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

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!