Month: July 2020

A beautiful morning for a run, apart from pollen and somewhat more humidity than I’d prefer — but clear, temperate, and I was limber and strong. I saw many more people on my run than I used to during the lockdown; the number’s been rising gradually, but today was practically a normal day for foot traffic, and only modestly less busy for road traffic. I saw no masks, but this was all outside, and we passed one another without crowding, and (acknowledging that I stopped to vanquish Pokémon) I ran the mile in 9:04. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and a whole sequence of complications involving a Kindle going through the wash with a load of laundry. Just a bit of extra stress on the day before a busy day.

The day ended on a more settled note. I spent some time on Legends (if only there were some reward for it other than the satisfaction!), read for research, and at the end of the day we watched more Detective Caïn. We’ve gone off it, really, but may give it another episode or two just to be sure.

I decided early on that I didn’t want to try a full-on morning run; my knees have been wobbling a bit, and my joints were creaky during warm-up. My thought had been to take a long, slow run, in preparation for stretching out the length of my route — but I slept later than I expected, and in order to get the groceries done early, I resorted to the usual path. Morning Office, hot breakfast, Legends, sermon, and some Epistle of James. I wrapped the sermon a bit after lunchtime, delved into Joseph’s Egyptian misadventures in Legends, and made a productive, satisfying day of it. I cooked AKMA’s famous Bachelor Dinner, and we watched a couple of episodes of a French detective series Detective Caïn, wherein we learn that women in French police departments wear more, umm, casual attire than we’d have expected.

A good weather day for a run — I felt all right, temperature was cool but not chilly, moderate breezes but not so as to hinder progress. I made my mile in 9:31. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, Margaret made a smoothie for me (!), and hammered away at Legends and my upcoming sermon. The sermon yielded to my persistent determined typing; it wants a conclusion and some polish, but it’s not a worry now. Lovely visit from Mel at midday, we put together dinners from what we could scavenge in the fridge, and watched an episode of Midsomer Murders to wrap up the evening.

The morning was rainy, so I began the day expecting not to run — but I noticed a pause in the precipitation, so I put on my trainers and ventured out. Alas, as soon as I hit my stride during warm-ups, the rain recommenced and I opted for the better part of valour after only a hundred or so metres. Fruit breakfast, some Legends, my first haircut in six months (Vladi trimmed away more than I’d have wanted, but that is, after all, a union rule for barbers and stylists).

I worked on Legends, worked on the sermon, finished an exam board report, and at the end of the afternoon called Majliss for a take-away dinner. We watched to the end of Before We Die series two; it’s not clear to me how Hanna Svensson keeps her job, but there we are.

Morning mile 9:33, Morning Office, hot breakfast, Mass at St Mary Magdalene, good working ideas for my sermon, lovely check-ins from Pippa and Nate, and that was mostly the extent of the day. More viewing Before We Die.

I forgot to record anything in particular about today. My morning mile was 9:35; Morning Office, grocery trip, hot breakfast. I frittered the day away among light reading, Legends, and saving the world from being overrun by Pokémons. Margaret concocted a delicious (if unnervingly dark in colour) rice and veg dish with mushroom sauce, and we kept watching Before We Die.

I mustn’t miss two days in a row, so I took my morning run in very humid air, 16°, medium pollen (but enough to keep eyes and sinuses streaming), and limber but heavy legs — all to the result of a 9:15 mile. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, correspondence, and Legends.

That was most of the day.

This morning I actually did skip running. I got to bed late, I slept past my usually running time, and when I woke I was a bit headachey and stiff-jointed. It seemed to me that if I were ever going to skip a day, this would be the morning to skip. So I put out the recycling and organic rubbish, tidied the kitchen, said the Morning Office, had my fruit breakfast, read the saddening news about the US’s decline into dictatorship, and set to work a-reading.

And that was most of the day: reading, musing about a sermon, and working on Volume II of Legends of the Jews. I had to pause my work on that side project because my version of Mellel had developed an incurable hiccough relative to footnotes. After more than a week of bug reports, email exchanges, sample documents and so on, the good developers seem to have laid that bug to rest. Roast Quorn, spinach, and broccolini for dinner, and more Before We Die.

Did I decide to skip my morning run? No, I did not! On the whole, a lovely day, though something is blooming that has my eyes and nose streaming. 13°, ‘medium’ pollen count (but it all depends on which pollen is about, doesn’t it?), clear, medium humidity, and my joints and muscles all seemed amenable to the exercise, coming in at 9:39 this morning. As always, who can explain day-on-day variations? Morning Office, hot breakfast, delayed grocery trip, some reading. In fact, I spent much of my morning and afternoon reading — particularly on Cynics and Sophists. A visit to the city centre in the afternoon, an online seminar in the Sodality relative to racism in the Church of England, and then a lovely dinner with our neighbours in their garden. A most delightful evening, closing a pleasant day.

A near-perfect morning for running — might have been warmer (9°), but clear and endurable humidity, though high pollen — and I limbered up satisfactorily, finishing my mile in 9:21. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and an all-morning meeting of the Sodality Council.

That was followed by another meeting, a quick hop out to arrange a future hair trim, and by my return the afternoon was well nigh over. I read a bit, then appreciatively dined on Margaret’s potato-and-veg dinner as we advanced in our viewing of Before We Die, including some horrifying plot complications. We did, however, resist the temptation to stay up all night until we reached the end of the series.

I’m in a phase of being tempted, day on day, to skip my morning run. I haven’t missed a day for weeks; I exercise from a sense of obligation rather than any enjoyment (though I don’t actually viscerally dislike running as much as I used to); and I can imagine a sense of relaxed enjoyment consequent upon taking a morning with no exertion. On the other hand, the point of daily exercise is indeed to do it, and the experience no longer burdens me as it used to. More decisively, it has become part of my routine (and sustains my health), so after considering the possibility of skipping my run, I put on my socks and trainers and ventured out into the clear, cold (9°), high-pollen morning and ran my mile. 9:21, but I did stop midway, so take that into account. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and on to the day.

