Isolation Journal 65

A decent night of sleep, nearly 8 hours, but a very groggy morning.  No one logged onto the team call and I always find that makes the day a bit disjointed and makes me feel a bit disconnected to work.

I grabbed cornflakes for breakfast and two coffees and Maya kept lying on my hand to distract me, she's got a skin condition at the moment where her belly and some of her feet is a bit scabby.  I popped a bit of olive oil on to help her.  

Work was mostly unproductive and sorting out issues and admin today.  At lunch I had a break and had some of the leftover pizza and fed the chicken leftovers to the cats.

I did manage to get hold of a useful contact who might be able to help me engage a senior NHS person as a speaker for a webinar so it wasn't a day of total loss.

Alan went out for a cycle at around 5pm and had spent the day studying and came back and made tea and by the time I'd realised it was past 7pm and tea was ready (lebanese flat bread from Hello Fresh and I ate and watched the end of Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets and let my food go down before going for a run.

I decided as I'd eaten I'd try and run within the "easy" heartrate zone for Garmin which was harder than I'd imagined. I ended up running 8.3K in just over 50 mins and made up for the day of no running yesterday in my running 1000 miles in 2020 goal.

I spent a good bit of lunch researching potential venues for a holiday in the UK, but couldn't really find much as everything seems to be booked!

I then came up and type this on my computer in the office, rather than sitting in front of the telly.

Isolation Journal 63

My plan was to wake up a bit early to prep for my charity pitch meeting, so I woke up annoyingly at 7.50am and had a snooze until 8.10am and then my alarm went off.  I got up and brought the milk in and it was pouring with rain and so then I made my breakfast and coffee.  I had yoghurt, apple and granola, but I put some of the homemade lemon curd that my friend had given me on Saturday - it was delicious, really lemony.

I logged on and did the team call with Katie and then prepped for my meeting.  I think it went ok, it was 4 trustees on MS teams, and one of them had to turn off her camera because her audio wasn't working.  I made the classic error of forgetting to ask how long I had (turns out 30 mins rather than the hour I'd assumed) and I spent more time asking them questions than "selling", but hopefully that's not a bad thing.  

I then had *alot* of emails to try and get through along with some admin and was full on until Alan heated up some lunch from the dinner that we'd had yesterday.  I snatched a few moments to order a hamper of gluten free treats for my brother as it's his birthday tomorrow.  It was hard as some of the stuff looked gluten free, but wasn't obvious.  I also found a few bits and pieces as suggestions for Alan's brother's wife and he ordered something for her birthday which is later this week.

I then had an interview with a very senior candidate from the private sector who wants to make a move to the charity sector and she was good, but I think it's going to be slow at the level that she's looking at for a little while.  

The rest of the afternoon was sorting out admin mostly for the placement I have starting tomorrow and one for Rachel starting later on in the week.  

I eventually finished up around 6.45pm and after much persuading managed to get Alan to agree to a run.  To try and make it easier to run together I'd suggested exploring the woods I went in yesterday, but he wasn't keen to run that far, so I suggested driving and parking closer, but he also wasn't keen on where I'd suggested to park so he suggested we drove to Towton Battlefield and we went for a run around the battlefield trail.  The sunlight was beautiful and there were some lovely views and we ran and looked at some of the different info boards.  At one point we encountered a 14 week old black lab puppy that was excited and jumped up and down at us and scratched my legs by accident.  We explored down a path to Cock's Bridge and then went in a loop past the pub.  We did 5K in 48.56.

When we got back I made tea and scoffed the leftover chips from Friday evening's takeaway whilst I listened to the archers.  We had the Hello Fresh Pork Penne Caponata and then after I'd spilled it all down my run kit I had some lemon tart with cream.  

We watched Peep Show and I then went up for a shower and worked out that the shower head is broken, Alan also worked out the cat flap was broken and managed to change the batteries and fix it on top of fixing the shelf in the fridge with Milliput.  

I watched a bit of Catfish and looked for showerheads.

Isolation Journal 58

Today should be my day off, but it's our new system day so I had to log onto a training call at 9am.  I got up and dressed made a coffee and prepped a mango which I had with granola and yoghurt and left some mango for Alan.

The training call was ok, but I find training where they just show things moving around on a screen isn't really a way that I learn.  We had other bits and pieces throughout the day to learn and watch, but in truth a lot of my day was taken up with the day job as I'm covering for Rachel on holiday.  

By lunchtime I had a major stress tension headache and today took both paracetamol and ibuprofen, but it didn't really shift.  

After a 48 minute call with a client I managed to come downstairs and make some lunch, Alan chopped up some chorizo and black pudding and I fried with no oil in a pan and added to a chopped little gem lettuce, some chopped heritage tomatoes and then some apple cider vinegar and salt.  We had a slice of olive bread with anchor spreadable and then I had another coffee (3 in total today) and went up to finish more work.

I had a busy afternoon sending out testing for candidates, fielding multiple emails and did some of the training modules towards the end of the day.  I had been supposed to go for a run with a friend after doing some more errands in town, but I set off about 30 minutes later than I'd planned at 5.35pm and then had to turn back as I'd forgotten my keys, but I managed to chat to my parents on the way, I grabbed the keys and carried onto work and parked my car underneath the office building and went up to the flat with the table (again!) and I couldn't even get the keys in the lock after being reassured the old lock had been put back in.  I called the number for a guy who came to sort out the lock who said "20 minutes" and so I went back to my office to collect things from my desk as they are implementing a clear desk policy at work.  I also moved Rachel's things into a drawer and took some stuff home for safe keeping like a picture of her with her Dad.  

I went back to the flat and after waiting for about 20 minutes the guy arrived and changed the lock.  I put the table in the flat and had a look around and then wasn't sure whether to leave both tables or just one as there's not much space.  I left both in the end.  I wore my mask the whole way around being in town both in the office where I saw two of the cleaners I'd not seen for months as well as in the apartment building even though the lock guy was "i don't have it you don't have to wear that".

