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It has been an interesting week. On Sunday, Linda did the Cambridge half marathon and acquitted herself admirably. She has declared this to be her final half marathon. Her first was the Great North Run in 2000. Since then, she has completed a further 40 half marathons, one marathon (Paris), and countless 10 kilometre and shorter runs. She had always said that she would stop doing half marathon races when she was 60. I noted this evening that I am 65 years old and I haven’t done my last half marathon yet. Mind you, I haven’t done my first either. Anyway, she completed the half marathon in a similar time to that achieved in Newcastle in 2000, and we are all very proud of her.

Later on Sunday I had my Taekwondo class. Recently, my Sunday classes have been taken up with self-defence training, courtesy of Master Fronzie Charles. Self-defence training largely consists in younger and more skilful students hurling me to the floor. Master Fronzie’s strength, fitness and technique are absolutely amazing. His training sessions are inspiring and depressing in equal measure: inspiring because of the brilliant technique and ability of the instructor; depressing because they bring home to me what a useless old crock I am. I recall when I was a child, various children’s television and cinema adventure series, in which at some point, the villain’s car goes over a cliff or comes to a bad end in some other way. There would be an impressive explosion and the villain would stumble out of the wreckage, staggering like a drunk and only just living to fight another day, his face blackened from the explosion, sometimes still clutching the steering wheel of the car. Well, apart from the blackened face and the steering wheel, that is what I am like after Sunday Taekwondo training.

On Monday it was the hash run but instead of doing the run this week, we hosted the beer stop in our back garden. I heated up 80 or so little sausage rolls, our pal Kate baked a lot of delicious flapjacks brownies and cookies, and Linda’s running buddy Alison provided a couple of bottles of marmalade vodka and sloe gin. So there was actually no beer drunk at the beer stop. However, the runners were fulsome in their praise of the alternative libations, which apparently are equally efficient at putting fine ideas in your head. I tried both, and I have to say that the marmalade vodka is an adult portion. It was quite joyous to have the garden full of guests eating and drinking, something which we haven’t seen since before the pandemic struck.

On Tuesday it was Linda’s birthday, and we all (Linda, myself, both sons plus number one son’s partner) had dinner in Moro in London. Moro is a very impressive Spanish/Moroccan restaurant, and the dinner was a tour de force. It was lovely to have the whole family together. The evening, however, was marred later by the fact that the weather had brought down the overhead power lines on the railway line leading into Cambridge, and the trains were mostly cancelled. The overhead power lines in the vicinity of Cambridge appear to be very delicate entities. The slightest gust of wind and they have a fit of the vapours and lay down tools for a day or so. On this occasion, we arrived at Kings Cross station to find almost all the Cambridge trains cancelled. We were encouraged to board a very slow train, which as my late father would have said, stopped like a dog at every lamp post on the way.

Anyway, when the train reached Foxton, the last station before Cambridge, the driver announced that due to the previously mentioned overhead power line incident, he was going no further. He made no reference to alternative onward transport, no suggestion of what the passengers might do in order to get home that night. Foxton station is unmanned and isn’t even in the village of Foxton, it’s in the middle of f***ing nowhere, by a blighted level crossing on the A10 about five miles south of Cambridge.

So, close on midnight, the dozen or so passengers alighted (not delighted, I hasten to add) and stood bemused in the howling wind and pouring rain. I got on the phone and after a few false starts, found a taxi company which could get a car to us within half an hour. However, immediately after this success, a replacement bus drew up across the road. The train driver in his announcement to us had apparently considered the issue of replacement buses to be of insufficient significance to merit mention.

As it turned out, the replacement bus was almost full from picking up passengers at other remote country stations. However, the driver noted another bus not far behind him, and flagged it down. The second bus had a few seats to spare, so I cancelled the taxi and we all got to Cambridge station. I was very impressed at the two bus drivers doing their best to get all the passengers safely on to Cambridge. It was nice to see people giving a shit for a change.

Tonight was the third Thursday (or Turd Tursday as they call it) of the month hash, and we did that. A modest 3-4 mile run (absolutely nothing to Linda), and a brief cycle to and from the starting place. Because we all had busy days and in the evening, Linda and I had the run and Tom had a session volunteering at the Food Bank, no-one had time to cook dinner. The moment we got back from the hash, I rushed to the Chinese takeaway round the corner. At just after nine o’ clock, we attacked the takeway with the enthusiasm of the timber wolves at feeding time in the zoo.

I am now sitting, bloated and fatigued, at my computer, unable to think of any bon mots. Huge fat bastard, mouth half open, blinking blearily at the laptop screen and wondering what to say next. I started this blog a few months ago because the pandemic had given me a failure of imagination and I could no longer write fiction. I have recently made a start on a short story, but I have no idea how it will end, and I am now finding it difficult to think of what to say in my blog, partly because of the exhaustion of digestion. Never mind me. Enjoy the coming weekend, everyone.