Month: June 2020

Same conditions as yesterday, practically the same result — a 9:27 mile. I’m feeling less agreeable to running again; it’s a nuisance, and the lack of evident progress demotivates me. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and I decided to make today a no-productivity-pressure day, so…

So I read Alan Jacobs’s How to Think, a helpful reminder of the value of taking a patient view of truth and of one’s interlocutors, and spent other time just being relaxed, and it was all very enjoyable. Majliss served us dinner, and we continued our John Wick film festival with Chapter Two.

No offers of cigarettes this morning — indeed, I didn’t see anybody at all. The temperature was 12°, high (but not ‘very high’) pollen, moderately high humidity, breezy, but still a somewhat sluggish run: 9:28. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, wrote a manuscript report, and set to reading. Our front room this morning has been the distraction area for a college family who are moving off to their first cure; soon-to-be-Father Josh, Emily, Eva-Maria and Joachim visited while the removal workers packed up their earthly goods. Some fitful reading in the afternoon, but mostly just distraction. Pizza for dinner, and the beginning of a John Wick film festival before turning in.

This morning was almost chilly, 11°, though still with high humidity and high pollen count. While I was still warming up, a kind-hearted (perhaps still drunken) woman offered me a fag, on the impression that I was homeless and needed the proffered cigarette — that’s how scruffy I look with my lockdown hair, t-shirt and sweats. (She assured me that she was the most beautiful 35-year-old grandmother I had ever met, and I couldn’t think of another, so I affirmed her judgement. She also assured me, unprovoked, that I didn’t look any older than 38; was she trying to pick me up at 5:45 on Sunday morning?) After that somewhat unusual encounter, I ran a sluggish mile; my whole body just felt heavy and my breathing laboured. Final time was 9:39.

Morning Office, hot breakfast, Mass from Most Holy Trinity, Wolverhampton, and a slow day of a little reading, a lot of distraction. Margaret had some concentrated writing to work out, and so was upstairs on her own most of the day. We had visits online with grandson Thomas with Si and Laura, and another with Nate. As a sign of how listless we were, we watched Swamp Thing in the evening.

I started my morning run during a break in a drizzly dawn, but by the time I was well into my warm-up, the drizzle turned toward rain and the rain became steady, so I cut the mile short and returned home. Morning Office, Sainsbury’s for the newspaper, hot breakfast, and some slight reading and a quick trip to Tesco for last-minute baking supplies. We spent the afternoon celebrating a friend’s birthday, and returned full of delicious breads, cheeses, and chocolate cake to relax into the evening and drift toward sleep.

A century of days, that is.

This morning began at 18°, full humidity and ultra pollen, and although I felt better than yesterday physically (knees fine, back fine) I opted not to try to push for speed under the palpable mugginess. As a result, my mile came in over ten minutes (10:02), about which I would feel better if it weren’t so… ten-minute-y. But goodness, it really did feel as though I were trying to run in a thin soup.

Morning Office, fruit breakfast (albeit with crumpet and Margaret’s triumphant blueberry bread), some work-related communications, and then another go at focused reading — another go that did not come off well at all. On the whole, a very distracted day. I did make a foray to Tesco on Margaret’s behalf at peak Friday shopping time, and observed very few people making even casual efforts to keep a meter-plus (‘plus’ other protective measures such as face masks); then to Sainsbury’s to pick up an item that Tesco lacked (which it turns out we had all along at home). Margaret prepared a tasty pasta dinner, and we watched a Hungarian (inexplicably advertised as ‘Nordic’) crime drama film called To The Wire, which you can probably by-pass unless you’re desperate for Hungarian cinema.

The morning temperature was 17°, and the rest was as it has been — calm, clear, very humid, and the air dense with pollen. My knees were a bit stiff, my back felt twitchy, and I thought it the better part of fitness simply to make the run, without timing it, so I simply ran my mile at a moderate pace. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and banging my head against some reading — which worked pretty well till the mid-afternoon, when I got a voice mail message relative to an order I didn’t think I had made. It took two subsequent phone calls, some web research, a confused and irritable exchange of messages with Margaret (a. the website said it weighed 10kg, and b. M inferred that it wasn’t anything exciting, which expression I received as her recognising the order information and assuring me that an order she had placed wasn’t exciting; miscommunication eventually cleared up), and some slow repeating of numbers to ascertain that this was the plain shipment of a book that I receive at unpredictable intervals, which they tried unsuccessfully to deliver to the college. It should arrive tomorrow.

