2018 - done!

Where did those twelve months go?! I know we say this every year but it really does seem to have positively flown past! At the start of the year I confirmed that I was going to shun "new years resolutions" as usual, and instead set out a long-ish list of things that I wanted to see if I could tackle/focus on through the year with the following overall aims:

So I guess it's now time to see how I've done with this!

Personal/Health & Fitness:
- I will aim to keep up a good level of activity, with no fewer that 6,000 steps in a day It's been an incredibly rare day when I've not achieved this and my daily average over the year is currently sitting at over 13,000 so I think I can call this one done! 
- Continue with eating well, using the FitBit to log foods some days to keep on track. This has continued to work really well and I've maintained my weight through the year using this method - so again this will be repeated for next year! 
- Exercise at least 3 x per week - more is fine. Gym, running, swimming, circuits, HIIT Sessions - all good. Aside from points when injury has got in the way I've maintained this one pretty well and over the year I have regularly taken part in a good range of different activities too. 
- Stretching is good and helps facilitate the exercise. Ideally a full stretching session at least once per week and mini sessions scattered through as well. Going to "amber light" this as needing to be more of a priority for 2019 and beyond. I have done a fair amount but have also identified areas and specific muscle-groups where I could benefit from a lot more.
- Continue using my Bullet-ish journal to help with planning and general organisation WIN! Again use of it dropped off a bit during the very busy summer months though so something to focus on - I've also refined the way I use it to a degree which in itself helps with actually making sure I DO use it. 
- Do Parkrun - either our local one or another, it doesn 't matter which, just DO IT! Yes - done our local one in Harlow a couple of times and also nearby Gunpowder park in Enfield.  Have established that I don;t like Harlow much because of #ThatHill but as I have a certain hill-related challenge for 2019 already in mind I may need to make use of it a bit more for training for that event, if nothing else! 
- Visit the local climbing wall for a session. Finally did this in November and I'm inclined to say that it might be the one single achievement that I was most proud of from my year. 

Home: We want to continue with the works on the flat, initially to make it a lovely place for us to live, but also to add value. No - thoughts below
- Hallway to be refloored/redecorated No - thoughts below
- Plastering to be done in the front room and bedroom No - thoughts below
- Electrical works to be done over the first third of the year No - thoughts below
- Decluttering at a low level - focus on seeing items within the house that we don't use This has happened but probably needs to continue to happen as an ongoing thing. 
- New coffee table for front room - this is a quality of life thing. We have now established that the one we saw previously MrEH is not that keen on so the hunt continues. Back on the list...! 

This is one major area where we did FAR less than we were intending to. Several reason - the electrician that we found who we *thought* was going to be a great person to use seems to have let us down - we will have one last attempt to get him on the case early next year and then will have to look elsewhere. The hallway and plastering can't be done until the electrics are dealt with - so this loops right round on itself. I'm inclined to say that I suspect we could have pushed this one forwards more too - but I rather feel that perhaps it was just too soon after all the upheaval with the kitchen to go through another lot of household turmoil - more recovery time was needed!  

Financial:
- Joint savings to continue as they are Yes - really good progress on savings again this year!
- I will keep a good eye on interest rates and make the most of any access we have to higher interest savings Again - we've kept on top of this changing the account that was going to lose it's bonus rate at the right time and keeping up with money going to 5% interest rated regular saver accounts within the limit that those have imposed on them. 
- 0% card must be cleared by the end of October, and again as far as possible this needs to be done without touching savings. This was done, and in the end it was cash neutral to within about £40 if I recall correctly. 
- keep the extra savings ticking over to ensure that our Lundy trip in the spring doesn't have to be paid for from savings. The account which was formerly our "mortgage OP account" has indeed been ticking over on a monthly basis - we still use it for the "money we've saved" on utilities, Sky, that sort of thing, as well as the small surplus from my monthly salary, and sometimes a small surplus from our joint account too. This has actually paid for TWO Lundy trips! 
- Refocus on the small stuff - the odd frittering, and the impulse spends that have started to creep in a little. Frugal February helped with focusing back on this and we're back into the habit of spending mindfully now. We certainly aren't "frugal" to the extent that we used to be when paying off the mortgage was a priority but we've discussed this and are happy with where we're at - we are in a different place financially now and the work we put in at that time has enabled that. 
- "Frugal February" to assist with the refocusing on the small stuff. Yes - covered above.