I cancelled going for a run with my friend Sam even though I probably had enough time, but she didn't call me back, I drove back via Temple Newsam thinking that I could go for a run somewhere different, but there seemed to be a lot of travellers and people around the car park and I felt a bit unsure so drove home and went for a run from my front door again.  Alan called me whilst we were both driving home as he'd been catching up with his old boss in Bradford at Starbucks.  I ran past him driving home in the car.

I ran about 36 minutes and just over 4 miles and I'm still getting used to, but enjoying my new watch.  I listened to more of "How to Stop Time" by Matt Haig and I'm getting towards the end of the book now.

I spoke to my brother who'd rung me just at the end of my run to help him prepare for a promotion interview tomorrow.  He was very hung up thinking about all the other candidates, but I pointed out that it was far better to worry about what he was doing to prepare as that was the only thing that he could controls.

I then came down for tea that Alan had made which was Hello Fresh hot dogs and was nearly 1200 calories!!! I'm glad I'd not eaten loads earlier and had had a decent run.  We watched a couple of episodes of early Peep Show.

I then showered after dinner and started a bath for Alan and came down to finish off my system training which I'm nearly finished up on thankfully.  

I also have just remembered again that it's my youngest nephew Winston's birthday (he's 1) so I need to order a present for him even though I've not actually had a chance to meet him yet.

Isolation Journal 57

I woke up and made crumpets for breakfast for me and Alan and also a coffee.  

I had a major issue getting logged on this morning, I had to turn my laptop on and off again about 3 or 4 times, in the meantime Alan kindly leant me his old macbook which actually displays our main system much better and so I might try and use that if I can get MS Teams to install.

Today was insanely manic, I advertised a few jobs last night and had over 100 applications and my phone was ringing solid so much so I had to update my voicemail to say "please don't leave a message as I'm slightly overwhelmed" 

I had one training course at 10am for the new system, a get back to the office session, goal setting for Katie and then a roundtable seminar on top of all the other day to day stuff - Alan kindly made a bratwurst, fried egg and potato waffles with mayo and sriracha for lunch and I didn't even have a break away for lunch.  I had a note about my old bike that I'd posted on FB village group and a lady who turned out to be a candidate came to pick it up - what an odd coincidence.  I had a pink lady apple as a snack.

I finished work around 6.30pm and asked my boss how to go back to full time hours again and she told me to fill out a form, but I just don't know what form!  

I cooked a Hello Fresh burger recipe for dinner and then logged onto Zoom for a HPH session about leading and returning to club sessions that will be more intervals sessions in no more than 6 in a group and we'll be using a booking system called Spond to get people book on.  I asked if it would be ok to auction my old Garmin watch and donate the money to a food bank, I then felt bad when I realised that it was the first thing that Alan bought me for Christmas and should I keep hold of it, but I'd like someone to do something good with it.

I then went out for a run to try out my new watch a bit more and I pushed myself as I was enjoying the fact it annouced strava segments and I got a stitch a few times as I'd obviously only eaten a bit beforehand.  It then told me my training status was "unproductive" which was a bit disappointing.  

I got back and had a shower and then had an ice lolly and turned on Peep Show.  Alan unfortunately managed to crack the screen of his new macbook when a USB got stuck in it.

Isolation Journal 49

I got into bed at a reasonablish time, but wasted at least 30 minutes watching TikTok on my phone and then read a big chunk more of Where the Crawdads sing and texted Alan to suggest it would be good for him to come to bed, but even so I think we only got about 6 hours of sleep. 

After hitting my heaviest weight in over 5 years yesterday at 76.8kg I made the decision to take action and address this, which is hard as whilst I can exercise more with a bit of extra time that I don't spend commuting and a bit of extra time off, if I don't do exercise then I only cover about 3000 steps when I work from home.  

I weighed out my cornflakes and milk and had 2 coffees.   I fed the cats after Qubit appeared with a dying mammal and ate half of it.

We kicked off with a morning call at 9am and then I had a few quick calls to make before I had Rach's appraisal at 10am which went well and then I had a few more calls to make before Pilates at 12pm for an hour.  Of course Hello Fresh arrived as it started, but I managed to grab it and return to the class without too much interruption.  

For lunch I defrosted some leek and potato soup and finished up the salad that I'd made yesterday.  

We had a team meeting for the public sector team at 2pm and then I had a meeting with a client at 3.30pm which went well.

I then had a productive day until finishing work around 6.20pm when I went and started cooking dinner as we had In Conversation with Louis Theroux with Guardian Live booked to watch at 7pm.  I made a vegetable curry with naan bread and Alan went on his bike to drop off the tetra packs that have been living in my car at the recycling centre.  

It was fun watching Louis, he spends so much time interviewing and meeting other people so it was interesting to see him being interviewed and talking about his book, we'd posted a question, but it didn't get asked.  Alan had used his Ipad to log on and casted it to the tv.  We heated up some rhubarb crumble from yesterday and had some cream with it and watched an episode of Scrubs.  I added up all calories I'd consumed on myfitnesspal and realised I was over by about 568 and so decided to go out for a run.  Alan was doing some filming and I went upstairs to read some more "Where the Crawdads Sing" and realised it was getting quite dark so I went out and ran up and down the drive about 24 times and burned up over 600 calories in 45 minutes and covered about 7.5K and as Alan had been recording he wanted me to go out the back and as I was heading back I found a very noisy Qubit having a heated debate with one of the neighbourhood cats and so I brought him back in after I managed to entice him back through the gates to the cottage.  He struggled, but I managed to get him back in the house.

I had a very quick shower in the bath and got into my pjs and went downstairs and watched a bit more scrubs with Alan.

I had a shower

Isolation Journal 47

Alan didn't sleep well, I think I slept ok which was surprising as I felt last night as I was getting into bed that I'd got cystisis, but I did manage to fall asleep and slept through until around 9am, so just around 7 hours, but I didn't feel too tired, but I did still feel in a bit of pain.  I made sure I drank lots of water and also some bicarb of soda - disgusting!

