Second trophy shelf

When I made a trophy shelf early this year, I pretty much immediately filled it with the trophies I kept in suboptimal places. So it was clear that before long, I would need another one. And when I won in my category in Deganwy, and what I won was indeed a trophy rather than a pair of socks or a bottle of wine or whatever, there was no way I could fit it on the old shelf. Time to snap into action.

When I was taking some time off after term finished, I finally came around to it. It's up now, underneath the pre-lockdown medals. I decided to put the 2026 trophies on it. So basically, my category win and team win from the Pier to Pier race, and the Deganwy trophy. My other wins this year have been a runner pack (gels and such), honey, booze, medals, and nothing. 

I hope this self will fill up soon too! I enjoy looking at my trophies when I walk past them. Gives me a sense of achievement! 

Having to leave the track

Should you go to track training if you have a 10k race the day after? One might say no. But I was tempted to do it anyway. I hadn’t felt good while running for a while. During the heat wave, the only one I had done had been the Bethel race, and that had been a bit of a scorch fest. It had been fun, but I hadn't felt dynamic. And when it cooled down and I could go for a leisurely run again, it just didn't feel right. My legs were made of lead.

Given the forecast for the track was lots of cloud and even some rain, I thought the conditions would be perfect. And on the track, I tend to feel quite good. I thought it would be nice to feel good while running before the race, to boost my confidence. So I went.

When I left the house it was indeed beautifully cloudy, but I soon left the cloud and ended up in the sun. I was a bit worried about that, given I had got burnt in the hills over a week earlier. I had brought sunscreen, though. Factor 50! I had tried to buy sunblock, but for some strange reason, supermarkets seemed to have sold out…

I gave myself a generous dose of sunscreen and got onto the track. It was quite hot. I was a bit worried about that.

After the warming up, the session was: run a kilometre, rest a minute, run 400 meters faster, then jog for 200 m to do it all again after 2.5 minutes. And then twice more.

After the first set I knew I needed to do something about the sun. I had some tape in my bag, and decided to stick that to my shoulders. It would probably block the sun quite effectively. This took me more than the 2.5 minute break, so I missed the first lap of the second set. But when we stopped after the second kilometre (600m for me), I saw I was blistering in spite of sunscreen and tape. And the sun did not show any signs of disappearing. I decided to abort. I had only done the warmup, the drills, and 2 km, but so be it! This wasn't healthy.

I was really hoping that the day after, the weather forecast would actually be correct! Because one thing was sure: I was not going to run 10k in the sun…

In full screen mode you can see the blisters

Dr Claire

 I had taken the Monday off. I looked forward to not going to Menai Bridge. And then an email came: my former colleague Claire would have her viva that day, and I was invited to celebrate with her afterwards in the pub. And I like Claire! She covered for my colleague Mollie when she went on parental leave. He interrupted her PhD for that by a year. She did a fine job. We also hung out socially. We did a memorable walk just after a race, when my IT bands were not collaborating at all. We also had done a walk with my other colleague Katie. And she had a whole bunch of us over for a games night. So I wanted to come. Even on my day off. 

I decided to bike. I don’t like biking to almost work (the pub is some 600m from the office) but now that the weather was finally good for biking again it would be a pity to drive. 

I got to the pub and didn’t see any of the celebrants. When I checked my email I saw that there was an update: everyone was in the coffee area, having cake. Oh dear! It was my day off. I hadn’t brought my key card. How would I get into the building? 

I phoned the person who had sent the update, but she didn’t answer. I tried three more. One answered, but he was at home. Finally, the first person saw she had a missed call, phoned me back, and let me in. Success! 

Now I could go and congratulate the new doctor. (Yes I know, she still has to do corrections.) I was also introduced to her partner Tom. And soon we went to the pub. ‘We’ included her external supervisor and external examiner. Excellent! 

