Sunday 2 August – Random Witterings from Home #27

Notable 2020 milestones
Saturday 1 August: a day of two noteworthy occurrences:

1)      Bertie was taxed and hit the road for the first time since we arrived home in mid-March;

2)      Mick & I travelled somewhere together in a motor vehicle for the first time in the same timeframe.

Alas, there’s no travel report, photos or “Where’s Bertie?” statement, as the trip in question comprised visiting Screwfix, Lidl, B&Q and a petrol station, and being back home an hour and a half later. 

Early Birthday Presents
In April we splashed out on a couple of ‘Bertie-the-motorhome on tour’ parkrun t-shirts, which I justified as an early birthday present for me and a late one for Mick. I decided to overlook that this week when I splashed out again, recycling the ‘it’s a birthday present’ excuse.

In 1999 I bought my first drill, having always until that point borrowed my father’s tools. It was the cheapest model sold by Homebase and cost me £19. It’s had a lot of use over the years (a few whole-house renovations in amongst countless other tasks) and is still going (in fact, the holes in the piece of wood shown in the photo on my last post were made with that very tool). That first purchase set the tone for subsequent tool acquisitions: cordless drill, SDS drills, sanders, router, circular saw, chop saw, jig saw: not one of them cost more than £35 and some significantly less (the cheapest was the orbital sander at £5). The only branded item in my entire collection was a Black & Decker plane.

However, both of the batteries for my cordless drill were increasingly failing to hold charge, precipitating the need for a replacement, and this time I decided to buy something of superior quality and specification: something that could actually cope with drilling into masonry. Essentially, I was going to spent a lot of money (comparatively) purely as a matter of frivolous convenience; that is to say, I’ve never yet had a situation where I couldn’t use a corded drill, albeit sometimes with a significant faff factor.

This is what I bought myself:

It feels so much nicer in the hand than any of my other tools!

I’m sure that it won’t pay for itself over time and is not objectively worth the money, but the beauty of birthday gifts (even to oneself!) is that they don't have to be sensible.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary…
A fruit and veg update:

We ate our first couple of courgettes last week and have two more that will be ready for picking in the next couple of days:

There are always some runner beans that hide cunningly away until they’ve grown overlarge and tough. It's obvious which of these were this week’s culprits. Until yesterday we’d conveniently been getting 5-8 beans per day, which is perfect for the two of us (we’ve been eating beans every night, whether they fit well with the meal we’re having or not) but yesterday’s crop (not photographed) took us into the realm of ‘slightly overrun’. Perhaps there will be a few lean days now, giving us the chance to eat through the backlog?

The apple tree isn’t doing too badly, although I’d be grateful if the unseasonable winds could stop blowing them off the boughs. The pear tree is positively laden.

Most excitingly of all, considering I didn’t expect to achieve any fruit at all due to starting the plants waaaaaaaay later than any gardener would ever advise, we have tomatoes growing:

Baby tomatoes! I've counted 10 in total tonight. I have to thank JJ for giving me the notion of achieving tomato plants simply by shoving a couple of slices of tomato into some compost.

Veering away from the edible, the daisies (two varieties) are putting on a nice display too:

Please don’t focus on the rose in need of dead-heading!

USB Sockets for Bertie: Update 1

On 10 July I outlined my plan to fit some USB sockets in Bertie and said that all the parts were on order. I patiently waited for them to arrive, then waited some more whilst one incorrect delivery was corrected (seller’s mistake) and one item was reordered (the switch I’d ordered was, I decided, too small).

Once everything was in hand, I must have either been distracted elsewhere or the weather was miserable for the rest of that week as no further progress was made. I had plenty of free time last week, but I’ve too many times done myself a mischief whilst carrying out tasks that involve contorting myself and kneeling a lot, which was something I couldn’t afford whilst my focus was on completing the Virtual Lakeland 50. I then procrastinated some more, waiting for a nice warm day, but today I resolved to get the task done, starting with drilling some holes into a bit of scrap wood* to check the fit of the switch/sockets before wielding the drill in Bertie's direction.

Holes in a piece of scrap chipboard - a new low in illustrative blog photos? 

I confess that at no point in planning this job did it occur to me that I would need any new hole saws/drill bits as I assumed I already had the right sizes. The test holes established that I could certainly get away with using 22mm and a 32mm respectively, but both are a bit big so require the switch and socket to be perfectly centred so as not to show any gap around the edge. 

I dithered a bit then decided it was worth the expenditure and wait to buy the appropriate sizes (cue another chunk of time lost to choosing exactly which bits to buy and from where).

I couldn’t let another day slip by without any progress, particularly as it was such a nice day, so I’m pleased to say that I have now run the cables through Bertie’s belly and to the places they need to be.  It proved to be surprisingly easy; I didn’t even have to holler to Mick for help and was all done in half an hour.

