Friday Thoughts #11

Last month I posted about the caterpillas living on my citrus trees. When we came home from Wilson’s Prom most of them had disappeared and I couldn’t find any chrysalis so I guess they were eaten by predators. There were two caterpillas left, one disappeared about a week later and then I was left with one very fat one. I’ve been checking it daily and this week it finally went into the pupa stage. Now I just need to see if I can catch it coming out.

Our son received his leave blackout days from work this week, which stay the same most years due to regular major events and we found out that he wouldn’t be able to take his holidays when were planning in 2024. We have a tradition in our fmaily where we take each kid to a country in Europe when they’re in year 11. Our son’s trip to Germany got cancelled in 2020 so we had planned to do it next year, and double up with a trip to the Berlin marathon. That’s not going to work now, but we worked out that we might be able to add it on to our trip later this year. The leave blackout ends the day I was supposed to fly home from Italy … via Munich. After my son checking with his work that he can get two weeks leave, husband checking with his business partner that it is okay to take more leave and their agent in the UK to push his visit there back by two weeks, we’ve managed to push my flight home from Munich back two weeks. Our son will meet us in Berlin and fly home with me from Munich a couple of weeks later. So we’ve had lots of tossing up of various options over the last 48 hours, but the tickets are booked now.

An interesting post about journaling: A Journal is a Magic Space to hang out.

The Wages of Overwork: “we have to acknowledge: the wages of overwork culture extend far beyond the working conditions of those who embrace it.”

Six weeks ago I foolishly declared this year was going to be the fittest I had ever been for the start of the cross country season … cue a vaccine reaction followed by a series of weeks feeling pretty ordinary. I think (hope?) I’m coming out of it now. Last week was my first full week of running and included the first race of the cross country season, a 5K with loose gravel, soggy ovals and some stairs, so not a fast course, the top finishes were about a minute behind their road times. It was also raining, altohugh luckily the really heavy rain came as we were having afternoon tea. My time was 27:34.42, 54s slower than last year, but 3s faster than 2021. The one good thing about a bad time is that it makes my handicap for subsequent races easier.

No cross country for me this weekend, I only do APSOC not AV races. Instead we are doing the Angela Taylor 10K on Sunday but I’ll run the 8K from home to the start line and do it as part of my longrun, we usually run it to support the cause rather than for a time.

How’s your week been? Any plans for the weekend?