We sat outside, because we could. Claire was clearly feeling a bit strange. That’s normal after finishing something that big! And someone had prepared shag stickers. Her PhD was about sea birds, and she are a good candidate if you want to get some light relief out of them. After one drink we relocated to a nearby pizza place for dinner. British vivas take hours; I bet she was hungry.

My ‘Honk if you love a shag’ sticker! 

It was funny that in the restaurant there was a bit of a buzz about Effi. A lot of people either had already seen it, or were really keen to see it. I have never experienced such excitement about a Welsh film!

I was quite aware of having to bike home again, so after that pizza I said my goodbyes and left. Claire is staying at the University, be it on main campus, so we will be able to keep seeing her!

Poo problems

There was a time that a big blonde dog did a lot of shitting in front of my house. I did not appreciate that. Neither did Dilwyn, the manager of Neuadd Ogwen. I once caught sight of dog and owner in the act (hence knowing it was blonde), but I saw that from the office, and I had to run downstairs to run out of the house to confront them. Of course, the front door was locked, and the key was in the kitchen, another flight of stairs down. By the time I got out of the house there was no trace of them. So I never confronted them. But then they suddenly stopped coming.

Then, shitting dogs came back. This time it was a young lad who would come from the car park, walk a dog that looked a bit like a Shiba Inu, let it shit in front of my house, pick up the shit, and then only minutes later come back with a much more short-haired dog, with which he did the same. He did pick up the shit, but he never got all of it. And I had the strong suspicion he would throw the shit in my bin. It is not a public bin.

I do understand; it's better in a bin than right by my front door. As this is not a dog walking area, there are no dedicated dog poo bins. But I don't produce much non-recyclable waste, so my bin doesn't get emptied very often. If it's once a year it's much! So I don't want endless dog poo bags accumulating in there. Imagine the smell. 

I spoke with Dilwyn and he wasn't happy either. There was a lot of dog shit residue right by the loading bay of the Neuadd. He didn't find that very inviting for his visiting bands.

Then one day, when Neil was busy painting in the garden, I saw the young lad approach again, and I went out of the house to kindly ask him if he could perhaps go somewhere else. If he would just walk in the other direction from the car park he would end up in some woodland. If you take the dogs off the path then they shit away from where anyone goes. And the woodland has dog poo bins. Wouldn't that be a better idea than to piss off both me and Dilwyn? And loads of bands?

As my unfounded assumption was that he was local, I asked him in Welsh if I should speak Welsh or English to him. He had no idea what I was talking about. Then I asked him the same thing in English, and he preferred English. I said that I had noticed him letting his dogs poo in right in front of my house all the time, and that I knew he picked up the shit, which I appreciated, but that he never got it all, in I didn't like that much residue straight by my front door. He was very apologetic and said he would go somewhere else. He was so much more timid than I would have expected! This is Bethesda, after all. You might get a lot more assertive response from a young lad with a big dog.

Since I spoke to him, I indeed haven't seen him. I think he meant it when he said he would go somewhere else. I didn't think it was going to be this easy!

I am not taking anything for granted, though. The previous time it didn't take long for one supply of shit to be replaced by another. But I hope that there will be a bit of a quiet period now. I don't have a dog and I don't want to live can a dog poo landscape!

Lots of paint work

I have stairs, a shed and fencing, all made of wood, in my garden. It all needs maintenance. I aim to paint it once a year, but I must admit that I don't always manage that. And sometimes you've painted them, and then not get the impression that it made an awful lot of difference.

The state of my wood was a bit of an issue to Neil. He had been dreaming of painting it with different (better) paint, and of just how much satisfaction that would give him. So after two busy days with his family, he was quite happy to pick up a paintbrush in the weekend and get to work. He didn't mind at all that I did entirely different chores, and wasn't helping.

We had bought a 5 litre can of paint especially for the occasion, and he finished it all. The shed and the stairs look amazing! He didn't do the fencing. But he did do the garage door. I had never painted that. Everything looks amazing, and he is satisfied now! I would say that's a success…

Freshly painted shed and stairs