To be continued…

^{(*Absolutely no good reason why I didn’t do that last week or the week before and, in hindsight, it’s a shame that I didn’t.})

Virtual Lakeland 50 – Day 7

What a good night’s sleep I had! My first awareness this morning was Mick getting out of bed and my first thought was “Gosh, I’m hungry!”. Mick looked like he was heading to the kitchen, so I mumbled a request for a bowl of porridge to go with my cup of tea.

Having completed the required 50-miles yesterday, there appeared to be little reason for me to head out for another 3.5 miles, except that the event organiser had requested that all participants go out today (wearing something green) to run up a set of steps. This was by way of substitute for ‘Jacob’s Ladder*’, the stone-staircase of a path that leads up onto the fells from Tilberthwaite (the final Checkpoint) on the way to Coniston (the finish line).

Last Monday, during my first run of the event, I wracked my brains and could not think of a single set of steps nearby. Then on Tuesday I remembered these:

I would have sworn this ‘flight’ comprised only two or three steps. Must usually take them two at a time!

They couldn’t be considered in any way comparable to real thing (the ascent in the final 3.5 miles of the real Lakeland 50/100 is just under 300m), but they were the best I could do.

At the very civilized time of 0940, I headed out the door with Mick, who was going to accompany me, not only because he likes my company and needed to go for a run today anyway, but also (and more importantly) to photograph my ascent of the steps.

Can you see the man cutting the bush to the left of the steps? Our behaviour must have seemed odd from where he was standing!

We then tootled back home where I didn’t waste much time in addressing my ravenous hunger!

Here’s 2.5 minutes of video** coverage of the outing:

If the thumbnail above doesn't work, use this link.

I think I’m going to have a rest from running tomorrow!

^{(*Jacob’s Ladder is not a name you’ll find on the map. Jacob was a young lad who died of cancer last year, after whom the Lakeland 50 & 100 events have unofficially named the path from Tilberthwaite. As well as the Lakeland events being fundraisers for the Epic Kidz charity (they reckon the entry and merchandise fees from this virtual event will have raised £65k) they also ‘charged’ a charitable toll in aid of Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group(nominally £1) for going over Jacob’s Ladder.}

^{**Incidentally, it took me a dozen attempts to manage the voice over bit in a way that was both coherent and fitted into the available audio space!)}

Virtual Lakeland 50 Day 6

I said yesterday that I was having an (almost) rest day today, with just 2.1 miles to cover to take me to the virtual Tilberthwaite checkpoint.

Then last night, for no objectively good reason, I thought it would be nice to finish the 50 miles in 6 days rather than 7 (in fact, if I hadn’t been so tired after my second 4am start, I probably would have gone back out right then, to finish in 5 days), so when I woke up at 0550 this morning, I crept out of bed to do exactly that.

I’d not got as far as the bedroom door before I realised that my shoulders and neck were really sore. My assumption (incorrect, as I’ve now worked out*) was that I must have slept funny. As I got dressed I kept under-balancing** and in a conversation with Mick before I set out, I repeatedly got my worms words mixed up. It didn’t bode entirely well, but except for the sore shoulders, I felt fine, so at just gone quarter to seven, off I went.  

Ten minutes later I was having an intracranial debate as to whether I should just revert to Plan A. My legs felt fine and I was alert, but just why was I doing more than necessary, when I could be back home in another 10 minutes, leaving myself fresh for tomorrow? My route gave me the option of cutting short after 2.5 miles, so I told myself that was my decision point – a cunning ploy because not only is the half mile before that point downhill, which would give the illusion of ease, but also I knew I’d have got into my stride by then.

So, of course, I did cover the whole 5.6 miles, although not without a phone call to Mick when I realised my watch was set to kilometres again, and I wanted to know to *exactly* the distance I needed to cover in km, as I didn’t want to overshoot today.

I overshot. Hey ho.

As for where this leaves me virtually, although I’ve been given a certificate for having finished the course, I’m claiming that I both took an accidental detour between Chapel Stile and Tilberthwaite…

Must have taken a wrong turn because that doesn’t look like Blea Tarn behind me!

… and that I doubled back to the checkpoint when I realised I’d overshot it. So, I still intend to go out and run the last 3.5 miles (including ‘Jacob’s Ladder’) tomorrow.

<sup>(*It turns out that running whilst holding a phone in the air at arm’s length, as I did yesterday, can put a surprising amount of stress on the shoulder and neck muscles. Makes a change from DOMS in the thighs!

