Weeknotes 2022-52

I couldn’t quite work out what the week number should be. Most of the week was in 2022, but I’m writing this in 2023 [edit: last year I called the week spanning the two years week zero, so I’m calling this one week 52, and the first whole week will be week one). Happy New Year!

I had a cold all week, as invariably happens when I take time off work (and also sometimes when I don’t, to be fair). I used up another of my leftover LFTs, which (unsurprisingly) was negative. Mostly going through the annoying cough phase now, having put a serious dent in my supply of tissues.

I still needed one more hollow tree photo for the 2022 monthly challenge. A bit of googling revealed a (relatively) local celebrity tree, “Old Knobbley”, which has its own website, Facebook page and even a book. This seemed like a good one to finish with, assuming running to Manningtree with a cold wasn’t a really bad idea, and I picked Thursday thanks to a combination of a decent weather forecast, empty days before and after, and a non-striking train service to get me back to Ipswich. I took it nice and easy (walking the uphills) and still felt surprisingly OK once I got there, so I ended up opting for the run home (via a different route) rather than waiting an hour for the next train in my shorts and T-shirt (although I believe Manningtree station still has a pub on the platform). It ended up being 28 miles altogether.

Here’s the full collection:

I tried to drive to the supermarket on Friday, but as I turned round in the drive the brakes locked on and the car steadfastly refused to move. Better here than anywhere else, I guess. I initially thought it was related to the daft thing it does of holding the brakes on for a second when you’re stationary and switch your foot to the accelerator (seems pointless – I know it doesn’t have a clutch pedal, but it still has a handbrake!), but maybe it’s something more traditionally mechanical with the rear drums. Another job to do, and another nudge towards replacing it.

New Year’s Eve saw the traditional “triathlon” where a few of us usually cycle to Felixstowe, run along the prom for 40 minutes, get in the sea very briefly (the rules are shoulders under and at least one stroke), then dry off and head to the pub. This year it was a Saturday, so Ipswich parkrun took on the role of the run, and the swim was immediately we got to Felixstowe (just as the rain started). I’m not sure whether the mild air temperature made the sea feel colder than it was, but it felt freezing! We were then faced with an extremely damp ride back to Ipswich in the rain – I dread to think what the next people to attempt to sit where we’d been in the Cricketers thought of the damp seats.

With the celebration taken care of nice and early, I followed my usual new year routine of having an early night and being woken at midnight (or thereabouts – you’d think now everyone has precision clocks on their phones they’d get the time right) by a cacophony of fireworks that sounded more like an armed invasion.

Back to parkrun on New Year’s Day, then an unofficial extra one on Justin’s Whitton route from lockdown (now that they no longer allow parkruns to shift their start time at new year to allow a double). Four official parkruns in nine days, and 39 miles of running in four days (plus 45 on the bike this weekend). I think I’ve earned a lazy bank holiday Monday.

As predicted, the Firefly rewatch that I started in February ended up with me also watching all of Buffy, Angel and Dollhouse, plus the DVD extras and commentary tracks (pretty sure I hadn’t actually listened to those before). Maybe I should reactivate my Netflix subscription and actually find something new to watch this year (I’ve heard good things about Breaking Bad and The Wire …)

New Year’s resolution is still 2560 × 1600, although my old Macbook Air seems to be trying to join in with the car in the “please upgrade me” stakes by wilfully running slowly now and again. A 10-core M2 does sound nice, although I bet I’d find that there was some random bit of software that I currently rely on that only works on Intel. Seems funny that the x86 Macs are now the old-fashioned ones – I’m old enough to remember the 680×0 to PowerPC transition (although the first one I actually owned was a PowerPC model).

Still got another three days before I’m back at work, so there’s still a theoretical chance that I might do something useful in my two weeks off, but I’m not holding my breath.