I ordered a Cystitis testing kit from Boots and also booked an appointment with Vitality GP for Tuesday which I can cancel if I need to.

For breakfast we had chorizo and black pudding with maple syrup and scrambled eggs in wraps and I had 2 coffees.  We watched some Scrubs and I felt bad that I again didn't log onto the zoom call for parkrun.  I miss people, but I'm finding zoom intimidating a bit at the moment which is weird as many other circumstances I'm really comfortable with it.

We'd gotten straight into our running gear this morning and I'd managed to spill some oil down my front, but I headed out with Alan and we went for a run to do a (not)parkrun and went down to Newthorpe and then across the railway line and through a field of wheat, we had to go up a muddy lane for 500m to get the right distance and we noticed when we got back the same Flogas truck was parked out the front that was there when we left and when Alan took out some boxes for recycling he chatted to him and realised he'd had a breakdown, Alan made him a coffee.

I busied myself for about 2 hours tidying and cleaning, I vacuumed the whole house and mopped all the floors, I cleaned the kitchen, cleaned and changed the cat litter, changed the sheets on both the beds, took out all the other recyling, cleaned the bathroom and filled up a bath whilst I polished the table and I also did 2 lots of washing.  I listened to the "With me Now" podcast whilst I cleaned and finished off whilst I was in the bath.

I then got stuck in the bath and messed around on my phone and got cleaned up and then Alan made tea and I tried to catch up on my reading for the book club on Where the Crawdads Sing which I'm reallly enjoying, I even read some whilst eating tea and Alan watched the end of the cricket.  

Amazon Prime delivery arrived and I put the shopping away and we had ice lollies and then some salted caramel Ice Cream and cream.  We watched lots of Spooks and I caught up on my step goal as my Vitality points for earlier for our run was 5 out of a possible 8 so I had to get my step count over 12500 to get the maximum points for the day.  

I wanted a bit of a curry snack and so I got it out the fridge, realised it had leaked everywhere and needed to clean the shelf, I then broke the corner bit of plastic and so Alan suggested I superglued it back together again.  I got superglue all over my hands and now can't get it off again and I have crispy hands.  I had the cake that Kirstie dropped off earlier in the week and instantly feel regretful as I'm so heavy at the moment.

Isolation Journal 43

A disjointed waking up today, I took ages to fall asleep and woke Alan up making odd noises that I think was met trying to speak in a dream and consequently I took ages to wake up again.  Qubit brought in a bird and woke me up at 7am, I managed to take it off him and move it so he couldn't put feathers everywhere, sadly it was already dead.

I dialled into my call and caught up with Katie and Rachel and then had a busy morning and finally got breakfast around 10am (I had yoghurt, raspberries and granola) and had 2 coffees.  I had a quick temp meeting and helped Rachel to write a proposal for a confidential client brief.

At lunch I was feeling a bit like I had cabin fever from being in all day yesterday so I suggested that we went out for a walk and so Alan and I walked along the muddy country lane near us and it spitted a bit with rain.  I took a few pictures with my Inaturalist app and  we probably walked for around 25 mins and then I made a ploughmans lunch when I got back which had granny smith, raddicchio, wensleydale, ham from Friday night, Serrano ham, a slice of homemade bread and butter, English mustard, 3 cherry tomatoes, chutney and I had some beetroot.  Sadly the iceberg lettuce was actual ice as it had been pushed to the back of the fridge so I couldn't use it.

I then went upstairs and had a very busy afternoon as I had a new role come in and picked up a role for Katie.  Frustratingly the briefing call for the new role is tomorrow at 2pm...on my day off so I need to login.  I do feel that the past 2 days have been really productive for me and I am on top of my emails much better now which clears my head.  We also had a training call on our new system which I'm really excited about and Maya kept coming on camera during the training call.

It should have been #runandtalk tonight, but I hadn't remember and no one else seemed to either so I scheduled it for next week.  

Again I felt that a run would be a good idea for me and Alan so I managed to convince him it was a good idea and we left the house at 7pm and did a 5K - he was aiming for sub 30 mins and we managed it which was pleasing.  Whilst he was in the bath I managed to fix the Garmin scales so they upload your weight details directly to the garmin app - Alan was pleased with me for not pestering him about it.  I also finished cooking tea whilst he was in the bath and managed to smash a jar of biscoff when it fell out of the cupboard, it wasn't as full as I'd expected at least.  We had Hello Fresh beef stirfry for tea and Alan had done the prep.

I managed to persuade him to use Easyfundraising to make a purchase this evening so I'm hoping we'll get some more cashback for guides that way as we aren't charging any subs at the moment.

We watched some Spaced and then he went to call his Mum and I did some emails for work and watched Catfish.  I also had a shower and got "stuck" in the bath, even without it filled up to be a bath - it happens, I can spend over an hour messing around on my phone if I'm not careful.  I also put a load of washing on and cleaned the kitchen whilst listening tot the Archers on the BBC Sounds app.

Tomorrow is my day off and for the first time I have no call with friends scheduled for 5pm and no Zumba at 7pm, so I have one work call at 2pm, but for the rest of the time I can read or do creative writing or run!

Isolation Journal 29

Another "not" day off for me today.  Alan got up as normal and logged on for work at 9am, I faffed around on social media before getting out of bed around 10.15am and made myself yoghurt, granny smith, granola and home grown raspberries.  Only one coffee today.

I got straight into my run kit as I wanted to get a run over and done with and I put on a load of washing and took out the recycling and chatted to the gardener who mows our lawn for us.

