May 9, 2013: A Marathon..

I've been doing a lot of running the past few weeks. Ideal preparation for a marathon, you'd think. Well, yes.... a marathon day of lawn mowing! Tuesday was a spectacular day here in Wales and the weather forecast said the next 8 days was for rain. Nothing to do but mow the lawn...again...this time a bit shorter than the first trim. After getting my 'work' finished, if you call a wee trip up the hill to train a dog in breathless, warm, sunny conditions 'work,' I prepared the lawn mower for another bash around the yard. With Bailey nipping at the front wheels, and gleefully voicing her hatred for the mower, off I set.

Round the garden, lickety split. Into the agility 'garden', no problems. A few wee stops...one to refuel the mower, one to refuel me, and one to slap on some more sunscreen. All was going well...and then I started on the large dog play area. GROAN. Now that is hard going with the roughness and slope of the ground. The lawn mower and I groaned and creaked in unison. Bailey placed a ball in front of the mower every few minutes, and I creaked and groaned louder as I bent low to pick it up and throw it as far as my energy reserves permitted. A few more stops for fuel. With the top half of the play area finished, I stopped long enough to train a couple of dogs that are here for training, strim parts of the garden that are inaccessible to the mower...and psyched up to mow the lower part of the play area. That is the roughest area and most times I attack it with the strimmer. With it being so dry, I decided to chance it with the mower. By now I was on my last legs. It was brutal...but I got it done.

Last was the small dog play area. As I pushed the mower up the hill, I hit a rock and damaged the blade of the mower. Just my luck. Nothing for it but the strimmer. Kelvin had very kindly prepared the strimmer for me...but no amount of mental telepathy worked in encouraging him to come to my aid and strim the play area for me! Damn. Next time I'll ask! (OK, in his defence, he was busy planting dahlias and cooking dinner...and if you're wondering about role reversal, that's been the story of our lives!). I set off to strim the play area like a woman possessed. Dinner was in 5 minutes...and I wasn't going to miss that...and rain was threatening, my savior! I got the job done, sloppily, but in record time. I had just enough energy to put the strimmer away, walk to the house, and sit! Kelvin volunteered to walk the dogs. Bless him! I'm not sure I could have.

The next morning... let's just say I had a very slow start to the day...and perhaps my slowest forest run on record. At least I got to see the scenery.

Oh, as an aside, I was out running earlier in the week and as I ran up the forestry road, I saw what looked like a kitten asleep in the middle of the road. It didn't move as I got closer and it wasn't until I was right upon it, that it showed any signs of life. A fox cub peered up at me, great big frightened eyes. It was very emaciated. I watched it for a bit, deciding what, if anything, to do. What a beautiful animal. I decided to put it safely under a tree, out of sight of preying birds, and hope its mother would return for it. It gave a big sigh of relief when I picked it up and snuggled into my arms. Poor wee thing. I wished it well and left it quietly under the tree on a soft bed of ferns and a message ringing in its ears..."live, but leave my lambs alone!" I have visited that tree several times this week - it's gone.

No trialling news....I haven't been out trialling!