Fireleaf

Cake caution

I had doubts about taking the mutations to parkrun this morning, but Mr Pandammonium said I should take them, so I did.

My running buddy was delighted, so I put the plastic box out on the table in the bike shed, which is our parkrun HQ, for after.

A token mess

I messed up giving out the tokens. Someone came up and said they’d been given two. Oops.

It’s hard giving the tokens out when the air is nipping your fingers, despite the gloves. I had only my thumbs out; normally, I don’t have a problem with this arrangement, but my thumbs were stiff and sore from the cold.

I was extra careful after that, and I gave out the rest of the tokens properly, although one person went straight past me, despite my efforts. The funnel manager had to chase them down.

My running buddy completed her 100th parkrun to cheering. When everyone had crossed the line, I went to the bike shed to find most of my cakes had been eaten and enjoyed. I was glad I’d taken them then, especially as my running buddy liked them.

My poor running buddy. She was processing the results, and in trying to correct my mistake, something awful had happened: three gaps where one parkwalker and the two tailwalkers should’ve been. Oooops.

Funnel magic

Part of the funnel manager’s role is to note the name of roughly every tenth person across the line, along with their finish token number and time, which can be obtained from parkrunners with watches or from their own stopwatch (or phone if the stopwatch battery is giving up the ghost).

The funnel manager’s notes were tallied against the results, which allowed some magic to be performed, and all was put right. All because of me.

They didn’t sack me from giving out the finish tokens: I’ll be doing it again, but better, next week. I hope.

My running buddy said I’d done it deliberately because it was her 100th. I’d just wanted to make it memorable for her!

She took the last of my fairy cakes, the one with the flag in it, home for her son. I was really pleased she liked them.

Second breakfast

Her regular running partner buddy (and her husband) was taking her out for breakfast afterwards. She’s taken to giving me a lift home, so she said she could drop me off there, which seemed silly to me because side it’s the wrong way; then she invited to join them. So lovely of her!

I met the husband before I met either of the other two, and we’ve always got on. The four of us had such a laugh over breakfast. It was a shame to leave, but we had to.

I got my lift all the way home, where I tried to warm up. The cafe had been cold; the morning had been cold. The weather was actually beautiful if you weren’t standing around in it.

Fireleaf

I couldn’t hang around for too long, though: I had to go to my Cambridge writing group in the afternoon, although I didn’t feel like it. When I got there, I was glad I’d gone, not least because of the tree in the photo (the extra shows it as I first noticed it).

Characterful

We did fifteen minutes of writing using a prompt supplied by the group’s lovely leader: either a postcard or an item from the mystery bag of things. I got one of those old-fashioned camera films. I wondered if young people would know what it was.

My story is set in the days before digital cameras became widespread, so I wrote about one of my characters. I love this character. She’s not a viewpoint character, so I don’t get to get inside her head that often.

We can read out what we’ve just written if we like. I did today because the group leader seems to enjoy what I write about this character; maybe I can I do this writing malarkey after all.

No cats tried to come home with me afterwards. I’m not sure if I was disappointed or relieved.

Weird

I came home to my tea on the table: homemade chilli with perfectly air-fried curly fries.

We watched the first episode of Boat Story on iPlayer. That is one weird programme. I like it.

I watched the latest episode of Doctor Who after that. What an emotional episode! I realised I really like David Tenant as the Doctor. He might be my favourite of the new breed of Doctor, and I don’t even mind Catherine Tate as Donna Noble in it. It’s such a shame about Bernard Cribbins, though. He’ll always be the voice of The Wombles to me.

I’m still watching the original serieses of Doctor Who, still on William Hartnell. I’m glad to say they’ve got rid of the dreadful Susan. What a pathetic character. All she ever did was scream and/or cling on to whoever was nearest, typically poor Barbara, who had enough on her plate trying not to be seen as and treated as a feeble woman.