Anyway, having worked through that, my painstakingly-cultivated concentration was shot. I idled for the rest of the afternoon, and then ordered dinner from Majliss and wrapped up the third series of The Crown.

The morning climate was fine: clear, temperate (15°), calm, but distinctly humid and continuing with very high pollen. It felt a bit as though I were running and breathing in treacle. The mile came in at 9:36, which is all right. Got back in time to shower and dash to Tesco at opening, then home for the Morning Office and hot breakfast. I spent much of the morning being distracted by one internet topic or another — or, to be more precise, being distracted by the outcry of fury and the demands for action relative to the case of my Oxford colleague, Jan Joosten. I’m measuring twice before I blog once about this, but the whole experience affects me viscerally; I have a particular abhorrence of sexual coercion, and when one multiplies that by the involvement of children I lose traction on ordered thinking and expression.

In the afternoon, I regrouped and finished the (good) book manuscript that I’m reading, and sweltered. Margaret prepared a savoury collation of veg and tofu, and we watched more of The Crown.

Another lovely, clear summer day — 12°, high humidity, very high pollen count, and no breezes, my mile in 9:34. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and settling in to spend as much of the day reading as my eyes and attention span will permit. That turned out to be a good morning of steady reading, helped by an interesting manuscript. In the afternoon, my attention was more variable. On the whole, though, a good day and adequately productive. Margaret made another vegan delight for dinner, and The Crown continued.

Today dawned clear, cool, calm, high humidity and with an extremely high pollen count. My legs felt leaden, and I didn’t push; I got home in 9:45. I’ve commented before on how unpredictable my times are — I don’t know what specific factors have drawn me back to these slower times after having trimmed my mile to nearly nine minutes flat, but whatever the cause, it’s not a new phenomenon.

Morning Office, fruit breakfast, head down to finish the first volume of LEgends… and I did it, along with a rapid pass through the volume for any obvious typos. Tomorrow will be a reading day, and then I’ll give another scan for typos. But since it’s about 800 A5 pages, I think I’ll open it for distribution on a beta basis, and let other eyes do the checking for me. (That’s all the more justifiable since Ginzberg left numerous typos, some fairly obvious (‘emeny’?) for me to correct.)

Margaret prepared a harmonious hash of potatoes, tofu, herbs, and other supporting veg, along with beetroot and asparagus and peppers; and we started the third series of The Crown.

It was raining heavily when I woke up this morning, so I was inclined to write off my morning mile. Morning Office, and some work on Legends. At about eight o’clock, though, the rain had paused long enough that I reckoned it worthwhile to run the mile, though I took it at a very slow pace (and I didn’t even remember to start my timer until I was well into the run, so I decided simply to forgo timing altogether). On my return, I prepared hot breakfast, Margaret and I waited for and prayed with morning Mass at Most Holy Trinity Wolverhampton (and were thrilled to observe that the varied audio problems that have beset Fr Damian have been resolved — perhaps all he needed was a lightning strike). The afternoon was all Legends all the time, apart from a wee nap I permitted myself midafternoon. Margaret prepared quinoa balls and broccoli with savoury almond sauce for dinner, and we wrapped up our palaeontological film festival with The Fallen Kingdom.

11°, very high pollen, 98% humidity, sluggish legs and challenging breathing, 9:32. Morning Office, separate trips to Tesco and Sainsbury’s (masked and compliant with distancing rules), hot breakfast, and most of the day devoted to Legends.

I did receive an ultrasonic cleaner yesterday, with a view to clearing some of my vintage pens from the dried ink that beset the free flow of ink. It’s been a smashing success, and has saved me its cost in repair fees. I’m almost disappointed that I don’t have more clogged pens to purge of their impediments.

Pizza for dinner, Jurassic World for evening entertainment.

A chilly 13° and wet, very high pollen and 99.9% humidity. I managed to stomp my way to a 9:27 mile, but I felt sluggish the whole way. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, some internet distractions, and Legends. That was most of the day, and I’m getting near the end of the ‘Jacob’ section.

I did take an hour or so out to blog my retrospective music choices for 1989.

In the late afternoon, an ultrasonic cleaner that I had ordered was delivered, and I tested it by cleaning the nib and section of a Waterman CF that I’d recently acquired. I had to run it through six or seven minutes of cleaning, but it de-gunked the dried ink in the section highly effectively. Now I’m looking through my other pens for nibs with flow problems.