I had planned to run for about an hour, but it was about 28 degrees so after a fairly fast 5km I decided to head back as it was just too warm and did just over 4 miles!  I listened to more of What Alice Forgot which is such a good audio book! I had an ice lolly when I got back and felt a bit light headed so sat down for a bit.  I was due to take little Alex (not so little anymore) out for a walk, but he had heatrash so wasn't heading out, so I had a long bath and then headed downstairs and made a salad with sriarcha mayo dressing and a couple of small potatoes with cheese, butter and marmite. I had another ice lolly.  Some herb plants that I'd ordered arrived and I planted out some mint, coriander, parsley, chives and nearly pulled up some seedlings that I then realised had grown from a tomato I planted 3 months back, so I replanted them!

I did a bit of work email stuff and Alan suggested we head out on the bikes and so I got my bike out and didn't get into biking gear, just the shorts and t-shirt that I already had on.  We cycled to post a parcel and then went to Fairburn Ings via Lumby and locked up our bikes and went for a walk and did some more mapping using the inaturist app.  We then cycled back via Ledsham just under 10 miles in total, I was surprised to get some cycling strava segments not clipped in or in proper cycling gear.

I've also been trying to sort out re-letting the studio flat that I own in the centre of Leeds, I'm not sure the agent I've been with since I bought it in 2017 are being very proactive so I'm considering whether I change agents.  It feels wrong to have it vacant, I wouldn't mind reducing the price especially if it could help a key worker.

We chatted with our nextdoor neighbour and I cleared up some feathers from a bird that the cats had clearly brought in.  Alan then made some chicken Laksa for tea and we ate outside and watched Chris from number 5 on his sit on mower cut the grass and Alan watered the plants and the lawn for us and Denise at number 4.  I had a Gentleman Jack and Ginger and we had ice cream and cream for dessert.  I then had a rose wine with some ice and came inside to watch some Catfish and plan my guide meeting for tomorrow as well as write a session plan for run club.

Isolation Journal 14

So this is now 2 weeks of writing a journal everyday and it's strange it feels like a lot has happened, but that also there is an overriding sense of deja vu.

This morning Alan was awake early, I had forgotten that he had to head into the office and so he got up and left around 8am.  I snoozed for a bit and put Headspace on for 10 minutes before getting up.

I had cornflakes for breakfast and a couple of coffees and then had a team meeting to start off the morning, then two client meetings and it's been pretty busy at work all day.  I've made a dent in some of the emails as when I have too many it feels as though I'm not on top of things and might miss something so hopefully I can get them squared off and feel more in control.

One of the meetings started at 11.30am and went on until about 12.20pm (although I was late to join as I hadn't realised it wasn't on Teams and that I'd get the automatic alert to say that it was ready to start, it was on googlemeet so I had to sign in separately.  I missed my Pilates class, but I did have a delivery which was addressed to Alan, but was my exciting customised Vans trainers with bees and flowers on.  I had pizza from last night for lunch and then I was a bit hungry for snacks and I had a protein bar and a mini babybel.

I had one interview request which I didn't manage to confirm by the end of the day and the important roles that I'd picked up last week for a colleague we got lots of interviews on, including one for a friend's partner which is good news.

I watched the daily briefing and only 55 deaths which was positive, but there is always a weekend lag.  Other news topics that were interesting were the reporting on the Coulson statue being pulled down yesterday.  I was also reading about how a donut place in Leeds that a lot of people raved about has been exposed by an ex employee to be owned by racists/neo nazis, I'd not been there, but it made for uncomfortable reading.

I then got some more roles in to refer to colleagues just as I was about to sign off and then I went for a run with Alan.  We ran about 5.2K and took it steady with a few walk breaks.  My right knee was really sore when I first woke up, but this did get better and was fine for the run.

Alan made tea when we got back - Hello Fresh - Halluomi with couscous and salad and we had Haagen Daas salted caramel ice cream and some double cream for tea!

I went up for a quick shower, but ended up having a stupidly long bath - I don't get relaxed by baths, I get stuck, mess around on my phone and realise that the water is cold.  

I cleaned up the kitchen and then came into the lounge and logged on to write this and to check some more work emails.

Alan went up for a bath and I turned on Catfish again to watch whilst dealing with emails.

Isolation Journal 8

Today was a pretty exhausting day, another day of work starting with a 9am kick off meeting.  Again I had a couple of black coffees and some cornflakes for breakfast and during the 9am meeting I learned that having worked at 80% hours for the past 2 months we are going to have this reviewed and I could potentially go back to 100% or stay at 80%.  I have found having more free time has been good over the past 2 months, it's allowed me to do more focussed work for Guides and runclub as well as tidy the house, train and do blogging and the creative writing last week.  In the last couple of days at work though it's been signficantly more busy so I'm thinking that I could easily fill 5 days of work, there's is plenty to do.  I'm not sure what I'll decide or exactly when I need to have decided by, but the whole lockdown situation has made me value having more time at home and less time commuting.  

After the 9am meeting, we then had a temp update meeting and I helped one of my team in preparing a proposal for a client which I found out later this afternoon was accepted which is a big relief.  

I knew I had a busy evening this evening so I went out to post a letter to a friend and go for my run at lunchtime.  I had shared a tweet over the weekend from Postsecret about someone's biggest fear being able to not be with their pet if they had to be put to sleep because of the Covid situation, it is a huge fear for me and I hadn't realised that one of my very few twitter followers who I'm friends with in real life had been through this.  I felt bad, although I don't think she thought I'd done it intentionally so I sent her a card with some seeds to plant to remember her kitty and also a dribble that I'd written about cats.  I hope she likes it and it doesn't upset her more.  I also remembered that I'd planned on sending a tangle to one of my colleagues who mentioned she'd been really picking at her hands with all the anxiety.

My run was fast today, I managed to get a PB on a segment near me and was onlyl 8 seconds off being the fastest woman to have run it, I did just over 5K in just around 26 minutes.  I grabbed an orangle lolly out of the freezer and a pint of orange squash with ice and a bit of salt thrown in to cool down.  I was then straight back onto another teams call to launch an BD session for the afternoon and then a meeting about the housing sector and another about government and then a wrap up call - it was exhausting!  I managed to pick up 2 leads for colleagues in the North West that will hopefully turn into jobs and so it wasn't completely meeting focussed thankfully.  I realised that after signing in for the call straight after my run that an hour passed before I realised I'd not eaten so I quickly prepped a carrot and cucumber into sticks as well as cheese (coverdale and goats) chutney and a couple of slices of serrano ham.  

