Some things missing from the graph since September 2023, working on getting them back just kind of hoping someone else will fix it and they'll come back.
These are my average kilometre running times during January since I've been doing Runuary.
This week only.
Best time this week!
Second best pace for a 18/01.
Incoming topical song from MJ Hibbett! And it's good.
It was meant to be coming out at the end of the month (at which point it'll be on all the usual streaming services) but I couldn't wait that long for people to hear it, so I put it up on Bandcamp early!
Hope you like the song and the video, and see you on the last working day of the month for the next issue of the newsletter!
Hopefully that's the chemical formula for caffeine if it appears right.
Tenner on coffee cups is nothing, I lost twenty quid on cinema tickets earlier, trying to save some money. Clare wants T1 to go to see this version of Macbeth with David Tennant in. It was a proper play at the Donmar Warehouse, we're not going to that, but they're doing one night only at the cinema. I can get a discount on cinema tickets through work, by buying a voucher and then cashing it in on the cinemea website. So did that, but it didn't work. And I can't get a refund because I opened the voucher. I have a support query in, I should get refunded, but I'm twenty quid down now and no cinema tickets.
Clare bought more tickets for Wicked on Sunday, I don't want to see that so I'm not going. But I paid so I'm thirty quid down there too.
Did run at lunchtime, I ran round Sandgate, instead of going the other way. Was cold to start, but fine after that. I remember I used to get a bit puffed out and a bit bored when I ran this way a while ago, but it's no problem now. Maybe I used to run that route more when I first started running. So that was pleasant. What wasn't pleasant was just before lunch, about half eleven, thinking "I'm really hungry, ooh I have a load of new snack bars I'll have one of those", and then remembering I needed to go for a run soon. Eating before running will give me a cramp so best avoided. I ate the snack bar when I got back, though that was the whole of my lunch today. Just really busy, as mentioned above. I have a massive feast of things that have been in the freezer too long for tea. I thought I'd have a bit of a clear out, so I've got some fake chicken strip things, some Indian snacks, and some vegan sausages. Do I really need to say they're vegan sausages? Or that they're fake chicken strips? I don't suppose those snacks have been anywhere India either. I'll accompany this with some baked beans.
I made another breakthrough on another piece of work, was just really proving "yep we need to set this work up in this particular way" and then it can work. This is all on the secret project and I'm hoping to share some of that out soon.
It's now the end of the day, the boys are in and they're hogging the lounge. I was about to put the TV, but there is outcry. No, we should play this game that looks like a mobile phone game on the big TV, and if you want to watch TV why don't you watch it on your phone? My life is endless surrendering to the family.
It would be too cold now to go for a walk so I'm glad I'm not going to the pub, no, I am.
Commuted to London this morning, as I so often do, now we are doing three days a week in the office. This morning was a bit different, they seem to have halved the train down to six carriages. So standing room only, all the way from Folkestone. St Pancras looked to be quieter than normal, which was odd. But then the office was very busy. Some people in the team couldn't find a desk.
Ran at lunch, down over Blackfriars bridge, along the riverside to Waterloo bridge, and back along Fleet Street. The streets very busy, so a bit slower, but it did feel an easy run today. It's nice doing a different route.
Showered back at work and pretty much straight into a huge planning meeting. I started off doing the meeting from my desk, but thene the battery in my headphones went. No problem I just need to find somewhere quiet and I can carry on. Could not find a spare booth or even a desk in all five floors of the building. I had to find a meeting room where some other people were in the same call as me, and then do the rest of the meeting standing up.
Apart from all the meetings a reasonably productive day, but only because someone fixed one thing I'd been waiting on. Tomorrow from home will be more productive where I hope I can find some time to use the new fixed thing. It's been my access to a third party graphql api, or rather something that feeds into that api so that I can query it. I am double booked for tomorrow though, got a new project to start on. It sounds like it plays to my strengths though and I can achieve quite a lot just with my knowledge and experience rather than actual hard work. That's the dream isn't it? That's the kind of things I've been working for thirty plus years for. Crikey it's thirty-five years now isn't it?
Home, via Tesco, where I got some bargain food for tea so had a lovely pasta feast. T2 had had some friends round for tea so they'd all had meat pasta.
They're watching Traitors on the TV again, so that's why I'm doing this instead.
Knew I had an early alarm set and a commute into the office today, that got my brain whirring and stopped my sleeping. Finally surrendered and looked at my watch, and it was 5am. Normally I don't look as that definitely stops me going back to sleep. So, wide awake at five, and don't need to really get up until six, should I go for a run? Or on the treadmill? I definitely should, get today's run done early. But did I though? No I did not, I just lay there until the alarm went off. So now I have to head into London and run at lunchtime.
Busy with long work meetings today. Woke up feeling cold and tired, didn't feel like running outside so went on treadmill. So all good, Runuary day fourteen done. That's running5km or over every day for just over two weeks now.
T2 has school play auditions today, and T1 has GCSE mock results! Exciting day, hope everything works out, they are both aiming so high as to inevitably be a bit disappointed I think.
Clare has a start date for her new job now, it's kind of good for her that it's a week later than she thought, that's another week off, but it's another week of no pay. Then also a bit of a shame it's right in half term week, so if it had been a week later we could easily have gone away somewhere for a few days. We still might try and do something, I have time off to take, maybe we'll all go to London and make her first few days commuting easier.
Sunny intervals and a gentle breeze, 5 - 8℃.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Paul Clarkeʼs blog - I live in Hythe in the deep South. Wed + dad to two, I am a full-stack web developr, + I do mostly javascript / Node, some ruby, python, php etc. I like pubs, parkrun, restaurants, home automation + other diy jiggery-pokery, history, genealogy, Television, squirrels, pirates, lego, + time travel.
