Kerry Buckley

Clocks are back. I don’t particularly like changing them twice a year, but it’s better than the crackpot plan of sticking to UTC+1 all year round. I’m not prepared to accept the idea of it never being GMT in Greenwich – if we want to do everything an hour earlier that’s fine, but surely we can get used to a notional 8–4 working day instead of 9–5, without having to fool ourselves into it by setting all the clocks to the wrong time?

I realise I’m a stopped clock on this, but I’m right twice a year. And the rest of the year.

I was glad to be working at home on Monday after Sunday’s efforts. Weirdly, it was my back that gave me the most trouble – it had already been a bit dodgy, but every time I shifted slightly in bed it woke me up with an agonising spasm. My legs were also pretty sore, especially my right knee, but they (and to some extent my back) seemed to have sorted themselves out by Tuesday.

After Wednesday’s track session Dave, Neil and I headed to the Cricketers, as is traditional. I ordered food and a pint, and Dave two pints (just the usual Stella shandy for Neil!), and as is also traditional someone came over to tell us that the beer we’d both ordered was off. We upgraded to Jaipur for no extra cost, then for some reason they brought over five pints instead of three! That worked out at about £1.20 a pint, which was a bargain even by Wetherspoons standards.

Cross-country season kicked off on Sunday, with the opening round at Framlingham Castle. It seemed even busier than normal, with everyone packed like sardines on the start line, a washing-machine-like lap of the field before heading onto the course proper, and more-or-less single-file running for most of the course. That (and a false alarm untied shoelace that turned out to just be a bit of vegetation stuck to my foot) is my excuse for a slowish time, anyway.

Not a lot going on this week, as far as I can remember. Various bits of running, obviously, culminating in the annual club social One Lap to Ultra event on Sunday, This basically involves running round a 4.5 mile loop as many times as you can (or want to) in six hours, stopping each time for cake etc. I just about managed seven laps again, mostly with Holly and Maria (until they called it a day after lap five) and the odd other person joining us here and there. The last lap was solo, with me being the last to finish, behind Ryan who was a lap ahead of me. He took the glory of completing the most laps, which is doubly impressive given that he’d only ever run about half that distance previously.

Christmas cakes made! I’m wondering whether to try making a pudding as well this year, but if so I won’t be following Delia Smith’s stupid recipe that took about 24 hours of cooking last time I tried it.

Thanks to a combination of tight customer finances and Oli the apprentice wanting to try working in a variety of teams, I’m now back to being solo on the project at work. I feel like I might struggle to keep output up to 50% of where it was with the two of us, even though for the majority his time on the team he was only working three days a week and studying the other two!

Our head coach, Ian, had his 60th birthday on Tuesday, and various club members, including his wife, conspired to organise a surprise party after the training session. I think we all managed to keep him in the dark pretty much until we “happened” to regroup near the venue during the jog back to the sports centre after our efforts on the prom.

After last week’s pitiful running mileage, I managed to up it a bit this week, including running to (slightly quicker than I’d have liked, to make in time to shower before my 9am meeting) and from (much more slowly, but almost twice as far) work on Wednesday. Along with running for coffee on Friday, parkrun (slowly) on Saturday and the Capel 5 on Sunday, I managed to go from my lowest mileage since 2022 (13.6) by jumping up to the highest total since the end of my marathon training at the beginning of this year (42.4).

I arrived at work on Thursday pleased that, despite running in instead of cycling the previous day, I still had my pass card and the right keys with me. I got changed, and wandered across to the office (about a two-minute walk). On reaching my desk, I realised that I didn’t have my laptop in my bag, because I’d left it in my locker overnight and forgot to pick it up. I put my bag down and walked back to the changing room, only to realise that my locker keys were in the bag. Walked back to the office to get the keys, back to the changing room to get the laptop, and back to the office, where I finally managed to start work. And I’d been kind of late in the first place.

I had a visit the other day from a man from the council saying they’re going to resurface the pavement outside my house later in the year, and that I needed to clear any vegetation that encroached on the path. I spend a few hours on Saturday afternoon hacking, digging, pulling and strimming at the ivy that’s slowly taking over, and now you can actually see the retaining wall again. I do need to also tackle the even bigger ivy that’s colonising the mostly-out-of-sight north wall of the house at some point too (along with the actual garden, of course).

Two ’spoons visits at the weekend, for second breakfast after parkrun, then back for food and (a little too much) drink on Sunday evening.

So the big news is that, after 2½ months with no hot water, on Tuesday a man came and fitted a Worcester Bosch Greenstar 4000, and when I got home from the evening’s training session I was able to have a shower with warm water! It’s quite pleasant, as it turns out, and I suspect it might catch on.

