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Ordinarily it would be no great thing for me to run twice in two days, but last week’s rainy weather has precluded consecutive running for a short while. No matter, I ran this morning in another very good time, and without a strong sense of short breath, stiff legs, tired muscles or such obstacles. Not that I felt springy and oxygenated, mind you, but I achieved adequate stride and pace and breathing. It’s, I think, a new plateau.

Coffee, fruit, browsing, shower, dress, off to St Michael’s for today’s Sung Mass, and with no post-Mass obligations I’ll be free to take a leisurely stroll homeward. This afternoon I expect to work on a homily for Wednesday’s midweek Communion, and perhaps inch the ball closer to the goal on The Last Essay. I noted to Margaret yesterday that part of what makes this essay go slowly is that I’m learning so much in my research; I just want to keep reading and probing, as though I were building for myself a secondary speciality. TThat’s ruled out by my already over-stretched deadline, but I do take comfort in feeling the leetle grey cells asserting themselves in the course of research.

No rain this morning, hallelujah, so I took my mormning run, and although I felt rusty and out of breath, I made it in a good time. Coffee, hot breakfast, shower, say Morning Prayer (at home), and now I must buckle down and write tomorrow’s sermon (and if I allow any interstices in homiletical composition, there’s that Last Essay staring balefully at me…).

At least this morning’s rain has a name: it’s Storm Claudia (manifestly not ‘Tropical Storm’ when you get to England), and my phone says that we’ve gotten 19mm of rain in the last 24 hours and can expect another 31 by tomorrow at this time. The rain may have abated by running time tomorrow, though. I hope so.

Is this a mark of my autism? I think so — it’s hard to account for any other way. I have several pairs of shoes uppers are entirely fine, soles mostly so, except that they have tiny cracks in their rubber soles. Obviously they make no difference in dry weather, but they do leak when the pavement is wet. Now, the sensible person would (a) get rid of them altogether or (b) wear them only in dry weather but (c) I have great difficulty overcoming the sense that they oughtn’t leak and that I should be able to wear them in rainy weather, so… I do. In a related news flash, I will be wearing my boots, or perhaps even my wellies, when I next go out.

Coffee, fruit, clean up, dress, Morning Prayer, check for phone messages at the parish centre (none, yay!), home for coffee and toast, now about to squeeze a bit of reading in before my much-needed haircut, then in to Oxford for the NT Seminar, then home, check messages on the way if I remember, and a restful evening with the mosst wonderful woman in the world (sorry, the rest of you).

Finally got a clear morning, and though I definitely felt the effects of the missed days (especially since the rain meant less walking in general, not just cancelled running), I had a moderately good run. It certainly would have qualified as a good run a fortnight ago, before I stumbled into a significantly faster niche of times. Then coffee, fruit, shower, dressed, Morning Prayer, coffee, toast, and reading and writing toward The Last Essay. I’ll visit Fr Keith for a home communion midday, then run a couple of errands and back home for a bit more work, if I can grit my teeth and squeeze out another word or two.

More rain, no run, alas (I’m mildly resentful that weather is interrupting my practice of doing something I don’t like to do in the first place). At least I got a bit of a lie-in from it, then coffee, hot breakfast, cleaned up, Morning Prayer, home for coffee and toast, and shortly in to the Parish Centre for my Ministry Development Review. I doubt this will be a particularly surprising exercise, but one never knows — which, I reckon, is the point of having an outside reviewer come to town to size one up and give feedback.

Then home for lunch and back to other work, presumably toward The Last Essay.

More rain, less running. Coffee, fruit, and in a while I’ll dress and go in for Morning Prayer.

No run this morning — we’ve had on-and-off rain all night, so I opted not to risk it. Morning Prayer, public office hours at R&R, coffee, a croissant, and parish [digital] paperwork.

Very good run this morning, not nearly a ‘best’ but a ‘very-goodst’. Coffee, fruit, shower, Remembrance Sunday service, home, finish tonight’s homily, work on The Essay, go to church, home for dinner.

I had a bit of a lie-in this morning, took a stroll instead of running, hot breakfast, reading (finished Mark Goodacre’s John: The Fourth Synoptic Gospel about which more another time), cleaned up, did some grocery shopping, worked on both The Essay and tomorrow evening’s homily.

This morning’s run went agreeably enough, and would have been an autumn best apart from the two excellent days earlier this week. As a result, my five-day rolling average has dropped precipitously, making today’s run just a bit above average (which average itself is almost a half minute faster than it had been before this week).

Flora and Minke were successfully groomed. Margaret and our visitor Sam had good, productive days in Oxford. Sam’s was complicated by, first, having been unable to open the door of our guest bedroom (the snib wouldn’t budge, though eventually we disassembled the lock and worked the door outward) and second, by having been asked on a few hours’ notice to present a paper of his for the Ethics seminar.

I was not as productive, alas; I got some odds and ends done, some parish responsibilities, but no progress on The Essay, which my editor has asked that I finish by the end of the year. That’s a reasonable — nay, generous — deadline, though the intervening SBL meeting and Advent and Christmas will consume a lot of the time between now and then. I will be very glad to have wrapped that one up.

Coffee, fruit, shower, dressed; I’ll go to Morning Prayer, and later in the afternoon to the New Testament seminar, and in between will try to squeeze out a few words toward finishing The Essay.

New summer-autumn personal best time this morning, shaving a few seconds off Tuesday’s time. Coffee, fruit, I’ll clean up and dress and go to Morning Prayer — then a day of work mostly at home, as the ladies are going in for grooming later. So: homily, maybe some work on The Essay, and dog attention.