March 18th - Bowmont Forest

Slouchy morning at home while Anna went to work. Very windy again. I’m convinced it’s been the windiest winter I’ve experienced. No major storms, but it just seems to blow for weeks at a time. Made the mistake of hanging a load of washing out on the whirligig, which then buckled under the spinnaker-effect and bent at ground-level, for the second time in a fortnight.

Dragged the mower out of mothballs for the first time since last summer and spent 10 minutes trying in vain to get it going, torturing hell out of my ribs in the process. Took Anooshka out for 36 minutes very steady running in Bowmont Forest, and discovered that after a few minutes, once the endorphins had kicked in, I was able to run in only moderate pain, as long as I kept the work-rate somewhere between washing-the-dishes and painting-the-ceiling. Any incline that elevated my breathing above a very gentle puff brought stabs of pain. March, I fear, is going to go down as something of a wasted month where running’s concerned. Even my running, though, far outstrips the performance of BT, who continue to frustrate my attempts to have an internet connection of any sort in the house. They are unable to send an engineer until the end of the month, purely to decide whether it will be possible to re-energise the second line that was connected in the house until the day before we moved in. Quite unbelievable. Council planning department still being completely useless and obstructive, as it happens. Why are big organisations so utterly, utterly crap?