Obviously it’s much better than the old one ever was, even at its best, and will no doubt cost much less to run, making a mockery of my attempts to drag every drop of life out of the old inefficient one. Also I can now control the heating from my phone, like one of those modern people.

Just for fun, I trawled back through my old Facebook posts to unearth the history of keeping the old 28CDi mostly working for about a decade after it should have been put out of its misery …

• February 2015 (I know because it’s the third-from last stub in my last-ever cheque book): had the boiler serviced, and was told it was pretty much on its last legs and I’d soon need to think about replacing it. Decided to stop having it serviced instead.

• April 2015: replaced the fan, which had seized up and no longer triggered the pressure switch that allowed the boiler to light.

• May 2016: “I think I’m going to have to get a new boiler soon.”

• April 2017: flushed out the heat exchanger. “Let’s hope that ekes another couple of years out of it before it finally needs replacing.”

• March 2018: replaced the diverter valve diaphragm, so I could have hot water without the heating being on too. Didn’t work (“Might be time to admit defeat and call a professional”). Fortunately replacing the entire valve, along with the heat exchanger, did the trick, and professional help was avoided.

• February 2022: replaced the heat exchanger O-rings to stop a leak, and dried out the PCB. “hopefully that’ll keep it going for a bit longer.”

• 11 July this year: realised I had a fairly major leak from the hot water pipe under the kitchen floor. Turned off the hot water, and left a dehumidifier running 24×7 in the kitchen for a few weeks to hopefully dry things out.

• 5 September: after my half-hearted efforts to find a non-busy plumber failed, replaced the pipe myself with one running artfully round the frame of the door to the utility room. Turned on the water to find that it was, if anything, too hot – the diverter valve seemed to have gone again, and this time the burner just kept running, regardless of whether a tap was turned on. Turned off the boiler.

Other than that, not a huge amount to report. Fat Cat pub night again on Wednesday, and the Saxons 5 mile race on Sunday (rounding off my lowest mileage week since I caught Covid in 2022 – this time purely due to laziness).

Amazingly, it’s been nearly a year since we gave up on the quiz at Hanks, and despite saying we’d find another one it’s taken until now to actually manage to organise it. We went to the Raven, which I don’t think I’ve ever been to, to see what theirs was like. Apparently it’s exactly the same as it was when Rachel did it about eight years ago, and is a Family Fortunes format, with 20 questions where you have to pick five answers, with a point for each one that’s in the top four that the 100 people (allegedly) answered, and a bonus point if you put the top answer first. I think we were third, but sadly there were only prizes for the top two. Also they were completely out of draught beer. Other than that an enjoyable evening though!

On Friday I went to Boots for my flu jab (paid for by work). The pharmacist told me (again) that my blood pressure was too high, but this time was quite insistent that I get a follow-up check (no doubt because they get paid by the NHS to administer it!). I think the deal is that I go in first thing in the morning to get a monitor that I wear for the day, although I’m not 100% sure. she wanted me to go in at 9am on Saturday, but as any fool knows that’s parkrun time. I’m going in on Monday instead – I’m not quite sure why they were acting as though it’s urgent (please enjoy the irony if I collapse today with a heart attack or stroke).

Speaking of parkrun, the side-effects of the jab (which I usually barely notice) really kicked in on Saturday, and after a slow jog down to the park it was all I could do to drag myself round in my eight-slowest-ever time. Fortunately the traditional post-run large ’spoons breakfast and a pint of Jaipur gave me enough energy to jog home back up the hill. Mostly recovered by Sunday though, so I took myself out for a slow 14-mile loop down the river to Levington and back via Nacton and Foxhall.

Forgot to mention last week that after putting up with the appalling battery life of my Pixel 6a after the mandatory update to stop it catching fire or whatever, I finally decided to upgrade to a Pixel 9a. Other than the battery thing, there wasn’t much wrong with the old one, despite it being three years old, but the free battery replacement option would have entailed a trip to Cambridge or London, and the price of the 9a had already dropped by £100, so I ended up taking the £150 off which basically meant it was half list price. As is the way with phones these days it’s not a huge leap forward, but the battery life is way better (I generally use about 40% battery in a full day, whereas the old one needed charging by early evening). The screen’s much brighter too, which is nice in sunlight.

I managed to fit a quick cut of my increasingly scruffy hedge between the showers on Saturday, which is hopefully that job done for the year, and just all the other jobs remaining.