I then had 15 mins away from the laptop before running my virtual #runandtalk meeting for the run club, we had 6 people sign in and a nice chat about how we were finding things.  I was hungry so I'd grabbed a granny smith apple and cut it into chunks and a babybel light. I then had a call with my friends Hayley and Sam for a catch up for about an hour and a half.  and Alan very kindly made Beef Ragu for tea from Hello Fresh.  We talked about how we are all still very nervous of being out and about, even if we are allowed more freedom at the moment.  Hayley also told us about a commission she's working on.  I tidied the kitchen, grabbed another glass of white wine and a gu pudding and had a sneaky couple of slices of serrano ham.

I read a lot more about the unrest going on in America today, I blacked out my facebook and Instagram for #blackouttuesday and I'm still trying to read and learn more about how I can support black people better.  I feel ignorant, I feel ashamed, I feel guilty and I'm confused as to what I can do, so I'm going to do my best to learn more and try and support more.

Isolation Journal 1

I really should have started an isolation journal back in March, but I'm guessing that I'm not the only person feeling like this.  At the time when everything started to change, it changed fast and even though I had more "time" my mental energies were a bit frazzled.

For me as I've mentioned in my previous post it all felt (feels) a bit like a dream, we flew out to a tropical island and by the time we flew back my reality was very different, but rather than try and distill the past 10 weeks into a journal entry, I'm going to just think about today as part of the weekly challenge from Curtis Brown Creative.

Last night I went to bed fairly late as I have this week off as holiday, I'd decided to participate in a creative writing week with my friend Lauren and so I didn't end up getting into bed until around 1am as I'd been up doing a freewriting challenge.  Annoying my laptop decided to freeze and omitted half of what I'd written!

It meant that I woke up after around 7.5 hours of sleep and finally dragged myself out of bed after 9am knowing that I needed to get myself ready for a cycle ride.  I'd arranged to meet my cousin for a socially distanced catch up at Towton Battlefield and swap cakes.  My cousin is gluten free so I decided to make some chocolate cornflake cakes and used my favourite life hack ever of melting chocolate with a hairdrier.  I ate a banana for breakfast and had a black coffee from our lovely new coffee machine.

Alan came with me which was helpful as I'm still a bit nervous about cycling and despite googlemaps claiming it was 4.5 miles it ended up being 6 miles.  We met just after 11am and had a nice long chat whilst some farmers were laying out some cabling across the field.  We had the new awkward scenario of how to exchange cakes whilst keeping a social distance, it almost looks like a very small hostage exchange.  I felt bad on the way back as Alan pointed out that we'd not actually gone for a stroll around the Battlefield especially after reading my favourite 1 star review.

boring field

I like to come to the old battle fields. This battle field is the most boring one out of them all there is nothing to see but boring old fields. I payed a tone of money to get there and when i got there all it is, is fields after fields and the best moment was the trip there and back!!!!!!

I made some pasta for lunch with some roasted courgette and yellow pepper and chorizo and made some marmite sauce for mine after my friend Lauren had told me about it - basically cook the pasta and save some pasta water and mix it with butter and marmite.  It was very salty, but delicious.

Whilst I was cooking I listened to half of a talk from the The Hay Fesitval online by Devi Sridhar above the Covid-19 pandemic and I need to finish watching it because she was giving some really balanced critique of the UK handling including the observation that countries with less strong health systems were more rapid and robust with their responses and consequently experienced less deaths than those who on paper were better set up with strong health systems and so perhaps delayed their decisions to respond longer.  

We ate lunch and I watched another event from The Hay Festival live by Daniel Davis on immunity and Covid-19, Lauren was also watching and we both found that it was very science based in explanations and for me I need to re-watch it!

Lauren and I then had a video call to talk through the writing that we had done and to compare some notes about how we'd found the writing exercise.  It was really nice to actually do some writing and have someone else give some feedback.  I had written a piece of freewriting and thought about the concept of freedom in lockdown and Lauren had written a piece inspired by the writing prompt He knew she’d never come back.  Lauren had written with pen and paper and it made me think that I might like to try doing some writing that way as I think typing and writing use slightly different parts of your brain.  We're going to do some more writing and discussion over the week and have both booked onto a "flash fiction" course with Arvon on Thursday.

After I'd finished the call I watched the Daily Briefing from Downing Street which had two of the questions from the public that I would be asking if I'd been given the chance - Will people fined in similar situations in lockdown looking to access childcare now be able to appeal their fines in light of Dominic Cumming's behaviour being described as "legal" and also a question about if we can go shopping for non essentials why and when can we see our families?  Matt Hancock gave a more consistent briefing than we have seen over the past couple of days, but was extremely dismissive of the media and didn't allow follow-ups on their questions.  I'm worried about why we have the highest death rate and yet we still don't have a robust test, track and trace system set up and what is happening with the app?  It amazes me that people are still willing to defend our government without question as we are so far behind the world in being able to get back to some sense of normal life.  

After the briefing I decided to go for a run, I'm aiming to run around 1000 miles in 2020 which sounds like a lot, but is actually only 4.4K per day when you break it down.  I also wanted to take some pictures for the photo competition that one of the ladies from my running club has set.  I took pictures for the "bugs eye view" and "red, blue or yellow" categories.  I was going to go for a run up and down the hill on the road next to the house to keep an eye out for an amazon pantry delivery, but it had been left by the door when I went to set out for my run so I unpacked it and set off.  I ran 5K in 27 minutes.

