Autumn

I have been wearing gloves on my commute to work, and I have lit the fire! I think it is officially autumn. I suppose whether it technically is depends on whether you go by the start of September or the autumn equinox. I'm not quite sure if one of these is more correct than the other. But in my world, we don't need to wait until the 21st anymore. It had been smelling a bit like autumn for a few days, and you can see the starts of leaves turning. But I think the fire and the gloves make it official. 

In a way, the coming of autumn is sad. Summer is the most relaxed time of the year. And this year, I have done all sorts of things with it, but not my usual going out with my tent. It only came out for Jitske! But I went to see my sister, and I had a record number of visitors this year. And I had a great time running. So it was a good summer after all.

Now we'll get to the new academic year. But also: snug evenings by the fire. And a commute that might be cold and wet and windy, but also will have amazing autumn colours. I'll try to make the most of it!

Coring recce in the field

I had been thinking about where to core during our upcoming field trip. I had decided on two locations where the School had cored before; either during earlier episodes of the same fieldwork, or with a master’s student. So I had coordinates ready. Then what I would need was a GPS to navigate to these locations. But Martin told me that the parallel activity on the same day also needed the GPS. And he suggested we might just mark my intended core locations with simple wooden stakes before the field trip. That sounded like a good idea!

He was going to try to combine it with getting the keys to the gate of the woodland we have to get through to get to the estuary, and the keys to our headquarters. He picked me up in the morning in his Landrover, and we first drove to the main gate, without an appointment. But it was manned, and the lady was happy to give him these keys. Success! We then drove, again without appointment, to our headquarters for the week. There it turned out the lady who had a key for him would be there in some 10 minutes. Which suited me fine; I had coffee in my bag, and cake for 2. So we just had a snack break.

With all keys sorted we drove to the gate. This was actually open, but guarded by a man who did not want to say what his business was. Martin knew anyway; there was filming going on. But we were there with permission so we could proceed. And Martin managed to drive his Landie all the way to where I hoped he would be able to park up. It's only a path, but his car can do it! 

The GPS made fairly light work of finding the first location. I had also brought a gauge and an auger to check whether there was indeed anything going on in the subsurface. And there was! So Martin hammered in the stake, and that was one location done. I made sure to take pictures so I would be able to navigate back to it without technological help.

Martin surveying in our stake

The second location was even easier. This was going well! And soon we could carry the GPS, gauge and auger back to the car. We were back at the office before lunchtime. Not bad!

Martin deciding to hammer the stake in with a gauge rather than the mallet

We have quite streamlined the coring day by taking the navigation out of it. That will be good, because we will have a lot of students in the field, and that might mean things take more time than usual. But this way I think we will be fine on the day!

Back in Welsh class

Normally, I am in Welsh class during term time. Last year was an exception. I had registered, but when classes actually started, it became clear that this was not suitable to me. There are some classes where you just follow a certain curriculum, and then you know what to expect. I tend to go to the category of classes that are about "polishing" your Welsh. It is quite up to the tutor how that is given shape. And generally, that works out, but this time, it just didn't. I left.

In spring I realised I should be registering for a class in the new academic year. And then I forgot again! You know how that goes. You think about it, but never quite when you are in the position of acting upon it. So we reached summer and I wasn't registered. And then I did something about it. But by then, quite a lot of classes were fully booked, and I had to make a choice from a more limited offering. And what that meant for me was that all the online classes in the north were full. And if they are online, it doesn't matter where you physically are, but an online class in the south would be performed in south Welsh. Oops!

It started before the academic year did. I got ready on a Tuesday night. I had not had a Zoom meeting for so long, the software first needed to do a big update. I entered the meeting just on time! 

The first thing I noticed was the exemplary enunciation of the tutor. Great! And the group wasn’t too big. The tutor, Gwen, first told us a bit about the course and the course materials, and then she sent us off into breakout groups to get to know each other. we did that twice, with different groups, and then she went down to business. We had grammatical work to do. This first session we focussed on short verb forms. In Welsh, you normally leave your verbs in the infinitive, and let ‘to do’ do all the work. Not ‘I biked to work’ but ‘I did bike to work’. But if you write an official text, you will want to conjugate all your verbs, not just ‘to do’. And you might hide pronouns in prepositions. So ‘ysgrifennwn atynt’ means ‘I wrote to them’ as much as ‘rô’n i’n ysgrifennu atyn nhw’ does, but it’s a lot more concise, and it makes you sound like a 50s newsreader. I could use the practice! 

It was a good first class, and I look forward to the rest. And the fact it’s all in Southern isn’t a big deal. They say ‘moyn’ and ‘mas’ a lot, where I say ‘isio’ and ‘allan’, but that’s trivial. I’m sure to learn things here, and I don’t think my north Welsh identity will get in the way! 

Caernarfon half marathon; my last?

After the Snowdonia half marathon when my knees gave up around the 10 mile mark, I had been studiously doing my physiotherapy exercises, and managed fast runs of up to 10k, and slower runs of up to 20k. But would I manage to have prepared my iliotibial bands for 21k, a fast as possible? I was hoping to finally break my personal best on the half marathon, as it had stood since 2022, at 1:42:20. Could I drop below 1:40?

I got myself to the start in all my new kit (shirt, shoes, vest), and made sure the vest contained two knee stabilisers. For in case my preparation hadn’t been enough. I didn't have any experience in mitigating IT band issues with those, but some googling had suggested it might work, and it was well worth the try. I do know they can really take the strain off your knees, and it felt plausible that they can even do that when the problem isn't actually the knees.

The start

I started close to the front, and in the beginning all went well. The beginning normally does go well. I did struggle a bit to round the city wall on the seafront; my running shoes didn't have a grip on the material there! Luckily, this is only a short stretch. Soon we were on the bicycle path along the river.

