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I get my dry cleaning done through my local supermarket- though my local supermarket is 5 miles away. So I was delighted today when we happened to be at the supermarket and I remembered that I had some stuff to pick up! And like a genius I gave in my ticket and said I’d pick up the dry cleaning on the way out. Thus saving myself up to three minutes of waiting time. I am a genius, like I said.
Of course once we’d been round the supermarket I totally forgot about the dry cleaning and we drove home and started unpacking our shopping. I then remembered my dry cleaning. Of course I could just have left it there until the next time I was in town, but I’d given in my ticket and there was a chance my stuff was just sitting there waiting for me, so I knew I had to go back. Making the convenient pick up pretty much as inconvenient as possible. I suspected I wasn’t the only person that this has ever happened to. The ladies on the desk did not seem surprised or shame me when I turned up. But it was a shame to waste 30 or so minutes of a sunny day when I could have been playing with the kids in the garden.
Yes, there couldn’t be a more middle class thing to happen to someone. But my dry cleaning hubris became its own punishment, so you can enjoy this on every level. Especially if you’re pretending that you’re not middle class.
It had been a packed day though. I’d managed to get the energy together to do a Park Run. I’ve only done about three this year, due to the debilitating and energy sucking bug, but this was the first one under 30 minutes (29 minutes and 13 seconds). It was some way off my Park Run PB of just under 25 minutes which I achieved 18 months ago after the half marathon training, but at least the time began with a 2. And though it was hotter than I expected and I was wearing my gilet (an old man afterwards commented that I was running in my coat, which was a bit of an exaggeration, but it didn’t make me any cooler- in either sense) it did feel a lot more comfortable a run and I really appreciated the energy I had, now that it has returned. I don’t think I have really appreciated how run down I’ve been this year. Hopefully I can get back to something like the fine figure of a man that I was in 2021 (apart from the part where I had cancer obvs).
I had a crack at our small lawn and the little patch of grass in front of our house today. The strip outside our property is not ours officially of course, but it falls to us to keep it in check. This is something that I am not very good at at all, partly because I don’t really care. But even I was surprised at how much it had grown. I took the strimmer to it, but it must have taken half an hour to tame it (and even then in a very rough fashion) and the resulting clippings almost half filled my garden wheelie bin (and I by no means picked them all up). My neighbours passed by as I was doing it and told me it was about time I got to it. Which is fair enough - there was essentially a triffid growing in the middle of it - but they did counter that everything had shot up with the recent rain. I am not much of a gardener, even though I fancy it in some ways. As long as you only glanced at the grass it looked sort of OK. What’s the point though? It will just grow back again.
It was a pretty good day overall. We had fun in the sun, a nice trip into town and my daughter rode her bike as I walked the dog. She disappeared into the distance a couple of times, which stretched the elastic that connects our two hearts, but only seems to pull on mine. But she’s impressive and always brave and I didn’t need to worry. But that won’t stop me.