The day passed with reading about ‘miracles’ in antiquity and rereading (and re-rereading) the Epistle of James, looking into Anglican biblical hermeneutics outwith the England-US axis, along with musings toward my sermon. That made for a pleasant and moderately productive afternoon. Margaret had a business late afternoon and evening, so we watched another episode of Before We Die early, and I finished up my viewing of Frankie Boyle’s Tour of Scotland and turned in.

Rainy morning, 13°, so I decided not to try for a mile, but to go out and run till I didn’t want to get any wetter. Once I got outside and was warming up, though, the rain abated and I wound up running the whole mile, albeit without timing myself. Morning Office, hot breakfast, off to Sunday Mass.

The rest of the day involved finishing my reading of The Difference Engine (which I didn’t like quite so much as unadulterated William Gibson; the plot seemed not to resolve as satisfactorily as it ought) contemplating the upcoming sermon, and other things I don’t specifically recall. Leftovers for lunch and dinner, and we started watching Before We Die (Innan vi Dör), a compelling (so far) Swedish crime drama. Then to bed.

Another grey morning, 15°, high pollen, high humidity, stiff and achey limbs, and my mile came in at 9:37. Morning Office, grocery trip, hot breakfast. Finished Nazianzen, worked on the sermon, and read The Difference Engine. We had a sweet chat with Thomas and his dad mid-afternoon, and that was the highlight of the day. Soup for dinner, and the ending of Gåsmamman, and episodes of QI and University Challenge.

I woke up stiff — my back threatened to develop spasms at a couple of points — so although the conditions for running were satisfactory, I decided not to time the run and simply to go slow and steady through the mile, which I then did. I felt limber by the time I finished, but I’m glad I didn’t push. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and some online reading (including my roughly biannual visit to Ray Davis at Pseudopodium, where I marvelled, as usual, at his irascible erudition (if you stop in, don’t miss his Manifolds and Manifolds).

From then for the rest of the day, I alternated among reading The Difference Engine, working on a wedding sermon, and translating a snippet of Gregory of Nazianzus. As one does. Pizza for dinner, and more Gåsmammon.

Another grey, cool morning, 15° and high humidity, calm, and high pollen — but my pace just didn’t come together, and I ran to a 9:46 mile. Once again, the variation in my times puzzles me. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, correspondence, and I planned a bit of writing and research.

But that plan came — not quite to nought, but to not much. Just an uneasy day, unfocused, and listless. (I know: ‘Well, then, make a list!’) I did read a fair bit of The Difference Engine, but that was the closest I came to productivity. Leftover risotto for dinner, and we began watching the Swedish TV series Gåsmamman.

This morning the conditions were fine: cloudy, 13°, medium pollen, high but not too high humidity. I wasn’t in good form, though, and the time was 9:25. The rest of the day was taken up with correspondence, with trying to make my word processor app work (it seems to have become hopelessly entangled in a Moebius strip of footnote-generating), and finishing up my book review.

Margaret made a perfect risotto for dinner, and we watched the most recent Bond film, Spectre, after dinner.

This morning was humid, 14°, and I had sluggish legs; as so often in humid weather, it felt as though I were running through high-density air. My mile time was 9:51. After the Morning Office and some cleaning up, Margaret and I ventured out to Rick’s for breakfast. After that, I buckled down on my book review.

In the afternoon, a friend stopped by for a lovely visit, and then our new television and its dedicated stand arrived, so I spent much of the late afternoon and early evening putting the bits together (with insufficient directions, I venture to stay). It is indeed vast, although it’s last year’s model, the smallest they made last year, and you can’t buy one this small at all among this year’s models. It set up very easily, once I united the bits to one another, and I’m looking forward to watching a Bond film on it tomorrow….

The weather was fine for this morning’s run, but I felt… well, I was stiff and slept late, my heart wasn’t in it, and I was tempted to not run at all. Instead I chose to take a deliberately slow, untimed run, so that I did keep up my mile-ing, but not at a demanding pace. Morning office, fruit breakfast, and on to writing the review I owe.

I hammered away at it all day, on and off; I try to make sure that the summary I write would satisfy the book’s author, before I evaluate the success of the endeavour. That entails scan-rereading the thing, and trying to tease out in two or three sentences the heart of what an author spent many pages explaining. As such, I made a lot of headway, but did not finish up. We had leftovers for dinner, and Margaret had a long evening of business meetings.

A beautiful morning for a run, if a bit chilly (6°) and with so abundant a proliferation of pollen that my eyes and nose were streaming all the way. It took a while to limber up, but good enough by the end, getting home in 9:23. Morning Office, hot breakfast, Morning Worship on Radio 4, and for the first time since mid-Lent, off to Mass for the first time in months. It was a tremendous relief and joy.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Margaret and I decided the time had come to buy a new television set, and the smallest in our price/features range will be more than twice the diagonal length (24″ -> 49″), and many times the resolution of our current monitor. It’s a disconcerting prospect. We obviously aren’t much fussed about these details, having lived happily with our current monitor for twelve years, but since the next few months, or years, seem likely to be more housebound than the past, it seemed a reasonable time to make a change. Although I did much of the pricing and comparisons two weeks ago (to avoid the risk of impulse buying), I did some follow-up investigation (apparently our soon-to-come TV will not easily fit on the table that currently supports our monitor, so I found a support that will work on our table).

Some reading, some reviewing, some work on Legends Vol. II, and jacket potatoes for dinner, and more Mallorca Files.