It started with my morning run and it had to be the park, as in Richmond Park, which is a great big slab of wilderness in south west London with a few roads and paths across it. I aimed to have a go at running round Penn Ponds, about a 6 – 7km run there and back in a loop. I made it to Penn Ponds ok, had to stop for a little while to let three very vicious looking swans shepherd their babies across the path between the two ponds, then up the hill and that’s where I got lost, in that I went in completely the wrong direction. I realised quite quickly that I was going in the wrong direction, so I decided in my not-so-wise wisdom to follow a road I didn’t really know in what I thought was the right direction, uh uh! I ran on, with a growing sneaky suspicion that it was the wrong road, although it was a very nice run, down hill, grass, the dew on said grass soaking in a little through my light weight running shoes (mmm), deer with increasingly scary looking antlers (it’s getting that time of year again) blocking certain routes. It was the deer actually that made me think I was heading in completely the wrong direction, there are two types of deer in Richmond Park you see and they tend to stick to certain areas and the deer I were passing looked like the ‘wrong deer’. So I ran on, looking for one of the park’s white signs, only to find one, pointing back across the park, distance back to my gate, 3 miles! So I ran back across the park, rapidly getting past the 7km I thought that I was going to do (if lucky) if I’d gone the right way. In the end I managed to get to 8.67km (previous best distance 6km!), I almost got home (and was thinking about running on to 10km) but got to a road I needed to cross at the edge of the park and as it’s a busy road I had to stop. Normally when I stop to cross a road I just jog on the spot if I have to wait, but I tried that and as soon as I lost the forward momentum which had been propelling me the last x number of miles, I honestly almost fell over as I tried to jog on the spot, so I called it a day. So despite getting lost (embarrassing, I’ve only been going to the park for 4 years now!) it was actually a really good run, lovely weather (it went down hill after that) and the whole trying to find the way and the fact that it was sort of cross country, it was a bit like orienteering!
So, I staggered home, breakfast once my blood supply had reconnected to my digestive system and then a bath, then a hurried marmite sandwich down the kids throats and then getting the prima ballerina of the household ready and then across town for her first performance. I delivered Girl Lacer and then hung round town for a while before meeting Mr. Lacer and Boy Lacer before heading back for the actual performance. I was really impressed with the whole thing; Girl Lacer and her group, as the youngest were on first, they were adorably cute (and rather good for 3 -4 year olds), followed by the other slightly older children groups. Then came the older kids and they were sooo good, it was like a prime advert for the parents of the younger children saying “Pay as another few thousand in dance school fees and give up your Saturdays for life and your child to will dance like this”, it was all really professional, actually worth the quite expensive tickets. Boy Lacer was watching with us and at first he was terrified again, clinging to me like a limpet, refusing to look at the stage but by the second act he was enthusiastically watching as long as he liked the music, after being particularly taken by some very good dancing luminescent skeletons dancing to Daft Punk.
After the performance Mr. Lacer took Boy Lacer home and I hung around to pick up Girl Lacer from her second performance, we got home relatively late (for her). So I’m now shattered and the cold I thought might be brewing earlier has most definitely erupted and with my new medication it seems I can’t take at least the standard cold medications I have in the house, brilliant. So, more ballet tomorrow and to make that worse I’m going to be a mummy helper groan and on top of being a sniffy mummy helper, I’m going to be a sniffing, limping mummy helper as although my legs were ok during my run I seem to have strained my left ankle.