I’d been getting increasingly worse results from my pizza oven lately, with it struggling to get to a decent temperature, and taking far too long to cook. This weekend I noticed that the chimney vent had somehow ended up closed, and after opening it the oven quickly heated up to 400°C and was back to cooking a pizza in 90 seconds again.

After last week’s ten mile warmup, this Sunday was the Ipswich Half, which it turns out I haven’t done since 2019 (when it was the Great East Run). It’s the biggest local race, with around 2,700 runners this year, round closed roads in the town centre and out to Freston, with a couple of biggish (for Suffolk) hills. I went in thinking 1:35 would be nice but unrealistic, and anything under 1:40 would be OK, and ended up pretty much in the middle with 1:37:22, which is faster than I managed in 2017, 18 or 19. That put me in 296th place, so not quite top 10%! I had Holly and Maria to run with again this week, and as usual we each somehow relied on the other two to maintain our pace. Holly broke away in the last mile and finished about ten seconds ahead, and I just about kept in front of Maria in a race to the line (although she’s somehow currently still missing from the results).

Naturally a lot of us ended up in the “clubhouse” afterwards, then all went home for showers and coffee before most of us returned for the evening.

Definitely a more autumnal feel to the weather this week. I managed to miss the worst of most of the thunderstorms, but did get soaked a couple of times.

The management shift directly above me at work has been finalised at last, after about a year of machinations. Rupert’s demoted himself so he can finish his career back in a more hands-on technical role, and Anders (who’s already in the team) is taking over. Apparently there was one other candidate, but we don’t know who – it’s almost certainly better that we’ve got someone internal who isn’t likely to start randomly changing things just to make a mark. This of course increases the number of the regulars at the monthly Fat Cat ex-colleague meet-ups that I’ve worked for by one.

An outrageous three consecutive days with no running after Tuesday night, in preparation for the Coastal 10 on Sunday (obviously I did parkrun on Saturday too, albeit very slowly). As I have for the past two years, I went down to Felixstowe on Saturday afternoon to help put out the signs ready for the race. We’d done all but one mostly in the dry, then got hit by a downpour putting out the mile three marker on the prom.

The race itself went acceptably well, helped by unusually good weather conditions (last year it was blowing a gale, and in 2023 it was ridiculously hot), but hindered by the fact that all my races since the marathon have been 10k or under, so 10 miles was a bit of a shock to the system (trying not to think of next weekend’s 13.1 …). No Holly or Maria to form our normal little peloton this year either, as they were both marshalling.

We thought there was a plan for a bit of a club social after the race, but there seems to have been a bit of a breakdown in communication and no-one was told, and The Hut was locked up once they’d finished using it for organising the marshals. We ended up sitting in one of the shelters on the prom instead (not even facing the sea!), then braved the rain in the evening to go back out for some dinner and a few beers in the Cricketers.

I took a random week off work, and managed to accomplish at least some useful things …

First of all, I finally finished running a new hot water pipe to replace the one that leaked under the floor. It looks a bit odd running round the utility room door, but I couldn’t really come up with a better route. I didn’t set anything on fire, and there don’t appear to be any leaks!

Unfortunately, when I turned the boiler back on (before finishing the plumbing, but after isolating the burst pipe), the boiler started misbehaving. It heats the water up fine, but when I turn the tap off the boiler keeps running – the actuator from the diverter valve isn’t going back in again and the microswitch stays on. Not sure whether it’s just sticking or the diaphragm’s gone again, but unfortunately it’s impossible to get at it without removing a bunch or other bits, and I think given the boiler was fitted in 2004 I should probably accept that it’s had a good innings and get a new, more efficient one fitted.

On Monday we had the return leg of the “A14 Track Challenge” in Bury St Edmunds, after the Ipswich version in June. It’s basically a 5000m race between four local clubs, with three races for people running at different paces. I was in the middle (19–23 minute) race, and despite not feeling great beforehand managed to scrape under 21 minutes for the first time in a while. A bunch of us took our bikes on the train to get there, then decamped to the Corn Exchange (one of the fancier Wetherspoons pubs). Thanks to the lure of beer at £1.79 a pint we ended up staying until the last train, finally arriving back in Ipswich after midnight.

The Tour of Britain had two stages in Suffolk this year. I didn’t join the people who cycled out to Woodbridge Snape to see them on Tuesday, but I did nip out to watch them come through the imaginary village of Culpho.

There was also a plan to ride out to Stowmarket to see them again on Wednesday, but the weather looked so awful that we ended up going by train instead. Basically the day involved hanging around for a bit to see the start, decamping to the Willow Tree for a few hours, coming out to watch them come back in near the end, then nipping back in for a couple more beers. Then the train got me back just in time to go back out to the Fat Cat for the monthly ex-colleague meet-up.