Alan made dinner and we had a Hello Fresh recipe of Lamb Kofta and he even made a rhubarb crumble which we had with a bit of vinetta that was delivered with the Amazon Pantry order.  The biggest issue I have with lockdown is just how much sugar and puddings I'm eating, generally I've been healthier in terms of sleep and excercicse - I'm running, cycling, zumba and walking as well as Pilates classes, but I definitely need to try and cut down on the sweet things!

Whilst eating dinner, we watched a very odd film that promised more in the description than it delivered.  The Voices - A likable guy pursues his office crush with the help of his evil talking pets, but things turn sinister when she stands him up for a date.  It gets 6.4 / 10 on IMDB, but I would probably give it 3 - 4 as it really didn't have a very coherent plot and was just a bit gross, but not in a funny or contributing to the plot way.

We then put Friends on again in the background whilst I started to  write my isolation journal...

"Reader, I asked him" - how parkrun lead me to change my mind about wanting to get married again

On Saturday I got engaged to my partner Alan.  It was a really special occasion and I wanted to write about how it came to pass, how it went and how we both felt afterwards.

I have been married before. I was with my ex for nearly 12 years and married for around 4 years.  If I had been wiser and braver I might have made some different choices about that relationship, but it eventually ended when both of us were extremely unhappy and with very poor mental health.  

Having been in a relationship since I was 20, I found myself in 2013 as a newly single woman in her early 30s feeling   clueless about "dating".  I decided to do some research and I read some books about dating including "The Rules" by  Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider and "He's just not that into you" by Greg Behrendt.  They made me feel even less equipped to enter the world of "dating" not least the complicated world of "online dating".  In the most basic distillation of the advice I took from these books it was basically "as a woman never make the first move (don't even look at a man first!)" and that if someone isn't bothered, they're not bothered and don't waste your energy chasing it (which I guess does make some sense.)

In the following couple of years I went on quite a few dates that would probably serve as a humorous book if I were to write them all down from the guy who lied about his name, age (by 10 years) and having a job and then asked to borrow money from me through to the guy who started too go cold on me (He just clearly wasn't that into me!) and so when he explained why and told me it was because "he would have killed for a garden like mine and would never have let it turn into an overgrown nature reserve" I came to the realisation that online dating in particular is just a bit badly thought out and wasn't really going to find me the sort of person I wanted to be spending my life with.  

Compare online dating to online shopping - you have a list of criteria you are looking for say to book a holiday and you can search for all those elements and see what other people thought of a particular hotel and provider, there are reviews of the service to validate what you are buying.  You can make a considered purchase and worst case scenario - most of the time you can take it back for a refund or buy another one if the reality doesn't match up to expectations.   Not so with dating, the nearest you can get to a "review" is on the "My Single Friend" site which has friends recommend their "single friend" which is obviously slightly biased  You have to take a leap of faith and meet someone who you likely wouldn't bump into in real life.  This situation also affords them the opportunity to behave terribly with no consequences from the community around them.  

Then we come to the perception of infinite choice - if you think meeting a perfect match online is simply finding someone who ticks all of your "wish list" then you'll most likely be looking forever because for every "must like dogs" and "must look like Brad Pitt" you can tick off, you'll never have thought about the unique things that make us all human like "must have those cute tiny creases around their eyes when they smile so it looks like their eyes are twinkly" and those "must have big hands that annoyingly spill stuff everywhere when they cook"...but you don't mind because you love all of them (yes I'm talking about Alan!).  

In August 2015 I deleted all my dating apps because it wasn't good for my mental health to be continually comparing people on superficial qualities and it wasn't good for me to be constantly compared either.  I also read another dating book "Get the Guy" by Matthew Hussey and it gave me a slightly different perspective on things which was "don't obsess over trying to meet *the one* instead just enjoy meeting different new people.  People who can introduce you to other people and will allow you the chance to develop feelings more naturally over time rather than in a pressurised face to face over a coffee.  I also went to see a palm reader on a trip to India and whilst I didn't (and don't!) believe in the truth in what they say, he did something interesting and told me I would meet my next partner between 19/08/16 and 19/09/17 and so it made me think "why am I trying to force this, is it so bad if actually I stop putting pressure on myself and know I might not meet someone immediately?"

When I got back home after my trip, I went running with my friend from Hyde Park Harriers - Sam Scarlett who mentioned to me that she thought I would get on well with her friend Alan who she'd met at parkrun and I'm guessing had a similar conversation with him as shortly afterwards I had a Facebook friend request from him.  I accepted and when I was putting a shout out to try and find someone to keep me company on a 20 mile training run he offered instead to meet me after parkrun for around 15 miles as he was travelling to New York on the Sunday and wanted to get in his marathon training miles before the Yorkshire marathon.  We agreed to meet up and go for a run together after parkrun.

(I must confess at this point that I had actually seen Alan's profile on one of the online dating sites, but despite thinking he looked lovely, I had moved past it as I was so weary with online dating and also I think I was too old for his age criteria at that point!).

I am so glad that I got a second chance to meet Alan!  So thankful for parkrun!
We first met after a fast 5K parkrun at Woodhouse Moor parkrun.  parkrun has been life changing for me in many ways, I first started running back in 2004 when I entered a "Race for Life" event to raise money for Cancer Research and it was amazingly beneficial to both my mental and physical health.  I moved up to a 10K in 2007, a half marathon in 2008 and then a marathon in 2010, but I only discovered parkrun in 2014 after my friend Gemma invited me to her birthday parkrun.  About 6 months before I'd been mugged and my marathon training had ended up being solely on treadmills as I had no confidence to run outside by myself anymore.  I realised that this friendly place called parkrun (which was also free!) meant that at least I could run outside once a week and not feel scared.

Alan walked over to me at the finish after I'd had my barcode scanned and we will have both been sweaty on a very warm September morning.  We set off in my car to Eccup Reservoir and did a couple of laps chatting all the way around.  At one point I had to stop for a pit stop in a bush which is probably not a conventional thing to do on a first date and certainly against "The Rules"!  We called it a day after 12 miles as it was so warm and drove back to Alan's car and went our separate ways (despite me dropping many hints about going out for lunch!) After getting a shower I was really pleased to have a message from Alan inviting me to the cinema that evening and we watched "Legend" at the Everyman and ate pizza.  Alan even picked me up from my house and dropped me home afterwards which was lovely and we had our first kiss in my dining room in front of snuffly Marla cat.

