Weeknotes 7 August

Out running with Striders on Monday and Wednesday, which felt positive. Still impressed with how much better I feel after spending a little time small-talking with folks. The running probably helps. Resolve to get involved in cross-country this winter; resolve to get good & clarty.

Ran home from some errands in Hartlepool on Friday, and attended the Durham parkrun the following morning. I should have given myself a bit more time to recover.

Slept in on Sunday and took the motorbike down to Ellerton Park for a bit of open-water swimming. The Big Lime Triathlon's coming up next weekend and I hadn't done any swimming since Castle Howard a few weeks ago. I struggled for the first 10 minutes or so, but found my rhythm eventually. Not going to have that sort of luxury at the Big Lime: 10 minutes in I'll hopefully be more than halfway done. I'll go back down to Ellerton sometime this week for a bit more practice.

Reasonably productive at home, as well: installed a new overhead light in the office downstairs, to replace an awful old chrome thing that got molten hot when you left it on for more than half an hour. One of the lights upstairs has stopped working, though, and I can't figure out why. You win some, you lose some. I'll call an electrician this week to come have a look at it.

Sam's been hard at work sorting out projects as well: she's laid a bunch of wood flooring and re-installed architraves and skirting boards in the hallways. It's been on our list of things to do for years, probably, at this point, and she's been smashing through it with zeal. It looks incredible and goes a long way towards making the house feel ours. I guess that's what middle-class people say when they undertake home renovation. It makes a difference, I promise.

Otherwise: all quiet. We've been very slowly making our way through The Last of Us, the TV series. Bella Ramsey is such a good actress. I'm impressed, as well, at how each episode builds on side characters from the games—Ellie and Joel are almost background characters in the dramas of the game's NPCs. They've done a really fantastic job with it.

On the reading front, I've been making my way through Eragon, a book I read back in high school. After a series of slightly more difficult books I wanted something easy and sort of nostalgic. I remember thinking, back when I first read it, that it was good but not compelling enough to prompt me to pick up any of its sequels. It continues to be uncompelling, but I no longer think it's any good, either.