Coronormal, Day 166

I was late out of bed, and felt reluctant to go at all, so I planned to return to the short route this morning. I admit that I’d hoped for a noticeable difference in time since I’ve been running a longer course, but alas! the mile path ran at 9:36. My friend Zanne, who just completed C>5K, reminds me that it’s about getting out and active, not about times and distances. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, and a lot of banging my head against rabbinic sources relative to James 5. In another world — one in which I didn’t take the path of Joyce scholarship — I might have become a Talmudist. Just combing through appearances of Elijah in rabbinic literature offers so much to chew on…
Margaret tried a new recipe for her chickpea pancakes, one that produces a cake-in-a-pan rather than pancakes, and it was a great success. Dicte, and Cats (8 out of 10).

Coronormal, Day 165

The air was distinctly chilly this morning; I ran with my hoody on for the first time since summer started. No timing, since I timed yesterday and I don’t want to feel pressure to stretch anything. It was a satisfactory mile+, then Morning Office, ‘Sunday’ with Will Crawley, hot breakfast, Morning Worship (featuring Greenbelt leaders), morning Mass, and a high-distraction afternoon of editing Legends. Pizza for dinner, and Dicte and 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

Coronormal Day 164

Distinct chill in the air this morning: I ran my mile+ in 13:49, not uncomfortable but very glad to be done. Morning Office, hot breakfast, trip to the grocery. Worked on and off on Legends, got distracted a lot. That, it runs out, is a day. Curry from Majliss for dinner, and Dicte in the evening.

Coronormal Day 163

I shook things up this morning! When I descended from bed, rain was falling steadily, so I said the Morning Office. Then I ran my mile and a half, another slow-and-steady untimed day since I didn’t know whether the rain would start again and oblige me to return early. (It didn’t.) Then Mass, breakfast with Margaret at Rick’s, and back to work on Legends (James just didn’t catch today). Margaret requested AKMA’s Comfort Dinner, and we watched more Dicte and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

Coronormal Day 162

A bit cool this morning, and I took an untimed slow run through my longer route. Morning Office, fruit breakfast (with a crumpet), finishing the PDF of Reddie’s article, some work on James and some on Legends. Well, almost entirely Legends in the end. We had fend-for-yourself dinner, and watched Dicte.

Coronormal Day 161

Woke to good weather, ran my new route in 13:51, Morning Office, hot breakfast, followed up a fair amount of correspondence, wrote a bit more of my essay on James, read and prepared a digital version of Anthony Reddie’s ‘Black Theology: an Introduction’…. On the whole, a productive and satisfying day. Chickpea and vegetable pancakes, and the beginning of the new series of Dicte.

Coronormal Day 160

I slept a bit late this morning but it mattered not, because it’s raining cats and dogs and I decline to run in this weather. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, some backed-up correspondence, some reading, and then a break in the rain such that it seemed good to catch my morning run before it started raining again. I took the pace easy, not timing myself, and arrived back to shower and give a quick scan to three books by my former colleague Lidija Novakovic. I wrote a few words, read some others, and enjoyed Margaret’s pasta with aubergine sauce, and the first-season conclusion of Dicte. (It was on probation, righted itself somewhat, and then edged back to the precipice, so we’ll see how the second series goes.)

Coronormal Day 159

Up promptly, conditions favourable, morning run came in at 13:34. I remember when that would be an adequate time for one mile, so that’s an improvement. Morning Office, fruit breakfast, some correspondence and reading, groceries, some (a little) actual writing toward my James essay, photo editing from our holiday, broccoli and quinoa balls with nut sauce for dinner, and another pair of Dicte episodes.

Coronormal, Day 158

We slept deeply, and I rose well-rested and ready to resume a responsible schedule of morning running. I didn’t time this morning, but made the mile-point-four course at a steady pace with no particular discomfort. Morning Prayer, hot breakfast, Morning Worship on Radio Four till Margaret came downstairs and rejected it. We wandered in to the city centre to attend Mass at Mary Mags, came home, and that old demon lassitude struck us again. After a valiant struggle, we conceded and watched two more pairs of episodes of Dicte, separated by dinner from Majliss. Tomorrow ends the general interval of holiday time and redirects us toward academic labour, just when we were getting the hang of being relaxed.

Coronormal Day 157

We disembarked promptly in the morning, stopped at Costa for a coffee and a tea before making our way to Victoria, thence to the Oxford Tube, and homeward around noontime. All the transport for the day went very easily, so full marks to the Sleeper crew, the Victoria line, and the Oxford Tube. We were, however, utterly and comprehensively knackered. Margaret took a nap; I sat about gazing hazily into space; we dined on pizza, and watched the first pair of episodes of Dicte, which is not top-shelf Danish noir, but amply suffices for our purposes.

Coronormal Last Day of Holiday

Margaret packed our goods up first thing in the morning, and then cleaned and sorted, we made our way to Madhavi’s home, where we spent the middle of the day reading or chatting or taking Gabriel for a walk. At afternoon’s end, we gathered at the Ship Inn in Elie, enjoyed a delicious dinner with Madhavi and Michael (and Gabriel, of course), at the end of which all stayed for pudding except Gabriel and me, who (being restive) stepped out of the Inn and walked back and forth on the pavement, meeting by blind chance a former student, and being lauded as ‘gorgeous, just gorgeous’ (sadly, I think the woman in question was speaking only of Gabriel).

Madhavi then drove us to the rail station, we boarded the evening train to Edinburgh, then clambered aboard the Sleeper for our trip home. There was a mix-up of some kind with the compartment we had booked, so we were bumped up to a compartment with en suite bathroom (which included a shower!). The shower seemed too unwieldy to us, and we were timetabled to arrive in Euston early in the morning, so we opted out of that feature.

Coronormal Day 155

A less ambitious day today: we strolled to Anstruther for breakfast and took in the wharves, then took the bus in to St Andrews. We had intended to explore the (ruined) cathedral again, but we were stymied by closure due to COVID. We had a pleasant time ducking in and out of shops nonetheless, I helped rescue a woman who’d locked herself into a staircase, dined on pizza at Zizzi, observed an apparent freelance merchant detained by the polis, returned to Anstruther (Margaret enjoyed sitting in the sun for both stops at the seaside), on to Madhavi’s house to take Gabriel for a walk to the Cellardyke Play Park (a generally cheery lad took particular ecstatic delight in swinging) while Michael concocted a special gluten-free moussaka and rhubarb crumble, and back to our rooms.