Sunday 23 February - to Halifax

Sunday 23 February

It was an early alarm and early on the road. A necessity with an 0706 Chunnel crossing. Our exit from the Aire wasn't entirely smooth as it turned out that the QR code reader wasn't working. Fortunately, they have a fall-back of being able to enter your code manually, and that got us out in a timely manner. Phew!

The early morning Chunnel crossings were the only ones that weren't sold out until late night, and whilst it wasn't anywhere near as quiet as we've previously experienced at that time on a Sunday morning, it also wasn't the busiest we've seen it. 

We departed and arrived in the UK on time, before 7am.

The plan had been to nip via home to pick up the car (but not to drop off Bertie), but after surveying the stats for the journey both with and without that detour, and considering that the roads were quiet now, but would be busier later, and further considering the urgency of arriving in Halifax, we went straight there. I did, however, book myself a train ticket a few days hence to nip home (£6.50 for the leg I needed to prebook to get a good price - so no great loss if I ended up not using it; the ticket for the other leg I could buy on the day for £5.50). 

We arrived in Halifax just after noon - 3.5 days after leaving the E coast of Spain.

Monday 24 February

Both of Mick's brothers were present on Monday, so I was able to clear off for my slightly delayed long run. Given the lumpiness around Halifax (and the flatness of what I'm training for), I opted to go for a set time rather than a set distance. 'Run' is also a generous description of what I did. It went well. Not only was the weather superb...

...but I was only 7 minutes slower over the distance than my target. Considering: a) the hills; b) that I'd got a load of washing out of the machine on one of my pitstops; c) that I'd made two visits to Morrisons for platters of sushi that I'd then eaten outside the store; and d) I had to do all my own admin in between laps, I was pretty pleased with that. 

Wednesday 25 February

A day of public transport and running. 

Run - train - run - Wetherspoons for a cup of tea - run - train - run - bus - run - home - car  

It all went remarkably smoothly, I was back in Halifax at just gone 6pm, and I hadn't been rained on once. Considering the weather when we first got up, this was surprising. 

Update - 24 March:

We stayed in Halifax, providing full-time care for Ma-in-Law, until she died on 11 March, less than a month shy of her 100th birthday. She'd been quite clear for a very long time that she didn't want to spend time in hospital, didn't want to go into a home, didn't want external carers (yes, she lived independently to 99.9 years old) and didn't want to make it to 100. She achieved all of her wishes and we were glad to be in a position to facilitate the first three.