On the bicycle path; all still good

In the Snowdonia half, I had felt a clanging runner’s high come up after a few kilometres. That didn't happen now. But I was quite happily plodding along. And I kept an eye on my times by every mile sign. So far so good.

After a few miles what I feared would happen, happened: I started to feel my IT band in each knee. This was only going to get worse. I spent a few miles wondering when I would put my knees stabilisers on. It wasn't a question of ‘if’. I didn't know whether it was best to do it as soon as possible so the problem wouldn't get worse very fast, or postpone it, as once you put the stabilisers on, you lose a lot of mobility in your knees, and that's not in general a good thing during running.

When I started running again this post stabilisers all I noticed it wasn't very comfortable. And my stride got shorter and stiffer. But I could feel that neoprene giving some relief to my IT bands. And that was the important bit.

I put them on at 7 miles; at around 10.5 miles I tightened them, as the problem has still been getting worse, albeit slower. Almost there! I wasn't trying to beat anyone anymore, or any particular time; I was just hoping to be able to keep running.

Still smiling in spite of the knees

The answer was: yes! I did manage to run all the way to the finish. It was more of a hobble by then, but technically still running. And when I turned around after the finish I saw that the clock was showing something like 1:40:23. So still a personal record! And not under 1:40, would you expect his knee problems. Having to stop twice to faff with my stabilisers wouldn't have helped either.

Looking a bit grim by then, but still running! 

And the finish

After the race

I didn’t hope I would end up kitted out like this

I decided not to wait for the ceremony. So many women had run past me when I was faffing with my knees! And I wanted to get home. And later this afternoon I saw I wasn't far off, I had run 1:40:20, and it still being the fastest woman in my age category. Oh well. If they would have published their timings there and then, which is totally doable as other organisations do it, I would have waited around!

I was glad I at least had improved my PB. But I also thought I might never improve it from this. Clearly, doing physiotherapy exercises every day was not enough to let my IT bands cope with this level of distance and speed. I could imagine I could bring them back into shape if I would really train meticulously, but who has the time for that? I might have to accept I am now short distance runner. And see if I can still improve on my 10k personal best. That is quite fast already! But who knows what I can still do. And maybe I should make sure I run a 5k somewhere. I haven't done one since 2016, so surely I can improve on that. Unfortunately, the next 5k race I had my eyes on clashes with cave rescue business. But I can always do a Parkrun.

My very first race was a half marathon! But it might be time to bail out. Until, perhaps, I retire, because then I can train until I am blue in the face…

Annual (?) hedge trim (+ extra)

 I always intend to trim the hedge annually. It doesn’t always happen. This year I was going to have a go at it, and went to fetch my working platform from the garage. The hedge is some 3 m tall so there is no way I can do it standing on the ground. And even with the extra height of the working platform I struggle.

There was an extra complication; fetching the platform involved coming through the garden gate, and I noticed it was broken. So I needed to fix that first. It must be quite old; there were several screws in there that were so rusty they had to lost all ability to hold the various pieces of wood together. These have been replaced now! But there might be more in there that are about to give.

Gate repair

When I got into the garden, there was another unexpected circumstance, but that was a good one. My neighbour offered me his stepladder instead of my working platform. That gives you a lot more height! So I accepted that. And that made the work quite light.

Starting the work (noticed the unused platform on the right)

Even with the very tall step ladder (this is not your average ladder) I couldn't do the top of the hedge. I estimate it is about a meter and a half in width, and getting 3 m up and then three quarters of a meter sideways is a bit of an ask. So it has a slightly comic look, with everything being quite tidy from the sides, but all sorts of crazy branches sticking out at the top. Oh well! We've done our best.

Finished! 

I'm glad I've got this done before term started! And the bonus repair of the gate. It probably wouldn't have happened at all this year if I wouldn't have managed to do it now…

Finally cutting some firewood

The pile of potential firewood had been accumulating in my garage for months! Most of that was from Neuadd Ogwen. And I needed to process it first. The wood I had got from them recently had been a platform, and it involves a lot of bits of wood nailed together. I would first have to pry these apart and get the nails out. Not as much work as taking pallets apart! But still a considerable amount of work.

Uncut firewood left and right

One weekend after the other passed when I didn't get around to doing anything with this wood. Then there was a weekend in which I managed it remove pretty much all the nails. That was good! As the next step is the cutting, and since my mitre saw, that is very quick.

This weekend I decided it was time. I brought electricity to my saw and set to work. I am always a bit hesitant; when I have big pieces of wood I always wonder if I should leave them intact. What if I need big pieces of wood for some project or other? For instance; the wooden stairs into the garden are disintegrating. I should have it replaced in the not too distant future, but maybe I should just replace the worst step myself to keep it functional before the big upgrade? I always think things like that. And I rarely need big pieces of wood for projects.

That same weekend I was also doing lots of other things, so it's not as if all the uncut firewood is now gone. Especially not given that it obviously is not only a time constraint. But a start it has been made! And my woodpile is considerably bigger now. And fitting in a little firewood session to continue this work shouldn't be too much of an ask. It has been set in motion! And soon it will be fire season again, and then I certainly will have a lot more external motivation…

Less wood on the right, more on the left in the rack! 

Annual apple harvest

This year wasn't a very good year for fruit from my own garden! I made some rather nice blackcurrant compote, but didn't get around to doing anything at all with the gooseberries, and the harvest from my plum tree was about five plums. But now the apple tree is ready to produce. And it's not a huge harvest but it's nice! Apples from your own garden are always the best. And I quite like the variety my tree produces. 

What is still come is the potato harvest. I think that might be quite near actually. I didn't manage to grow very much in my garden this year, but I have faith I will have some decent spuds. And with the apples that should pretty much be it this year…