I prepared some Quorn pepper steaks and mixed veg for dinner, and we finished up the series of Chernobyl.

Chilly rain this morning, so no run — I’m a creature of routine, but I’m not mad. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and all day hammering away at Legends till late afternoon, the Office of Readings with the Sodality. Fajitas for dinner, and more Chernobyl, then day’s end.

13°, 99% humidity, very high pollen. What’s the difference between running in high humidity and swimming? When you’re swimming, the water will always be cooling you off as you go. The mile was an undistinguished 9:44. An early trip to Tesco for four bags of groceries and a megapack of toilet roll (we were coasting on another such purchase from several months ago, and there’s a certain satisfaction at extending the interval between purchases). Morning Office, hot breakfast, and much of the day devoted to Legends, with a protracted interval in which I sought out instances of the Greek verb kataperdomai at the provocation of Fr Peter Anthony. My special bachelor plate (with basil pesto) for dinner, and we started watching Chernobyl last night, though we didn’t have the stomach for more than one episode).

13°, very high pollen, high humidity, a bit of a slow start at limbering up my knees and thighs, for a mile time of 9:56. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and a morning devoted to Legends — with Abraham in the books, I think the end of Volume 1 (and relevant notes from Volume 5) is in sight, which is exciting indeed. Of course, that leaves three volumes of narrative and one and a half volumes of notes to go, but it’s still a landmark. Two afternoon socially-distant appointments (including a lovely conversation with a former student), and Margaret asked to see Game Night last night. She had seen it on one of her academic jet-set flights, I had not, and she wanted me to have seen it as well as she.

Ninety days — that’s more than two of Noah’s flood. Luckily, our home is not crowded with herbivores, predators, and their waste; but I have to admit that ‘forty days and forty nights’ sounds a lot less dramatic at this point.

Another cool, clear, calm start for the day, with 98% humidity and very high pollen levels. My legs felt heavy, and breathing was laboured; I came in at 9:49 on a day without any muscle strain. I’ll want to work on that. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and some bits and bobs before my Exam Board meeting. After the Exam Board, back to Legends — I finished Abraham! — and Majliss for dinner, and the very peculiar film UFOria, filmed in 1981, released in 1985, and rarely seen.

Cool, just the right temperature for exercising (about 12°), calm, clear, and very high pollen — so that my morning mile was encumbered by streams running down the back of my throat. I made it home in 9:32, anyway. Morning Office, shower, hot breakfast, Mass of Corpus Christi first from Winchester Cathedral, then from the Church of the Most Holy Trinity, Wolverhampton. I did some bits and bobs to further my examining, but most of the rest of the day I devoted to Legends. I realised that I had made some hasty mistakes in the handout I prepared yesterday, so I edited the handout and prepared another (a two-column parallel of a translation I made compared to the NRSV). We had Margaret’s chickpea omelettes for dinner, and had a good visit with Nate in the evening.

Tomorrow begins the un-lockdown in England. We are very skeptical of the evidence in favour of unlocking; let’s wait a week or ten days, to see how this plan works out. I’d project a serious swing upward in COVID cases, as I don’t believe there will be more than intermittent cooperation with the road markings and in-store guidance.

Another grey, mild, misty post-rain morning: very high pollen, and high humidity, but no pain in my adductors, and a somewhat gasp-y 9:20. Morning Office, weekend morning grocery trip, and today I spent most of the day working on my plan for a presentation next Saturday (on John 17, for the Sodality) — working up an interlinear handout, and ruminating about what to say. I sat in on a Sodality Q-and-A session for interested clergy and aspirants. Dinner and some Mrs Maisel, and turned in for a night of deep sleep.

Mild dawn weather at 14°, high pollen, high humidity, and while I didn’t push hard, I wanted to attain a more usual time — which I did, at a 9:21 mile. Fruit breakfast, Morning Office, and the rest of the day I spent finishing up my examining.

Today was Margaret’s and my thirty-eighth anniversary. I would wish we could have had a special outing today, perhaps finding presents for one another and going to dinner and a film. Even once the government permits more general circulation and travel, we expect to stay cautious, based at home, venturing out only for specified errands, and limiting social contact. Not festive, but (from what we can see) sensible precautions as England dashes headlong into a second wave of infection.