Flibbertigibbetness

I don't know what's wrong with me but I just can't settle to anything at the moment, flitting between far too many different things and not focusing properly. Most annoying and hopefully this phase will pass!

The running bits

I've completed another marathon over at Jeskyns Community Woodland which has appeared on here many times before so I didn't take any photos this time. The weather forecast had been for sun all day and it was correct as it was really hot and I got some excellent comedy tan lines as I was wearing 3/4 length tights and short socks.

Not a good look!

I wanted to see how well I'd recovered and was delighted to take 19 minutes off my best time there to finish in 5:04. You could go beyond marathon distance if you wanted but I just wanted to head for home and so that's exactly what I did.

I've also been trying out a few more sections of the 1066 100 mile route and have discovered some more interesting places to run. The first section I did took me from Sandhurst through to Bodiam and it was quite tricky doing the route in reverse but I worked it out eventually. Here are a few snaps from that little jaunt:

This was in the grounds of Bodiam Castle and on the way back I saw hoards of people gathered around taking photos of the swarm so I did too (see further down)

Looking back to Bodiam Castle

Oh drat, Oil-Seed Rape, yuk!

It was taller than me and I was covered in the stinky pollen

Taken to remind me of the way to go home

I was using written instructions on this jaunt as I hadn't downloaded the final GPX file to my Garmin GPS device

Waymarks come in various guises

 

Sometimes the waymarking was clear.......

...and others it was not!

The nettles here were already up to my waist so they'll be even bigger in a few weeks time

This stream is known as Kent Ditch and marks the border between Kent and Sussex

The bee swarm at Bodiam Castle

By the time I got home I was ready for coffee and biccies!

At the time I was doing this bit of the route, the Race Director was out and about waymarking the final section. I'd already notified them of some awkward bits in my area and I chuckled when I saw their reaction to the sections in our area:

We have made a few changes to the 1066 GPX file (new copy on the website) after yesterday's check of the last 15 miles. Changes due to inconsiderate land owners who have essentially either destroyed a path, or planted across them obscuring the rights of way. Blue denotes the new race route. Red is the original Long Distance path (Yellow is the route we had to take to find our way and hence decided to opt for the blue route)

The first map shows an area that causes much consternation as the landowners rent out their field for moto-cross so there's a huge motorbike circuit which the footpath goes straight through so clearly that was inappropriate for health and safety reasons! What they did was waymark the correct footpaths but then altered our route accordingly in several places along the whole route so we'll have to follow the GPX tracker rather than the waymarkers.

I was starting to get concerned about the time limit as all the diversions I knew about in my area had added at least 2 miles to the route and it was already at 103 miles with a 30 hour cut-off. Thankfully the Race Director has been kind to us and has rounded up the miles to 106.6 (gettit? it's the 1066 route!) and extended the cut-off to 32 hours, phew!

Another thing you have to contend with is disputes on certain footpaths as evidenced here in another field in our Parish where a disgruntled farmer has blocked the stile which is along the Sussex Border Path. I just report things like this to the Rights of Way Team at the local council and let them deal with it:

In other news

In true flibbertigibbet fashion I can't make my mind up what to knit/crochet or sew next and it's driving me mad! I've swatched using some Rowan summerspun yarn for Nimue from pompom quarterly number 27:

I really like its quirky shape

But then this fab magazine dropped through our letterbox and I decided that Nimue could wait and anyway I've got some Rowan felted tweed that would be better suited to it:

Oh my goodness, Nimue was forgotten for the moment and I'm swatching for Kapua using some beautiful Ella Rae fingering weight yarn from my stash:

I'm also crocheting some bits and bobs and have had to do some repair work on my Frida's Flowers blanket because the dark blue colour ran when I washed it. Typical Rowan yarn to be honest as they don't seem very good at using the right balance of mordant to set their colours! I've had this problem before with their reds but never with blues. I emailed them photos of it but never got a reply.

So after the tears I started to think of how to get round the problem and here's what I'm doing and believe me it's time-consuming but has improved things dramatically:

Noooooooo!

So what I'm doing is embroidering surface chain stitches all the way round the outer edges....

....then whip-stitching them to the adjacent hexagon.

It's never going to be perfect again as I can't do anything about the petal tips where the dye's run into them but it's making it bearable.

Bye-bye RED May

Today was the last day of my run-every-day during May challenge along with some of my running pals and it's been great fun. For my last run I decided to use the treadmill as I wanted to get a 5k in with a time of around 25 minutes; the only problem with that idea was the wine we consumed the night before!

Anyway, I set off on the treadmill and was delighted to finish in 24:45 so I reached over to get my camera to capture the proof. Sadly, what I'd forgotten was that I had attached the lanyard to my vest which has a magnet on one end so that if you fall or need to stop the treadmill in an emergency you just pull on the string and it stops it. Not only does it stop the treadmill it also deletes all the data. 

So you can guess what happened can't you - I stretched too far away and the lanyard detached and I lost all my workout, doh! 

Instead I have a hot and sweaty photo of me taken on my computer:

Never mind, a new challenge begins tomorrow.

I've still got to write about the little Badger who came to visit and show some garden things but they will have to wait a while longer.

RED May & Weel Riggit unmodelled

Having reached the halfway point of RED May I realised that I haven't even written about it! It's all about doing some sort of physical activity of at least 25 minutes or running/walking for 5k each day - Run Every Day = RED.

This was Day 1 on an out-and-back route through the village.

 

Day 6 brought me closer to getting below 30 minutes (my 5k pb is 26 minutes, set a long, long time ago!).

For Day 7 I decided to have a go at upping my pace a bit so chose to use the treadmill and look what happened:

Then Day 9 I had another go and knocked nearly a minute off:

Of course the times were much slower on the day after each of the 2 marathons I've done this month!

Yesterday I decided to have a go at one of my hilly circuits and chose to do the harder route with the longer uphill sections. I usually complete this in around 65-70 minutes so this was a complete surprise:

So this morning I thought I'd try it the other way round which usually takes 60 - 65 minutes:

I was only slightly disappointed because it's still below 60 minutes but not much faster than yesterday. Then I realised that my asthma and hayfever are pretty grotty to day so perhaps that's why. The good thing is that I can see and feel a difference so it's well worth pursuing.

Weel Riggit

My Weel Riggit pullover is finally dry, which took forever, and I was hoping to do some fun outdoor shots of it today but it's raining so that will have to wait. I am absolutely delighted with it and it fits just perfectly.

Pre-blocking

Pinned out and drying very slowly. I used the trick of sticking a plate in the neckline to keep it nicely stretched which has worked a treat

What did I do differently?

I knit size 2 using 4.5 mm needles for the body as I really didn't like the fabric produced using 5mm needles. For the ribbed edges I used 4mm needles and for the arms I used 4mm for the rib, then 4.5mm until the end of the increases so I got a closer fit (I don't like baggy sleeves in heavy weight yarn) and then swapped to 5mm needles for the remainder of the sleeves.

I knit the sleeves a bit longer than stated because I wanted the option to turn up the cuffs or have then covering part of my hands in colder weather which feels nice when my hands are especially arthritic.

I'll save my styling photos until the weather brightens up again as I want to do some fun shots to cheer up Kate!