Kerry Buckley What’s the simplest thing that could possibly go wrong?

Oops, very very late this week. Completely forgot on Sunday, then remembered at various points during the week, but never at a time when it was convenient to actually write them.

Obviously the week started with a bonus bank holiday. I didn’t turn the radio or TV on all day, but then I don’t on a normal day either. I went for a run at the kind of time I vaguely suspected the funeral was happening (I didn’t check), and it was pleasantly quiet, although not quite lockdown levels of quiet. There were a few (presumably) republican dog-walkers around, and a surprising number of people playing golf. I also encountered a couple of voles on the path, which was a nice surprise. They didn’t seem in any hurry to run away, to the extent that I initially thought one of them might have been dead.

I also got my September hollow tree photo on the same run. This was the hardest yet to get in and out of. It’s actually hollow all the way to the ground, and I climbed down the inside in case there was an easier way out. There wasn’t, and it did occur to me that I might have been there for some time had I not been able to climb out again, what with my phone being outside to get the photo.

I had my old man flu jab on Wednesday. No side-effects whatsoever, and I didn’t even feel it when it went in – in fact I have a sneaking suspicion that the pharmacist just mimed the whole thing. The little branch of Boots where I had it done seemed shambolic enough that I wouldn’t put it past them.

A double “Run For” on Friday, with coffee in the morning and pizza (and beer) in the evening. Somehow that led to a course PB at parkrun on Saturday morning (21:08), which makes no sense. Then I went out to Haughley in the afternoon for a gentle cycle ride on a borrowed bike and a pub lunch. Finally in the evening I unexpectedly got to see Ed Gamble at the Corn Exchange, thanks to a former colleague who had a spare ticket. Not a bad show, and Chloe Petts, the support act, was funny too.

One of my toenails had been loose since the SVP50, and it finally fell off on Sunday. I’ll spare you the photo, having already turned a few stomachs on Instagram and Facebook with a video clip of it flapping up and down.

Definitely a week when I’m glad I pretty much never watch live TV or listen to the radio any more. I suspect I if I had, I’d have stopped by now. Still, I suppose we are talking about “the most important event the world will ever see”.

Some more greyhound sitting this week. She continues to be extremely lazy, apart from a brief flurry of excitement to greet you on arrival.

After a few weeks of my wildlife camera not picking up anything, I moved it to a slightly lower position which seems to line the field of view of the motion sensors up better. Over a few nights this week it caught a badger a few times (or several badgers), and what looks like two different foxes (that wasn’t a huge surprise, given that I saw two foxes in the garden at once the other day). I put some short clips on YouTube.

I was supposed to have been running a leg of the Round Norfolk relay in the early hours of Sunday morning, then realised that I also had a Toy Dolls gig in London in my diary for Saturday night (originally scheduled for March 2020, and postponed so many times that I’d lost track of when it was). I think I could have just about made it back in time, but fortunately someone stepped in to take my place. I ended up getting home at 1am, which would have made it pretty tight.

The gig was good fun, and suitably silly as expected. It’s the first time I’ve seen them live, despite having been at least aware of them since the 80s.

After about five hours sleep I was up again ready for the Felixstowe Coastal 10, which I’d entered once I’d escaped my RNR obligations (I’d been regretting my choice between the two events, so it all worked out well in the end). I’d assumed that an evening of jumping around in the Kentish Town Forum with a bunch of ageing punks would have been poor race preparation, but somehow I came away with a ten mile PB of 1:11:10. Only four seconds faster than my previous best, but they all count! I was beginning to think the “getting older” factor was starting to win out over “getting better”, but maybe not quite yet.

It’s funny how quickly the cats have reacted to the recent sudden onset of autumn. Especially Ninja, who’s changed overnight from living in the garden and only coming in occasionally for food back to sitting on my lap and sleeping on the bed.

I’ll try to be a bit positive this week, or at least less negative. Things are resolved, even if not in the way I’d have liked. Fortunately I’m not a monarchist, so events of the week haven’t conspired to darken my mood any further. As usual I’m mildly surprised by a lot of people’s reaction to a royal death – not saying there’s a right or wrong way to feel, but personally I don’t find it any sadder than the death of anyone else I don’t know.