**I acknowledge that the correct term is ‘overbalance’, but it’s always seemed strange to say that you stumbled because you balanced too much. Surely you stumble because you didn’t balance enough?)</sup>

 

Virtual Lakeland 50 – Day 5 (Ambleside to Chapel Stile; 5.6 miles)

It was another unexpectedly early start. I woke up at five past four, lay around for half an hour, then thought I may as well get up and take advantage of the quiet of the morning.

My legs felt surprisingly fresh (especially considering what I’ve already done this week), but for the first couple of miles I battled a general feeling of sluggishness caused in part by the lack of sleep and not helped by the elevation profile of the first 2 miles of my route:

Two-and-a-bit miles takes me to the highest point around here. Paltry by Lake District standards.

I’d had no intention before the last 100 yards of that incline to video any part of my run, but then the idea suddenly popped into my head. I waited until I’d turned off the B-road … and then promptly forgot, only remembering right at the other end of that lane. As I finished recording the first piece, I thought maybe I’d record one other little piece towards the end.

An hour later I had 12 video snippets recorded and it proved to be the most excellent distraction from what I was doing – so much so that my 5.6-mile run came out at 9.4 miles, bringing my mileage for the last five days to 44.4 miles and giving me just 5.6 to cover over the next two days (3.5 of which will be on Sunday, giving me a nice (almost)rest day tomorrow).

As the run progressed, I felt sure I was producing a dreadful, disjointed set of witterings that wouldn’t be fit to be seen, but I was surprised when I watched them back that it wasn’t as cringeworthy* as I thought. So, I’ve just spent some hours on a steep learning curve as to how to edit video (all done on my phone, because my laptop is too old to run modern editing software).

The YouTube video below (click on play button on the thumbnail below, or on this link) is the result:

Top tip: YouTube has a handy facility to speed up playback, so a 10 minute video can be played faster if you want to have a look but don’t want to spare that amount of time. If you do that it’ll also make it look like I was running faster than I was!

Excuse the dodgier bits of camerawork – I’ve never tried to record anything whilst running before, either scenery or myself.

(post-blog note: Gah! Just realised the caption at the beginning of the video says 'Thursday 24 July'. Should say 'Friday'. It took hours to process and upload, so I'm not going to correct it just now.) 

^{(*although both Mick and I dissolved into giggles watching the penultimate snippet, (the immediately post-run one) as I talked about doing more today and less tomorrow!)}

Montane Lakeland 50 & 100

I’m taking part in the Virtual Lakeland 50 this week. It’s a far easier undertaking than the real thing*: rather than completing a set 50-mile route through the Lake District fells in 24 hours, the virtual event involves covering the same distance over the course of a week (between 20 – 26 July) in any location of the participants choosing.

After my mileages of April and May I thought “7 miles a day for a week? No problem!”. Then June went a little awry with the adductor strain. Then last week the organisers they would like as many people as possible to stage their week as if they were running between the real route’s checkpoints each day, which gave the following itinerary:

I liked the idea behind the request, so that’s what I’m doing. This is how it’s going so far:

Monday (virtually: Dalemain to Howtown; 11.2 miles):

My current go-to 11ish-mile route involves a mile along a pavementless B-road that can be at best unpleasant when it’s busy. It was fine during lockdown, but now that traffic has increased again, I reserve it for the quieter weekend mornings. As the event didn’t conveniently start on Saturday, and as I’m still avoiding the canal tow-path to the south of here (which was my pre-social distancing long-run location), my solution to this was to set the alarm for 0530 and be out the house by 0630, which would see me off the B-road before many cars were about.

What a treat the weather gave me…

Barely a hint of a breeze either

…and with my legs fresh from having had an easy week last week the miles passed easily by.

Tuesday (virtually:Howtown to Mardale; 9.4 miles):

I set my alarm for 0545, but woke up at 0300. When I was still awake at 0430 (the ‘why’ will tie-in with a separate post that I’ll write some time in the next week or so)  I thought I may as well get up, have a bit of breakfast and get on with it. I was out the door 0525.

This was the day I was most concerned about, as I’ve not been in the practice of running these distances on consecutive days. I can thank the weather again for giving me a mental boost…

Who knew there was a canal on the fells between Howtown and Mardale?!

…and I was happy indeed with how the miles again slipped by almost unnoticed.

What an unseasonably cool start to the day for mid-July, though! Just 7 degrees. It doesn’t come across in those snaps, but the canal was steaming.

My 9.4 miles were done, and I was back home, by 7am, stepping over the unread note I’d left for Mick. He’d not missed me at all, and I woke him with a cup of tea a few minutes later.

