90th Birthday Bash

I'm going to have to keep this short because I've just been swimming and I can hardly lift my arms to the keyboard - but we were up in Aberdeenshire for my mum's 90th birthday bash at the weekend. It was the third day of her birthday celebrations so she was looking a bit done when we arrived on Friday night - but none of us were looking our best.

Saturday was a surreal day of no wind and sunshine. We got up, mildy hungover and took in the millions of birds (she lives next to a woods) and the pond-life in my brother-in-law Andy's pond - and then headed up Bennachie. I didn't know how running would be for me - it was kind of middling. I had a few stops and I was slow but we went up Bennachie and then along the trails at the back and did a little over 8 miles in all. I still have a mystery ache in my legs but I'm hoping now that I'm not actually trying to do marathon training that if I back off it'll come right. I've been doing IT band exercises religiously too. I still think I've hurt the tendons at both sides where they attach under the knee and it was running in the Pentlands in my shorts in the deep snow that did it. Since then I've just been irritating the same injury over and over. My only faint worry is that I've got something like a

This is a very rare sighting  of my mum. She'll scuttle away if she sees a camera.

Will is the Monarch of the Glen

 

stress fracture but it seems unlikely I'd get it on both sides. Anyway, I'm trying to do other things, like cycling and swimming and that's pretty good.

 I've been for 3 swims in 3 weeks which I'm quite proud about. Today I was up at the Commonwealth pool which was pretty empty and hassle free compared to my last swim in Leith Victoria baths during the Easter Holidays. That was a broth of your older swimmer and chubby young people on inflatables. Peter kept whispering to me were the coloured things bobbing in the water or the young people "the inflatables". You'd think since he was one of the only people who could legitimately use the fast lane he would do it and stop poking fun at the others.

Anyway, back up North - it was great to get up a hill on a sunny day and I got an extra bonus surprise when the someone waving at me from a rock turned out to be my cousin Alison who I have not seen to speak to since I was 19 years old. Apparently she did see me at my sister's wedding in 2003, but that's a bit of a blur. She'd flown up from Birmingham on spec and happened to go up Bennachie at the same time as Peter and I, and also at the same time as one of my sisters and her family. They came down the hill at just that point. It was enjoyably spooky and coincidental.

Later on I drank quite a lot for someone who seldom drinks and did quite a lot of damage to myself falling into a metal planter while looking at the stars on my way to the caravan at the bottom of the garden where we were staying.

The next day we drove home. I am still tired. I did a wee 3 miler today and didn't have to stop until after 2 miles. It looks sunny on Saturday so maybe we can go a run/walk around Gullane and then I've got an ambition to get back in the sea again.