It has been a busy old month. My mum had a stroke at the end of January. Luckily my sister who is a newly-retired nurse was nearby and realised what was happening right away - so mum got really prompt help. None-the-less we were all, initially, not optimistic about what would happen - she's 96 and has had mounting health challenges for some time, so we thought this was maybe one challenge too many. Peter and I went up and saw her in the Aberdeen Stroke Unit when we heard she was at least stabilised. Well we tried to go one weekend but that was the weekend of one of the big storms - Storm Oewyn I think - and all the trains were cancelled - so we put it off until the next weekend.
(Our train the next weekend was 4 hrs delayed and I have only just got my delay money, after 5 emails and threatening Scotrail with the Ombudsman. That's the magic word I think.)
Mum was in surprisingly good spirits, even though her right side was weak and her speech was difficult and she had a nasal feeding tube. We (only half) joked that the stroke must have hit a gloomy patch of her brain, because she was really quite chipper, and not for giving up at all.
After we left she continued to improve and was moved to Banchory rehab. Banchory, how on earth does anyone get to Banchory? I hear you ask. And well you might.
We had managed okay with using public transport up to that point, but my sister is spending the early days of her retirement haring around the Aberdeenshire countryside like a blue-arsed fly (sorry about the mixed animal metaphors) visiting my mum and her husband's parents, who all have something going on - and I don't mean just visiting but making sure they're getting the right medication, are eating, are getting washed etc...If we went up there on the train, then she'd have to take us to visit mum, adding to her list of things to do for other people, so I thought it was time to get a car again. I liked the idea of being green and keeping it clean but....
So I got a new car. By new I mean 2009. I think part of the reason it was so cheap was that the previous owner was a dog; a dog who maintained the car pretty well but has chewed the gear stick quite badly, and left his scent - which can still be detected despite three smelly trees and a can of cherry smelling substance i got off the internet.
It's stressful buying a new car. (Unless you have pots of tin.) I did my head in for about 10 days looking at all the cars and looking up their MOT history and whether they were LEZ thingummy and whether they were economical and what-not. It's not that easy looking for a car when you haven't got a car as you have to travel to go and see them - unless you buy one off the internet - which is just a step too far for me. Surely that's just asking to be ripped off? I mean I hope not but...anyway. I don't have spare cash to throw around.
Running all this past Peter was the very devil as he's fussy, fussy. I know he won't agree. He says I jump into things. I say he takes 3 years to make his mind up. We saw a car we both liked that seemed to pretty much cover everything we needed and I was going to go and see it and - boom - it was gone, sold. OMG.
I had seen my car at a dealers nearby - actually where I bought the Berlingo. It's just 1 mile's walk. I was worried it was too cheap and that was a bad sign. I messaged them saying could I test drive it, and they said if it was still there when I came.
I did all the things that you would do in a sitcom about getting a new car. When I got in it I didn't think the gears were working as I was revving the engine like a pill and going nowhere. It took me a little while to realise the clutch needed to come a lot further up to engage and I didn't need to step on the gas like that. I was used to the Berlingo which would stall if you didn't keep its revs up until it was warm. I didn't look over to see if the car dealer in the portacabin was laughing at me.
After tootling around the block a couple of times, and checking to see if its lights were working I thought what the heck I will buy it. I didn't bother kicking the tyres.
I had brought a laptop so I could do all the things - get new insurance, get a breakdown service, buy a parking permit. I sat in the car in the dealer's yard and did it all - but when my insurance came through I saw that it was set to start from midnight. So I walked home. And went back the next day.
Nearly finished....the next day I drove it home. Sitting outside our flat with the engine idling I saw there was a little grey box flashing on and off on the dashboard. It didn't look very worrying so almost out of idle curiosity I had a look in the manual to see what it meant. It meant YOU'RE NEARLY OUT OF FUEL YOU TWATT. I high-tailed it down to the nearest garage for petrol When I got there I parked on the wrong side - because my petrol cap is on the left! I always wondered what kind of people had their petrol cap on the wrong side like that, and now I am one of them.
Me and P took the new car for a test run to Gullane the next day. It rained so much we never got out the car and we discovered it had a very squeaky windscreen wiper, other than that it was fine though.
So the next weekend we set off back up to Aberdeenshire - this time via Banchory.
It's a tradition for me and P to run up Cairn William and Pitfichie when we go up to mum's and this time was no different. We ran up in spooky mist and the sun came out just as we got to the top.
We ran up a month ago also when mum was first in hospital, but it was much slower and more treacherous then because the paths were covered in ice.
I do love getting into the different scenery - spooky woods and heathery hills.
We did three visits in three days to mum. She is physically a lot better - moving better, talking better, no feeding tube, but she is toiling with being stuck in hospital. She just needs to get a bit stronger if she is to get home again. The staff are stretched too thin to be around for her to do practice walks very often. I think the gloom part of her brain is also recovering from her stroke. She's doing her best but she is not so light-hearted. She hates having her photo taken and she hated me taking her photo and turning her into a mouse - but we had run out of conversation.
Meanwhile Peter went full-cammo to shoot photos of blue tits in my sister's garden. It was a sunny weekend, but not quite warm enough for butterflies, apart from a Comma that I surprised which took off like a jet, never to be seen again. The frogs came out however, and so they had their photograph taken.
So what about Alloa Half Marathon? It's a whole story but I've shot my writing wad. (Sorry for being so rude.)
I had a plan back when I entered. The race starts at 9am so I thought I'd book somewhere to stay nearby and get a nearly full night's sleep. I stayed in an airbnb a mile from the start. Peter wasn't interested in coming - no way Jose! So it was me - tout-seul. I spent a near monastic night alone with just a Domino's pizza for company.
All the organisational bits went fine but when it came to running I was just a bit knackered. I had a cough back in January and it has never fully gone away. I can't help thinking some hot sun would help.
It would have been nice to have gone under 1.50 or failing that been faster than Jedburgh - but it was neither of the above - 2 minutes slower than Jedburgh in fact, official time 1.55.28. Despite having a Mars Bar for breakfast! Disappointing. I have to remind myself that it's not that long ago that running a half marathon seemed well out of reach.
Next race is Edinburgh to North Berwick but happily that's not for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment