*13.1 miles, in fact.
This week – before I have the chance to change my mind after Saturday’s 25k Queen of the Suburbs Ultra – I have signed up for the Cardiff Half Marathon in October and am considering Ealing but that’s got a three hour cutoff time so I’d need to speed up a bit. Cardiff is four which is very doable. I’d rather run both but my knees have other ideas.
I am basically a lazy person. I like sitting down and reading and crocheting and naps and drinking coffee. So why, you might ask, am I signing up for very long walks lurches? Well, it’s because I am basically lazy, in fact. I know that if I’m going to do any exercise I need a reason, and ‘keeping fit’ just isn’t enough of a reason to get me out further than 5k. So I’m basically lazy but also quite stubborn and competitive, it turns out. It’s a difficult blend of personality traits at times like this, you know, but I have made my peace with it and signing up to stuff is like surrendering to my inner nag. I was all “FINE, but I WON’T ENJOY IT*”.
General entry to Cardiff was sold out in a matter of seconds, so I went down the charity place option and have decided to raise money for Choose Love, who work with displaced communities to provide on-the-ground emergency aid and support where it’s needed.
Regular readers will know that over the past few years I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and spend time with refugees and asylum seekers in East London and Essex, engaging with them through play in schools and family centres; trying to bring a bit of normality and joy into lives that they never planned and which they are living with dignity and more grace than I suspect I could muster in the same situation.
The Migration Museum’s 2016 exhibition Call Me By My Name, about the Jungle in Calais, has also stayed with me: it’s not often an exhibition moves me to tears. Stories about the people TT1 works with at Epping Forest Foodbank, the casual neglect, racism and dehumanisation families seeking safety in the UK encounter make me wonder about the lack of humanity some people display. Every time we’ve turned on the news for the past many years we’ve heard about Gaza, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and so on.
When I first started teaching in London we had groups of children from Angola in our classes – untangling the relationships between the adults and the children was sobering. Many weren’t related at all. Village adults – often women – had been entrusted with the lives of groups of children and sent to London in the hope that the parents would escape and join them at some point. I don’t know if they ever did. Choose Love seemed like a natural choice for me to exercise on behalf of: we all need love, after all.
I haven’t set my fundraising page up yet as the website defeated me, but rest assured I’ll be asking for support – look, think of it as paying someone else to exercise so you don’t have to, and you can stay warm and safe in the knowledge that someone, somewhere, will be getting the help they so desperately need.
*Oh OK then, FINE, yes I will.
Things making me happy this week
- Tan reminding me on Friday that the 25k was on Saturday not Sunday – in the nick of time, clearly!
- Last Sunday’s lovely sunshiney training walk – I got befuddled and didn’t end up where I thought I would. No sense of direction, that’s my problem. Luckily the 25k was way marked with bright pink ribbon.
- Popping in to the library on Thursday afternoon and seeing the Knit and Natter group still going after 15 years – my late MIL was one of the founder members, so it’s good to see it going strong.
- My finished crochet cardigan it’s basically two giant granny hexagons stitched together and I LOVE it. Try this pattern for a similar one – mine is in a DK yarn so has more rounds. I was using the Attic 24 Hydrangea blanket colours, and I made the sleeves more dramatic.
- Thing 3’s parents’ evening. His handwriting continues to be atrocious but other than that he is, apparently, a joy to have around.
- Finishing Saturday’s event 16 minutes faster than I’d planned for – my chip time was 4 hrs 9, my Strava time was just under 3 hrs 59. I’ll take that as a win. And I made it indoors before the huge thunderstorm landed. I did not appreciate the really big hill at 19k or the smaller one at 23k.
Today I am off to the Stitch Festival at the Business Design Centre in Islington with Heather, my crafty partner in crime, where I will NOT spend any money. No.
That’s it for the week! Same time next Sunday then…
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading
The Heron’s Cry/The Rising Tide/Telling Tales – Ann Cleeves
Going Postal/Making Money/Raising Steam – Terry Pratchett (Audible)
The Trouble With The Cursed – Kim Harrison
What Kirsty did next 