It’s early on Saturday afternoon, and the house is curiously quiet. Everybody else left a few minutes ago - heading out to watch England Ladies play against Portugal in their last “friendly” football game before the World Cup starts in a few weeks time.
I’m taking advantage of the peace and quiet to empty my head into the keyboard for a few minutes.
I’m not running today. I didn’t run yesterday either. A couple of days off after five weeks of running every other day. My legs will hopefully thank me for it. I’m almost running 5k now - I probably could if in the right mood - but am taking it slowly after the achilles tendon on my left leg swelled up the other evening.
I’ve been here before. I just need to be careful - not keep pushing.
The end goal of all this running idiocy is to feel better about myself, to look after myself, and to perhaps take part in “park run” now and again. I’m not sure if park run happens all over the world - it’s a weekly 5 kilometre event run by most towns in England. You against yourself. It’s not a “race” as such - more a health and wellbeing thing.
Anyway.
The afternoon is stretched out ahead of me, filled with possibilities. I’m trying to stay away from Amazon - I’ll end up buying something I don’t really need. It’s a skill.
Perhaps a book. Or a terrible movie. Or a few emails to friends I should work harder to keep in touch with.
It often feels like I do most of the leg-work with maintaining friendships - and that occasionally gives pause for thought. I’m usually the one sending a few words in the middle of a busy week, asking how somebody’s day is going. Very few people ever do that with me. It’s probably best not to over-think it - people are busy - I get it. It feels nice when you realise somebody thought about you though.
In other news our youngest daughter went to her “prom” last night. Her last official appearance at her old school before she moves on to college. Getting ready took all afternoon, and really brought all the ladies of the house together - accompanying her to get her nails done, her hair done, doing her makeup, and then getting dressed in the early evening. I happened to walk past the living room door at one point, and was warned that I should have announced my imminent arrival - a few seconds earlier and I would have been confronted with a half-naked teenager.
Living in a house with four women is never boring.
I joke about my life being filled with makeup, underwear, conversations about bodily functions, and endless drama - but it really is. The strange thing? I’ve said this before - I get on with women far more easily than men - I always have - even before having a family. I’ve always been interested in books, movies, music, writing, and so on - my conversation skills about cars, sport, or whatever else is pretty thin.
That said, if a conversation starts about computers, or the history of the internet, I can cause most people to fall asleep standing up. The result of one too many deep dives down internet rabbit holes, I suppose.
Coffee. I need a coffee.