Alan flew to New York the next day and we messaged and face timed a lot in the week he was away and had our second date at Kendall's on the day he arrived back to the UK.  Over the first few weeks we barely spent any time apart and visited Antwerp and the Yorkshire Dales together.  I knew that Alan must like me a bit when a day after his Yorkshire Marathon where he smashed 35 minutes off his PB he signed up to run the White Rose Ultramarathon with me (and Sam Scarlett) 2 weeks later.   On our first glamping trip to Swinton Bivouac the topic of marriage came up and I said that for me I didn't want to do it again as it wasn't that it felt like something that I needed to do and was very expensive.  Alan seemed disappointed and said that for that reason he'd not ask me as I'd made it clear I didn't want to be married again.  

3 1/2 years on and we are very happy living together in a house we bought together in December 2016 with two lovely cats and for all purposes live as if we are married.  So you might think - what changed? 

In March this year I saw one of my friends from my teenage years, Will, marry Sara. Sara had also been married before and I got the impression may have felt like me about doing it all over again, but seeing her and Will look so happy on their wedding day that was all about them, their relationship and how they wanted the day to be that it started me thinking "Am I just being stubborn?"  Sara even made a speech and made the point that it would encourage more women to be more equal in the marriage process and that got me thinking a bit more.  

As I was driving back home with Alan sat next to me, I realised I had changed my mind, whilst I didn't think getting married would make our relationship any different, being with Alan makes me feel safe and happy and I thought it would be lovely to celebrate this with our friends and family and also to give us both the chance to have a wedding and a marriage together.  It wasn't something I felt I "should" do, but it felt like I might regret not doing it if we didn't.   He had said he'd never ask me though and I thought to myself "what's holding me back from asking him?" and I realised that the only thing holding me back was that women don't generally ask men.  As a guide leader and ex-Women's Institute president, I'm also very keen at ensuring that as a woman we continue to move towards equality and that one area we are terribly unequal is in relationships and in particular proposing marriage, but with anything unless people are willing to stand up and be one of the first to do it, people won't feel confident to try too.  

I knew that if there was only one place that would be right to ask him, it had to be parkrun.  I was still driving back from the wedding and got so emotional thinking about it that tears were running down my face and Alan was trying to ask me "what's wrong?" and I couldn't really explain.

Alan is extremely good at guessing anything I'm up to try and surprise him, but it occurred to me that this year his birthday fell on parkrunday (known to others as Saturday).  By using his birthday as a decoy I could invite family and friends to come to parkrun with the excuse of "It's your birthday!" and then ask him if he wanted to get married.  I told him I was going to organise a special birthday parkrun "but it's only my 37th birthday, it's not a special birthday!?!" he said, but didn't seem to get too suspicious.

To make sure I wasn't going completely crazy, I sense checked my plans with my friend Hannah who thought if I wanted to do it and was happy and loved him then I should ask him and offered to come and help me on the day in any way needed.

I then looked at the volunteer rota and saw that it was Anne Akers the event director (who we know well) who was down to be the run director on the day of Woodhouse Moor parkrun where I first met Alan.  I contacted her directly as I wanted to keep it as secret as possible to avoid any chance of it slipping out before the day!  She was delighted with my idea and I promised to make sure that my plans wouldn't interfere with the normal business of parkrun.

I had a few ideas of how I could ask Alan.  I have seen stories where some people have proposed at the run briefing before the runners set off, but I know Alan is not always keen on being a big centre of attention and also would probably not want to actually run after such a life event!  Anne's husband Noel suggested I could reveal a message per lap of the 3 lap course, which I think would be great, but knowing how curious Alan is there would be another risk he'd not complete parkrun (and I couldn't be responsible for that!!)  In the end the idea that I settled on was to volunteer on "unscannables" which means I'd manually write down any unscannable barcodes at the end of the run.  I would task the scanners to mysteriously not scan Alan's barcode and then I'd have to write down his barcode and could ask the question.  Anne liked the idea and I was happy as it wouldn't have too big an audience, wouldn't interfere with normal parkrun business and would also be metres away from where I first met Alan.

I wanted to make the occasion as special as possible and also knowing how emotional and tearful the idea was making me, I came up with an idea to help me out on the day if nerves kicked in.  I planned to make a video with some of our memories of our time together like the strava track of our first parkrun and run together, a screenshot of the first messages we exchanged and some holiday and running photos.  At the end it would have some words written down about how I'd changed my mind about wanting to get married.  I first used the 1 Second Everyday app, but it was just too quick!  I didn't want the last few slides to not be readable (Hannah confirmed my fears!)  I then ran the 1 Second Everyday photo and video montage through another video editing app to slow it down, but it made the bits with speech sound weird.  I then remembered that I'd gone to the Apple store with my Guides last year and they'd made videos with music about what they enjoyed about being a Guide using the Clips app on the Iphone.  This was perfect as it allowed me to make text slides, add music and add speech bubbles to what the cats were thinking!

The video took me ages... my Iphone screentime report was huge for 3 weeks!  I also in-between ran Manchester Marathon and had a pretty terrible time running.  I had to walk the last 12K including running past somewhere playing "One day like this" by Elbow which made me burst into tears and felt like the perfect song to put the video to.  Finally I had a roughly 4 minute video that right at the end finished with slides telling him that I'd changed my mind about not wanting to get married again and ending with the word "so" leaving me the small matter to turn to Alan and ask him to marry me.

