March 24th - local run

Bit of a mad day in store, with a wedding in Edinburgh for Anna, flute and a car-journey to London for Ellie, a birthday party for Hamish and clumsy, disorganised me charged with coordinating it all (apart from the wedding, thank heavens!)

Set off in glorious warm sunshine at 10 am hoping for a quick hour’s run to the mast on Linton Hill and back before Anna had to leave, but soon realised that the legs weren’t up to it. Instead I eased back, lowered my ambitions, cut the route short and listened to the skylarks – my favourite bird (apart from Anna, I suppose) celebrating the apparent arrival of spring. Ran steadily for 47 minutes, and was pretty tired at the end.

Remainder of the day went to script, apart from Toby’s tantrum at having to leave Hamish’s pal’s party before the fun started, and a universal refusal to eat the curry I made for dinner. Hamish was full of cake, Anna can’t handle anything feistier than salt ‘n’ vinegar crisps, Oscar doesn’t eat meat and Toby wanted, with all his heart, to cut straight to the pudding. I cleaned all their plates and spent the evening sitting on the sofa like Buddha.