

I have my gown now, a thing of wonder and beauty and miscellaneous folds and buttons and history. The wig can wait until I need one; the gown is needed for dinner in Hall and sufficient other formalities that it seemed better to buy than to rent. Practicalities aside, the symbolism meant something.

The rediscovery of a love of learning, of researching, is just glorious. No timesheets, no targets - the client deadlines are mine to manage in any way that I want, so there's little obstacle to digging into obscure facts and tangents, to reading cases settled over 150 years ago and wonder about the lives of the people whose dispute has passed into legal history. I find I can think again, find links and develop theories, and not be constrained by petty mismanagement. Which is not to say that the mortgage no longer needs to be paid, to be prosaic, but I choose how I get there. I've underestimated choice for a long time.

Reading: Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy L Sayers (the Wimsey kick continues), and countless caselaw on domicile.