I was still really nervous about all my preparations - I'd asked Alan's brother Dom to come to his birthday parkrun and ideally wanted to tell him in person about my plans, but we'd not managed to meet up beforehand.  I messaged him to let him know and he said he'd be there with Alan's niece and nephew and he even brought Winston the dog with him on the day!  I said I was scared he wouldn't say yes, but he said he didn't think I needed to worry and thatwe were as "thick as thieves".  I also met Sam Scarlett who had introduced us in the first place and showed her the video and asked if she would be around on the day to run with Alan if needed - she was delighted and her reaction to the video was what I'd hoped for and gave me some confidence that it would land well with Alan - even though it ended up being about 4 minutes!

I'd also got my cousin Jenny to come on the day as well as Alan's colleague Danielle (who I didn't tell in advance as that would be a potentially tough secret to keep at work!)

I kept saying to Alan how excited I was for his birthday parkrun - I could hardly contain myself!  I think he was a bit baffled by it all, but didn't suspect anything other than perhaps a surprise picnic!  I'd ordered him a new parkrun wristband for his birthday as well as a leather bracelet with a silver engraved section with our two parkrun numbers and the date we met on it (although stupidly in my excitement I managed to put my birthday of the year we met by mistake - doh!!!)
The night before I'd bought some birthday tiffin for him and put the bottle of champagne I won a few years back in a bag and then struggled hard to fall asleep.  I woke up early to give him his main birthday present and make some hot cross buns, orange juice and coffee for breakfast and we made our way to parkrun.  The night before he said "I don't understand why you're volunteering" and I said it was because Hannah was coming and might need some help keeping an eye on energetic James!  Alan also kindly ran with Alex who is only 9 and so needed to be in arms reach of a responsible adult!

We arrived at parkrun and I carried over my bags of provisions and my cousins Christmas presents from my parents (yes I know we've just not managed to catch up for ages!).  "why are there cups in your bag?" asked Alan "My cousin is having a BBQ later and needs to borrow them" and he didn't ask anything further thankfully!

I grabbed my hi-vis vest and a clipboard and pen, said hello to lots of people who were wishing Alan a happy birthday.  Anne Akers cheered him up by pointing out that 37 is a prime number.  Hannah met us with a very excitable James and Alex and then we all walked over to the start.

It was such a beautiful morning, sunny with a completely blue sky and the runners set off on their run after Anne had given Alan a birthday shout out, I'd told the scanners I had some special instructions for them and when the run had started I told them what I'd got planned and showed them a photo of Alan so they knew not to scan his barcode when he got to the finish.
As we walked back to the finishing funnel I realised that Alan's brother Dom had arrived with Ada on his shoulders, Wren in the buggy and Winston on the lead and I spotted my cousin Jenny had arrived too.  After cheering the runners past 2 laps I took up my position at the end of the finish funnel with Hannah and James ready to take the clipboard from me when Alan arrived, writing down at least a page and half of unscannables in the process.

With the help of Danielle, Alan managed to pace Alex around to shave 10 minutes his parkrun pb finishing in just under 35 minutes and headed straight over to me bypassing the scanners because he could tell that Alex had an issue with his barcode.  I handed the clipboard to Hannah and said that I had a special video to play Alan "I'll watch it later, I need to get my barcode scanned first" he said, but I insisted and played him the video putting my arm around him as he lent over me and dripped sweat onto my head.  

The video played and James was keen to look too until his attention span flicked onto something else and Anne took up a position ready to snap a photo and a small audience gathered behind us as the video played.  It was hard to not comment on anything or hurry it along and as we watched it play on my phone my legs had started to shake with nerves.  The last few slides played and then I turned to Alan and quietly said "will you marry me" and he took my face in his hands with a tear in his eye (it wasn't just sweat!) and said "of course I'll marry you" and we had a kiss and a hug and turned around to an audience who said "Well?!?!" to which Alan declared "I said yes!" and everyone cheered and congratulated us.

We walked back over to the start to pick up our stuff and I opened up the bottle of champagne and shared it with people and Danielle shared her amazing baked goods of Easter Rocky Road, cheese straws and sausage rolls and we all had a great time chatting and smiled an awful lot.  I'd given Alan the bracelet and he had put it straight on and then after a few second glances, he realised I'd managed to mess up the date.  

After some time had passed and we'd drank some champagne, we walked over towards the parkrun cafe - Opposite and realised we should probably tell our parents about our news before it got out over Facebook!  I rang my Mum and Dad and told them and Alan Skyped his mum and they were all very pleased.  We walked across to get coffee and were glad we'd made the call then as we spotted the lovely photo that Anne had taken off us shared on the Woodhouse Moor parkrun facebook page and quickly got a lot of likes (It's a great photo - thanks Anne!)

We were slightly overwhelmed by all the well wishers and I've not yet managed to respond to all the lovely messages yet, but I will!  We'd arranged to go to our local pub, The Queen o' t' owd Thatch, for dinner anyway and were delighted that when we arrived my friend Lauren had bought us a bottle of fizz to go with our meal and also they decorated our plate with congratulations for our dessert.  

Both the  Yorkshire Evening Post and the BBC got in touch as a result of the response to the photo Anne had shared to Facebook and it seems that a lot of people enjoyed reading about our story and a few people commented on the posts "I wish this could happen to me!" or "I wish I could meet someone at parkrun!"  Both myself and Alan would definitely say - you can, but I think embracing the whole of parkrun will make it more likely.  Run, walk or jog parkrun and chat to people (or even just smile at people if you are shy) as you go around, volunteer and get to know the core team and importantly (one of the best bits!) go to the coffee shop and get to be a part of the wider parkrun community.  In the dating book that I liked..."Get the Guy", it said that if you want to meet *the one* don't just focus on meeting that *one* person, but instead focus on broadening your network and meeting lots of people, ideally doing something that you love (it doesn't have to be running!).  parkrun provided a great opportunity to not only improve my health and meet lots of lovely new friends, it ultimately introduced me to my future husband. parkrun has genuinely changed my life for the better in so many ways.  And now we are planning our wedding for September!


I love parkrun and parkrun helped me to find love. 

#loveparkrun