The Weekend: Here and Gone

Steve & Vickie came over for dinner Saturday night, which was lovely; we haven’t seen them since Christmas. They are expecting their first child (on 4 July!!) and we laughed about the medical staff referring to her as a ‘geriatric’ mom. We had lots to catch up on: news about our other friends, names for the baby, maternity leave plans, how their dogs are doing, the latest reorg at work, Bill’s new job. Bill’s cooking was superb as usual: crackers with smoked salmon and boursin cheese to start; chicken and chorizo with mushrooms in a tomato sauce; roasted potatoes, parsnips and red peppers, steamed broccoli; sweet potato pie with whipped cream. I intended to take pictures, but forgot all about it. Vickie looks really great; I think pregnancy agrees with her, even at her greatly advanced age …

They brought Series 6 and 7 of West Wing for me to watch. I think Vickie is trying to wake up my political conscience, even though we sit on opposite sides of the fence. That doesn’t matter – we both think it’s a great show. Unfortunately this means my productivity is likely to drop even further, which one wouldn’t have thought possible.

Sunday morning Bill and I met John from the running club to recce a possible course for a road (or multi-terrain) race.


It was raining when we set off from home, but we had fairly dry skies for our recce.



We met a few obstacles but came up with a tentative plan A. We thoroughly enjoyed our leisurely ride along the riverside.

I tried to take a few fun pictures in addition to documenting possible problems on the route. (Pictures which have gone into hiding somewhere; will add them to this post when I have tracked them down. Found them: Bill had downloaded them in a new folder...)



Monday night at the club we had a short (3 mile) handicap race; I generally get to start first, being by far the most handicapped runner, and the fast guys have to wait a l-o-n-g time to start. After that, free food and a drink at the pub.