Most of this week feels like it was taken up with preparation for the next edition of our modern software development practices “bootcamp” (it’s not a bootcamp) for more of our Indian colleagues, which started on Friday (half a day a week for a month or so). Despite the fact that we’ve been running variants of the event for the best part of a decade (well I have – other people have been and gone), we kept up the tradition of making substantial changes at the lest minute – this time by creating an example Java project to use for demos and (hopefully, with a bit more work) some of the practical exercises. Have I mentioned that I hate Java? I realise I’m being unfair, and it’s improved massively since I last used it in anger (around the time when Java 7 came out), but I’ve never really used any of the new stuff so there’s a lot of looking up to do. Everything feels ten times more complicated than it should be, coming from the dynamically typed worlds of Ruby and Elixir.

As of Wednesday, I’ve been working at BT for 30 years, and without (touch wood) having taken any time off sick. I got a very pro forma recognition note, which is a bit ironic given that personal is one of the company’s three core values, but also £500, which makes it churlish to complain. Unfortunately it’s not cash, so I have to turn it into a voucher for one of a choice of retailers to be able to spend it. First world problems.

A fairly busy weekend (apart from this afternoon). Started Saturday with parkrun as usual, then popped round to Jane’s to lift up the slabs that used to be under the greenhouse I dismantled earlier. To be honest it wasn’t a hugely useful job, as all I’ve done is move them to the edge of the garden where they’re still slightly in the way, and I still need to pick them up again when I eventually sort out transport to bring them and the greenhouse parts from there to here. At least we established that they were just laid on a layer of sand (which Sky immediately went and lay in) rather than concrete, which will make turning it back into lawn much easier. Then after waiting for a gap in the rain to ride home (and a chat with her mum, who’d turned up to visit and whom I hadn’t seen for ages) I headed back out to Caroline’s 40th birthday party, which was enjoyable although I’m not really a party person. I even had a quick go on a bouncy castle. I was very restrained and left before 10pm after only a couple of beers (cans mind, not pints), on the basis that I was racing in the morning.

I’d entered the Langham 5k/10k, even though most other people were doing the Ipswich Half, and ended up only knowing one person there (they’d have made a killing if they’d reopened entries after the announcement that Ipswich was being postponed). I thought it would be amusing to enter both distances, with the 5k starting at 9am (actually ended up being 9.10, which cut heavily into my recovery time!) and the 10k at 10. The plan was to hit the 5k hard, then see what I had left for the 10, and it didn’t go too badly (20:23 and 44:25 respectively). Despite being Billy-no-mates I hung around afterwards for a burger and just in case I’d got the age group prize in the sparsely-attended 5k, but I missed out by one place.

My Beer52 delivery arrived today, so that’s another month when I’ve failed to cancel it. If you want me not to do something, make it involve phoning up a human.

I’ve fired up the pizza oven for dinner, and decided that not only was it too cold outside this evening for shorts, but that I needed to put a jumper on too. Nearly Christmas.

Not sure there’s much to report this week. Went into work a couple of times to do some interviews, which isn’t my favourite activity. Everyone passed, which is nice except there are two positions and three people, and also a sudden recruitment freeze. Glad I only had to worry about the interviewing itself, and not any of the admin or politics.

Fram 10k today, which I didn’t really enjoy. That was entirely due to my mental state though, rather than the race itself. Having personal issues (mostly in my head) that are making me pretty miserable at the moment, but hopefully that’ll pass. I have at least spoken (well texted) about it to a couple of people, rather than keeping it bottled up, so there’s progress. Now all I need to do is speak to the person the issues relate to, but one thing at a time. Oh, and 45:33 in case you wondered, which isn’t great, although it’s better than last year and it was pretty warm (but not as warm as last year). Well done to FRR for winning both male and female team prizes though.

Trying to put together some good code/bad code examples for training, and I really hate Java. I know it’s a lot better than it was when I last used it in anger, but that just means I don’t know how the good bits work and have to look everything up. I’m teetering on the fine line between having no motivation to do it and needing to keep my mind off other things, and the latter is winning for now.

Hopefully I’ll return in a more cheerful mood next week.