AKMA’s Random Thoughts

I’m heading back to Abingdon — I have tomorrow morning’s service at St Helen’s, and I want to be home in good time to work on my homily and get some sleep — and it was a pure joy to revisit my favourite city. I had the chance to see and catch up with friends, to visit old haunts, to hear some good research papers, and to update my recollections of places that figure prominently in my memories of four wonderful years.

I wish I could have seen everyone, but that will have to wait. I expect there’ll be an opportunity to return (heaven permitting). In the meantime, bless you, Glasgow!

I arrived safely and comfortably at Central station yesterday afternoon, in typically dreich Glasgow weather. No matter! I love this city, and am happy to have a day before the conference kicks into gear, so I’ve already met a former student (Una), I’m staying at Doug’s gaff (nominally house-sitting while he goes to Greenbelt), and meeting Charlotte for lunch. And taking photies like a giddy tourist, ’cause I cherish every glimpse of this dear place.

Glasgow, f***ing love you, mate —

My best morning run in a long time: good, steady pace with hardly a slowdown. Prompt shower, then to the Ladybank Paddock stop to catch the X2 to Didcot Parkway, thence to Paddington, to Euston, and now aboard the Pendolino to Glasgow. I should be disembarking at dear Central Station at about 15:00.

My pace this morning never rose to ‘strong’, nor my stride to ‘limber’, but in my own stiff, sluggish way I made a steady two-mile run, and that’s fine with me. (I don’t usually encounter other runners going the same directions as I, but this morning I was passed by two young, vigorous serious runners, so you may detect a slightly defensive note in my observation. Well, so it goes.)

I had a long meeting toward midday with the wardens. Since the Team Rector is retiring, and the Team Vicar already works [more than] full time, and the other Associate Priest has a very strictly limited Working Agreement, it seems as if I’m the point of most flexibility. We talked over what functions I might serve during the interregnum, which tasks I might pick up, how my time for things I already do might be constricted, and so on. There will be much learned, I think — I hope — and it will be more interesting than I had hoped my part-time gig would be, but here’s where I am and this is what I do, so I’ll just buckle my seat belt and steer as steady a course as I can, and see what the end of this particular road looks like.

Ran my miles, a good run but at a slower pace — my legs didn’t get limber as fast, nor even as limber, as yesterday. Spending the working part of the day on finances, on business for St Helen’s (mostly), and if I have time and energy left, for my overdue essay.

Had a really good steady run, albeit at a moderate pace. Church in the morning, home to watch the ladies while Margaret was in Oxford at the baptism of a friend; I may have napped a little. Gave the ladies a long walk through the Ock Valley Park. Margaret had a good time at the baptism, we dined together, and it’s evening and we’re together.

I ran my two yesterday morning in pleasant weather with mostly satisfactory comfortable limbs at a decent pace. I then proceeded to squander the whole day rather than buckle down and get to work on my overdue essay. Well, not the whole day; I did work on the Sunday Missal for St Helen’s, and I spent most of the day with Margaret (which is never a waste, of course).

I had a lie-in this morning, so I opted not to run, and attacked my daily responsibilities with refreshed energy. I hesitate to think I should skip running more often, but I can see a possible value in occasional breaks (especially if I’m getting stultified by my work routine).

After bantering with Dave about the temperature, we both encountered inclement weather: he in the classic Floridean heat-humidity combination, and I in typical British-Isles drizzly rain. My miles went by satisfactorily, though, as long as you don’t count ‘got home looking like a refugee from Alice’s Pool of Tears’. Today is Wednesday, so I had coffee and after Morning Prayer, a hot breakfast. Then I had to clean up and hustle to St Helen’s for Wednesday morning Mass, where we observed the Feast of the Assumption, or Dormition, but certainly of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This afternoon, I’ve been working on an ordo for Sundays in Ordinary Time. I have a couple for marriage preparation this evening, so it will have been a full day.

Persistent blogger (I’d say ‘fellow persistent blogger’, but my daily entries are perfunctory compared to Dave’s) Dave Rogers, one of the original circle of people I used to link to regularly, commented today on my describing 19°C as ‘hot’. Fair play, Dave; I used to live in Florida too, but that was (mumbles like Trump) years ago, and I’ve lived north of 50° (the other kind of degrees) (one of the other kinds of degrees, sheesh) for the past fifteen years, sneaking up on being a quarter of my life. I’m fully acclimated to British temperatures, where (a) 19° really is a hot daybreak temperature and (b) we reserve the right to complain about the weather no matter what anyone else thinks of it. (Sorry for the links to Twitter, but VBP isn’t active on BlueSky.)

Anyway, it was down to 12° this morning, so my miles were pretty comfortable. Both knees behaved (after an early jolt or wobble from each of ’em), I pulled my stride closer to the front of my foot, and I sustained a decent pace through the morning. Coffee, fruit breakfast, some liturgical typesetting, pastoral visit to Fr Keith, and work this afternoon on tomorrow’s homily for the Assumption/Dormition….

Well, yesterday was hotter, 19°, but this morning was hot enough. I wore my knee brace for my run, and realised in short order that one problem, perhaps the problem, was that in my new stride, landing nearer my heel jolts my knee in a way to which it was unaccustomed. After I walked off a particular jolt for a few paces, I resumed running but landed further forward toward my toes, and that worked adequately. We’ll see how that plays for the longer run…

Then coffee and fruit, Morning Prayer, shower, and now am working in the town square with a cup of coffee from R & R.

I walked more than ran this morning; my left knee went twanging after a short while, and though I coaxed it with spells of walking, and it led me to believe I could trust it, the knee would always twang again after a few strides. All part of adjusting to my new stride, I reckon, but a nuisance nonetheless.

In the afternoon I saw that Gavin Dunbar was playing the Tony Wilson tribute ‘St Anthony: A Tribute to Anthony Wilson’, which caught me right off guard; how could I, the connoisseur of rock elegy (and huge fan of John Cooper Clarke and the Manchester scene), not have seen it before? Thanks, and respect, to the King of Partick.

I should have realised last week that when I began experimenting with a longer stride, that my muscles would react by getting sore in different ways. I should have, but I didn’t. So the penny finally dropped this morning as I was wondering why my legs were stiff here rather than there where they’d always been stiff before, and why (once they limbered up and I began my full, loose stride) they seemed very rapidly to get sore in those places. I’m a slow learner, but I do learn. Anyway, I got my miles in, partly running and partly walking, and got home for coffee and hot breakfast, cleaning up, check-in at the church for wedding set-up, home to edit and print my homily, quick lunch, then off to church again for the wedding. after that, home for the afternoon and evening….