Extreme Knitting Redhead: One week on

Sunday, July 21, 2019

One week on

Who'd have thought that after 78 miles the previous weekend I'd want to complete another event 7 days later? Well, my legs felt fine and so I emailed Kirsty to see if she fancied another marathon and she did and so we found ourselves at another LWDA event over at Forest Row for the Andredsweald circuit which headed out into the beautiful Ashdown Forest, home of Winnie the Pooh!

There wasn't a GPX file for the route so we were following printed instructions which caused even the fastest runners to slow right down as it's virtually impossible to run and read such complicated text at once. We all started with the walkers at 8:30am as we knew it was going to be a slow one. It was a very varied terrain mostly with lovely views and we had a grand day out. I don't know the names of everything we passed so I'll have to let the photos do the talking:

Race Briefing (although it wasn't an actual race!)

Off we go.....the first part of it was familiar as I did their 'Sussex Loops' event last year and the start followed a part of the 3rd loop

Poor Bryan valiantly put up with our company again and we were joined by another chum too, Sam

These are the ruins of Brambletye House which are now used a B&B apparently

Kirsty and Sam

I think there were 5 checkpoints en-route, 3 were manned but the other 2 you had to clip your own card using a clipper suspended from a tree branch!

Fans of Winnie the Pooh will recognise Mole End!

We saw several families armed with sticks making their way down to play Pooh Sticks

A proper 'forge' but it didn't look too deep

As always, it was slightly over marathon distance but nobody cared 'cos it was such a lovely day out with chums.

I've got a few weeks off marathoning now but I won't be shirking as I've started another wave of the Six Pack Revolution, but this time it's the Intensive version - eek! Here's a sneak peak at what I was up to the other day:

In my next update our sweet new rescue cat Shelley will be making an appearance. I'm also aware that I haven't shared photos from the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy or our visit to a sculpture exhibition #notenoughhoursintheday!

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.