Wednesday (virtually: Mardale to Kentmere; 6.5 miles):

Late on Monday it looked like our week was going to take a bit of a swerve, some packing was done and Bertie was made nearly ready for a trip. At the point that I got home from Tuesday’s run, I was fully expecting to be on my way to Blackpool before lunch and to be running along the seafront in St Anne’s on Wednesday morning. This ties in with the reason for Tuesday’s 3am start, and I’ll come back to it in another post, but for now the important point is that I didn’t wake up in St Anne’s, but at home. I say that I woke up, but that’s an exaggeration; the effort and lack of sleep was catching up with me, and my thighs were sore too.  I opted for breakfast in bed, followed by a later start.

I had company as I stepped out of the door at 0845: Mick was to keep me company for the first mile and a half. I’d convinced myself that this was just a short day and would be a doddle, and that’s how it felt for the first couple of miles, but I didn’t have the distraction of a glorious blue sky (overcast, but at least it was dry and warmer) and I was also struggling with something really ridiculous – the notion of kilometres.

The organisers announced on Sunday that the results processing system required the evidence for each run to be uploaded showing the distance in kilometres. On Monday and Tuesday I ran with my Garmin set to miles, then changed it to metric to take a photo of the watch face to upload as evidence. I then decided that I could cope with the distance being in kilometres, so left it on that setting. Let’s just say that I didn’t do well with the sudden change of units and that this was not a good time to make the change!

The outing didn’t hit the ‘wow this is fantastic’ level of Monday or Tuesday, but neither was it awful. I arrived home thinking that Thursday’s run was an even easier one at just 5.6 miles, so it was a minor blow to realise my memory had skipped a day and that the next one was 7.3. The thighs weren’t getting any less sore, I was in need of more sleep than I was getting and I feared that Thursday’s run was going to be a grumpy “Let this be over right now!” sort of an affair.

Thursday (virtually: Kentmere to Ambleside; 7.3 miles)

How short a memory I have! Remember my comments on Monday about the B-road? Today I decided it’d be fine to go that way (only 1km along it this time) even with a start time of 0730. It wasn’t fine. Not at all. Particularly the bit where I had to hop onto the verge (mind those nettles Gayle!) to wait for a bus and 500 cars (it may have only been 8…) to go past. It wasn’t just the quantity of traffic either; the average speed of vehicles is remarkably faster than it was during lockdown.

Aside from the traffic on the B-road, I had an unexpectedly fabulous time! I skipped along seemingly effortlessly, even on the final cross-country-over-a-little-lump bit of the route (during which I wondered whether white road trainers were best choice of footwear in view of the amount of sheep poo littering the field). I got home happy, but fearing that my accidentally faster pace on this one may result in regret tomorrow…

Virtual progress to date

(to be continued - I'll report back on Sunday about the final 3 runs.)

^{(*The real event, of course, got cancelled this year due to coronavirus. Taking place at the same time (both virtually and, in a normal year, in reality) the Lakeland 100 is a far more taxing undertaking, by virtue of being more than twice the distance as, despite its name, it’s actually 105 miles. In a normal year, the cut-off for the LL100 is 40 hours (vs 24 hours for the LL50).}

Another Bertie Project: The final line of defence against mosquitos

Mick and I are in agreement that the worst night we have spent in Bertie was two years ago tonight, in the car park of the Erwin Hymer Museum in Bad Waldsee (Germany). What that night had in common with a number of other memorable sleepless nights was an invasion of mosquitos. The most recent such attack was on 26 February this year which provoked a blog foot note saying that I really must get around to making a proper mosquito net.

Well, that’s a job that I can finally tick off the to-do list!

The activity started a few weeks ago when I measured up and bought the materials. Our previous makeshift mosquito net was a piece of lightweight netting that I’d originally bought to make a fly screen for Colin’s sliding cargo door. As things turned out, we sold Colin before I got around to using the fabric and since then it has been used as a makeshift (and rather unsatisfactory) mosquito net for Bertie’s bed.

Previous makeshift solution: a flat piece of fabric onto which I tied a loop of ribbon, which hooked over Bertie’s reading light. Because of the position of the light, the fabric draped onto Mick rather than being suspended over him.

I was on the cusp of ordering another swathe of that material (not cheap, as it’s intended use is in the manufacture of lightweight backpacking tents), when I glanced up at the net curtain at one of our windows and thought that material would do just as well.

A few days later the necessary wire clips and a 2x3m piece of plain net curtain arrived and last week I spent a day designing and sewing.

I’m not sure that the photo of the end result does justice to how much work went into it:

Being modelled by Mick at the point that I decided to add (and pinned on) three more attachment points at the foot end (originally it was going to drape from the middle of the bed)

The finished item. The long side wall nearest the camera uses the original lightweight netting; the rest is the net curtain material that cost less than half the price per m2.

Possibly over-engineered, but it only takes a minute to put up and take down (and about five minutes to then work out how best to fold it!) and we’re confident that it will give us comfortable nights when under attack from biting whining little bastards insects.