This weekend finally saw the return of Sunday racing after the summer, with the Framlingham 10k. It was warm, hilly and hard work, but I somehow managed to finish slightly quicker than last year’s admittedly poor performance.

Any hope of getting round to cutting the hedge on Sunday afternoon evaporated with the news that Robin & Jo were heading to the Fat Cat. By the end of the afternoon we’d been joined by Courtney, then Dave and Sally (and Fizz the dog), and finally Neil & Gillian. Eventually the lack of food got to us, and we decamped to the Harpers’ via the chip shop at the end of their road.

I think if I’m going to ever get quicker again and not become a massive fat man I’m going to have to hope there aren’t too many weeks where the running/drinking ratio is tilted that far toward the latter!

I forgot to mention last week that, after about 18 months, Casper has finally figured out how to use the cat flap! Just in time to get a bit more use out of the garden before autumn arrives and the house seems more appealing – even Ninja has come in and purred on my lap a couple of times in the past couple of days, after spending almost every minute of the summer hiding outside as usual.

It was the last bank holiday for a while on Monday, but I did very little other than recover from the cycling and drinking on Sunday. Onwards to Christmas.

I still felt worn out by Tuesday evening, so drove to Felixstowe for training for a change, rather than cycling. Even without the extra miles on the bike the running wore me out even more, but after another couple of rest days (apart from riding to work) I managed to drag myself out of bed for Friday’s Run for Coffee. Only two of us running this week for some reason, although a few others joined us at the coffee shop. Then a slowish parkrun on Saturday on what’s still a horrible course (I heard someone describe the uphill bit as “barbaric”, which seems about right). And yet another ’Spoons breakfast.

On Saturday my neighbour popped round to say that the lady whose garden backs onto both of ours was concerned about a plant that’s growing in my hedge. Apparently it’s called a black locust tree, and grows quite aggressively and quite large. He offered to cut it down and put it in his brown bin, but I felt guilty so did it myself on Sunday (as well as also removing another smaller one I found a bit further along). I’ve got next week off, and cutting the hedge is on my notional to-do list, so we’ll see whether I actually get round to it.

After however many weeks it’s been with no hot water, and no success with my half-hearted efforts to find a plumber who wasn’t booked up for months, I’d decided to fit a new pipe myself. I think I’ve now assembled all the bits and pieces I need, and made a start this weekend. I need to cut the old pipe off in the utility room, then run a new one through the wall, over the door and under the sink (completely bypassing the leaky one under the floor), and it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to put an isolator valve before my new pipework in case anything sprung a leak. Then (very belatedly) I realised that with basically half an hour’s work cutting the pipe and putting the isolator on I could now turn the water back on at the boiler and have hot water everywhere except the kitchen. A shame I didn’t think of that earlier, but on the plus side I’ve got quite used to cold showers, which I hear are quite trendy.

I always forget just how much better SDS+ drills are than normal ones. The only 15mm bit I had that I thought was long enough to go through the wall was one with a normal round shank, so I spent ages with a hammer drill making about a quarter-inch dent in the breeze block wall. I eventually decided to save some time by drilling as far as I could with the SDS+ and a short bit, then reverting to the normal one for the remainder. It turned out it was just about long enough after all, and flew through the wall in about two seconds, almost literally like a hot knife through butter.

I’ve now got as far as cutting and dry-fitting the pipes on the utility room side (behind the washing machine), so just the actual kitchen bit and all the soldering to go.

I noticed that Point Break (the original one, not the 2015 remake) was on iPlayer. I missed it at the cinema when a bunch of friends went without me 30-odd years ago, but on balance I think I’m probably with Bill, who said at the time that it was rubbish, even though everyone else had enjoyed it.

Another track session on Wednesday. This time it was split between 100m all-out efforts with 100m recoveries (which I walked), and the same but 200m. I’d remembered to take the lights off my other bike from Tuesday’s ride to Felixstowe and put them in my bag, but had inexplicably (well, explained only by my usual incompetence) forgotten to also take their brackets, so I had to nip home via cycle paths and quiet roads to grab them before heading to the pub. It was one of those “just gone off” days, with Dave and I between us having I think four different beers that we’d ordered on the app but turned out to no longer be available.

On Sunday it was time for what’s become the annual ride out to the Lindsey Rose for their beer festival, with ten of us this year – double the number from two years ago. It was a nice day for it, and would have been uneventful other than for a few people deciding that the lack of the sumo suits that were there the first year was no obstacle to doing some wrestling anyway. This somehow ended up with Peter getting carted off to A&E with a broken ankle.