Morning run


First day of freelancing. It feels like the natural way to be. Good to be in control of my time and the opportunities available to me. 

Started the day with a run at Gedling Country Park. Misty morning views. Had a run-in with a dog walker whose dog was a little too interested in me for my liking. 

Ignored it the first couple of times, but when I found his dog two feet behind me crouched in an attack position, I asked him to put his dog on a lead, which led to this funny interaction:

“Do you want to put her on a lead?”

“No, I’m fine, thanks.”

“Ok, but I’m not sure your dog is.”

“Has she bitten you yet?”

“Is that what you’re going to wait for?”

“I know my dog. She won’t bite you. Keep running.”

Felt good to stand my ground without being combative. Most people apologise if their dogs start interfering with you. Not this guy. 

Beautiful morning all the same, and nice to have client work ready to go on day one.

Popular posts from this blog

This isn't where I'm supposed to be.

It's 10:20pm. I'm writing this sitting on a stool in the dining room while I roast coffee for the morning. This isn't where I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be asleep in a hotel bed in Amsterdam. Except I got bumped from my afternoon flight because it was oversubscribed. Apparently airlines can legally sell more tickets for a flight than the number of seats on the plane—on the assumption that one or two people won't turn up and the airline can occasionally keep the extra fare. Seems like a screwy rule to me. Doesn't benefit the customer. And no way could you do this at the theatre or a sporting event. But apparently it's okay for flights. The mind boggles. And when they oversell a flight? Well it's first come, first served. And it so happened that I was last in line today. Online check-in didn't work for me. And my satnav took me to a carpark 16 miles from the airport, adding 30 mins to my journey time. So I was persona non grata when I got to
Read more

A successful day’s parenting

 Yesterday was my first day of having both boys by myself all day for a while (Char has changed her working patterns, so I now have them all day on Tuesdays). Started by finding out A got into our first choice school. Sorted his nursery funding for the next term, went to playgroup, had fun playing at home, and got their haircut. A successful day’s parenting. Char, on the other hand, came home from having them today and said she hates looking after them by herself. Not good. Oh, and my new sales page went live today. Happy with it. Now I need to start driving traffic to it.
Read more

Silence is King

 I’m old enough to remember the pre-internet days when silence and boredom were a thing. But I'm still young enough to embrace internet culture. (I often say my generation straddles the two worlds - pre-internet and now) Anyway... for years, I listened to podcasts and audiobooks whenever I was doing something like driving our household chores. It was a way to squeeze more out of what otherwise felt like dead time. But I’ve come to realise this was not just a way to make such tasks less mundane; it was often also a way to distract myself from my thoughts. But now, with two kids running around the house, I spend much of the day overstimulated, with no time or mental space to think. Too many tabs open in my brain.  So recently I’ve gone back to old-fashioned silence. Driving in silence. Doing chores in silence. Having some time in my head. Sure, podcasts and audiobooks are entertaining and teach me a ton, but creating some white space for my mind has been a game-changer It’s made me f
Read more