This runner V3.0

 Well something like version 3.0. 

Quite often when I'm doing some kind of exercise I think of a blog theme - but then when it comes down to it I can't really be bothered. 

The grand theme for this blog was something about how mental and physical resilience are the same - but I can't even remember what it was all about now.

I think I'll just say that it's nearly July and last time I wrote a blog I was surprised that it was April. 

Last time I wrote a blog I'd knackered my foot but it was recovering. It continues to recover, in fact I don't give it much thought now. I'm back to running - albeit cautiously, and I listen particularly for how my left foot is doing, but it's not the only factor. I have to listen to my knees now too, and recently my right ankle has felt a bit weird.

Before I hurt my foot I was doing quite a bit of speed training, so I think that was maybe too much. I've been doing intense sessions on my bike indoors where I don't have to worry about stopping for traffic lights or hitting pedestrians and I never touch my brakes. I can never get my heart-rate up as high as I can running at speed but I can still get a good hard session in with much less impact so I'm less apt to hurt myself.

I've been swimming too and going to the gym, but something about it being the height of summer makes it hard to think about going to a warm indoor pool unless it's really lashing down outside - which actually it quite often has been....

Talking of lashing it down we've had a few sad watery ingress stories. The first was that we've got a new downstairs neighbour who has been doing work on his flat. Amongst the things he did was take out a false ceiling in his kitchen which revealed that our shower has been leaking down into his flat! That's bad news. Trying to get a plumber has not proved all that easy, but we have someone coming now on Thursday. We're hoping that the water leaking has not been going on for too long and hasn't done too much damage and that it's a simple fix - but you never know until you know. Meantime we haven't been using the shower but have in fact being using a large plastic garden waste bucket to have a standing bath in. It's more than some people have got, but it isn't ideal either.....

So that was watery ingress story no.1 - or probably watery outgress from our point of view.

Watery ingress story no.2 was that one night the skies opened and the rain rattled down in a way it rarely does. Sometimes when the gutters are blocked on the roof, with a large deluge of rain, the water finds its way through the wall. It's happened like 3 times in 25 years. Well it happened again. We got a little bit of water coming in and thought "damn we better get the roof guys to come and look at the gutters", somehow our downstairs neighbour got a whole lot more - so came up knocking gently on the door, saying "I'm awfully sorry but". Technically, I suppose, we don't actually have to sort this out - but the flat next door is rented so I don't think they give a stuff, and the flat on the other side is an uninhabited council flat. So anyway we've got the roof guy lined up and he's had a look and there's this and that to do. Because we're organising it, we'll have to try and recoup the costs from our neighbours. We used to have a bossy neighbour called Carol-Ann who seemed to revel in this sort of stuff and was forever having house meetings and putting fliers around the flats and getting things sorted out - but she moved away. For me and PB, we don't revel in this stuff. I'm trying to channel my inner Carol-Ann.

So next week is a kind of ground 0 for unwanted practical tasks. I've got an MOT next week, and a guy coming about replacing our windows (that was my idea, while everything's annoying anyway we might as well get all the things done we've been putting off) and then the plumber on Thursday.

Why am I telling you all this? Och why not.

Meanwhile it's been a kind of cold and wet June and PB is not his best self at the moment. He's had a sciatic thing since probably April and it is dragging on and on. I feel sorry for him but also annoyed that he won't go and see anyone about it. Well he's going to see someone tomorrow, so I'm delighted about that. He has been going about lamenting the lack of butterflies and the weather in "this country" until I can't stand it any more. But he's in pain.

I looked back and saw that I'd taken loads of photos this month and despite the popular narrative that the weather is terrible and everything is broken, it's clear that we've had many good days out in fine weather, and seen many beasties. And to my delight I have even been away out in the Pentlands for a semi-run by myself.

I have far too many photos from June to publish them all here and I'm too lazy to choose so I've made a wee slide-show and posted it to Youtube, so you can see all my superb pics and listen to Underworld. But make sure and watch it in HD or it will look crap.

Thanks for listening :-)