London Marathon; This Little Piggy; Chocolate Cake

It has been a bit of an up and down week these past seven days after completing the Brighton Marathon.  Monday was spent away from work recovering, but I felt alright in myself to appreciate an easy day to myself.  Tuesday was the day my ankle felt bad; Wednesday, I thought all was getting better; Thursday was the beginnings of a cold; Friday it turned into full blooded manfluenza, and I took another day away from the office.  More for their benefit, I believe.  I think I am nearly over everything, nothing a lot of tissue, and a drop of whisky cannot sort.  The joy is, both Julia and myself are waking each other up in ceaseless bouts of coughing fits each night.  Throw the every other night little ones wet bed into the mix, and we're an interesting cocktail of sleep deprived, wheezy throated, 'Snotalotopusses'.

One thing about living in South East London on the penultimate weekend of April, is, unless you had the hindsight to find out about it, your travel arrangements are significantly hindered by approx 57,000 insane people running 26.2miles in the London Marathon... now I am a marathon runner, I can, hand on heart say you are insane to do such a thing.

This was taken from Olive's view.  Must have been scary.

As we were up nice and early, it wasn't too much bother to walk down towards the Woolwich Barracks, and watch the runners go past on the aptly named Ha-Ha Road approx 2.5miles in.  I was looking out for three people that I knew were running today.  One was a lad that I used to 'work' with back in my hazy days spent at a Cleethorpes Theme Park called Pleasure Island.  The other two were managers at The Harley Medical Group, where I currently work. 

I didn't see any of them.

I saw the elite male runners on their way to getting to the finish approx 20mins after I got home.  Olympic rower James Cracknell glided past amongst some fast runners.  Then came the first wave of many, many people boxed together.  There was nothing for it, other than to shout any name that came to view.  There was a bit of competition on who would be the first to shout "Come on Eileen!"  Scooby Doo was a crowd favourite, as were those that run in a Rhinoceros costume.  Olive loved Peppa Pig running towards us.  I was pleased to see at least two to three runners as bottles of beer (I hope they were supporting a good cause), and didn't waste my chance to shout, "you crazy fool!" at one dressed as Mr.T.

Still, somewhere amongst the plethora of runners with vests supporting and raising monies for their favourite charities; a duo on stilts; men in bowler hats and suits... and, oh, Ed Balls.  I couldn't find the three I was looking for.

Not to worry.  We can but try, and we had a great time cheering all the runners on.  It was certainly a nicer experience than being on the other side.

I since found times for two of those I was looking for, and not the third.  The times were different between the pair, one came in just over four hours, the other just over five.  They both seem happy that they did it from what I have read, and that for me, is by far the most important thing.

Once home, it was time to use the sun, and hit the garden, getting the remaining tree stumps knocked out of the ground, so we can build a final fence in the weeks to come.  I was getting a little excessive with the axe, and made rapid time bashing the lights out of what I thought was the last stump, until Julia uncovered another one under a massive pile of ivy.

Not to be deterred, I got straight to the task at hand.  It was all going so smoothly as well, until I threw what turned out to be my final swing of the day.  I'm still unsure what made the inevitable happen, but cut a long story short.  I broke the axe, splitting the Hickory straight down the middle of the handle.  It was of no use to anyone, and shall live the remainder of the week in our bin, and look forward to a life wherever Royal Greenwich Council place their Non-Recyclable waste.

Olive decided that as the focus turned to her all of a sudden, that it was as good a time as any to take a trip to the local Woodlands Farm and see the lambs that were born last weekend (by all accords this was a day to stay well away from the farm in the future, the queue's were more than undesirable).  We were in for a bit of a surprise, as it wasn't just the sheep that has babies, there were several new piglets, and a pair of female calves in the field (they were telling me, the last two years, they've been lucky enough to not have any bulls).  Olive enjoyed chasing the ducks, and soon tired herself out for when we got home.  After that, Olive and I slept, while Mummy baked, and after dinner, someone was very happy indeed.

You can never have too much cake.

Now I think I'll head to bed myself, hope I feel even better come the morning for work, try to not be inspired by these marathon runners, and not get further crazy ideas myself.