General/Random:
- Continue to work on gaining confidence in friendships Yes - thoughts below
- Learn to be more tolerant without letting myself be used, and a little more patient without taking unnecessary amounts of sh*t! Yes - thoughts below
- "Let it go" and "This too shall pass" Yes - thoughts below
- Stop and think before acting This also comes under the heading of "mindfulness"
- Try not to feel hurt or upset when other people behave unpleasantly or unkindly - I can't control their behaviour, I can control my reaction to it. Yes - thoughts below
- Be conscious and mindful. Think about the choices I have, and those I make going forwards In part this is again to do with the conscious choices I have made. 
- Tidy up laptop in readiness for the new Airshow Season. I did. And now it needs it again! 
- Continue with volunteering stuff Yes - although it went in a different direction mid year. We also took on a new commitment which is going to mean an adjustment of our free time for the next few years I think.
- Try to tick a couple more items off our big "We want to..." list. Yes - a helicopter ride and also visiting a specific RSPB reserve that we wanted to get to. 
I'll talk about the items above relating to other people as a single entity I think. I made some very conscious decisions this year - to remove some people from my life and to spend time with others, sometimes instead, other times as well as. I've refined those I see as "friends", and there are others who are now definitely in the "acquaintances" camp - and that suits me well. Bridges have been built in one area also and some misunderstandings hopefully now ironed out which is good. My conscience over a particular situation now sits more easily and comfortably. I have a far clearer view of the sort of people who add value to my life - those who are genuine, who do things to experience rather than to be seen to be doing them, those who actively seek to spend time with me for me, not because of other factors, those I actually like more, the more I get to know them! I've also remembered that the more you spend time with people like this, the less you need to worry about your reaction to unkind things said by others as the situation doesn't really arise, so another win there.

All in all I'm calling it a pretty successful year. On the running front I had a vague list of places I'd like to run - the Olympic Park, in central London, and on a beach were key ones, and I have ticked off all of those as well as "on Lundy" which was pretty good. Part way into the year I was also challenged by a social media pal to see which of us could get to 365km for the year first and I was delighted to record my tally by the end of November. Also said I wanted to run in a regular group with others and RunTalkRun has given me the chance to do that - and that is something I definitely want to continue with in 2019! 

Now it's time to start thinking through plans and challenges for the next 12 months - I'll be posting on that in the next few days. Some things will be a straight copy across as they are just as valid to keep up with. Some stuff will be new and I have some solid ideas there already too. 

On challenges, simplifications and shake-ups...

It occurred to me when we returned from our Hebrides trip in October that I only had a relatively short amount of time remaining to really attack my 2018 challenges. I remember back at the start of the year I used the word "Accountability" - and that has now looped back on itself as I decided to use the next 40 days (from when I started thinking about needing to focus back on completing my challenges through to the end of November) to be fully accountable - first to myself but also to anyone else out there who might be reading. So the "Accountability40 Challenge" was born - a challenge within a challenge, if you will...

My aim for this was partly to get back to routines - running, keeping on top of organisational things at home, and the day-to-day stuff that makes life easier. Partly to kick-start my exercise plans again at a time of year when sometimes it can be tough to motivate yourself to lace up and get out. I also wanted to focus on "Wellness" generally, physical AND mental health, and give our meal plans a bit of a shake-up with new ideas, maybe some new recipes and some different ingredients. Finally I wanted to take some time to see where I have achieved this year already in terms of my start of year challenges, and where I might still want to have one last push to thoroughly tick a box.

I decided that I wanted to lose a few lbs in weight to get back to my "ideal" weight ahead of the Christmas season and all the extra food and drink that sometimes entails. Exercising an average of 5 days per week would help with this as would getting back to running more regularly - with airshows and the summer's high temperatures my routine on this one had definitely slipped a bit. Similarly looking for some fresh new ideas for meals should also help to keep our food interesting and avoid the feeling of having slipped into a rut with what we're eating week on week. I'm sticking with the plan that has worked so well for me of tracking and logging the food I eat 4 days a week, then relaxing over weekends. The organisational stuff ties in with the overall wellness picture as there is no question that for me, feeling as though clutter has built up, or that there are things that we "should have done" that we're putting off plays hell with my mental health. As I've mentioned previously on here, the darker/shorter days can also be a trigger for me mentally so this is a good time of year to be proactively tackling ways of dealing with anything that might have a negative effect.

I love a challenge as you know, so decided to post daily on Instagram to keep up the accountability. I managed to miss one day entirely at some stage, and only realised a few days from the end that I was running behind, and did have to combine two days into a single post over a busy weekend, but generally I did keep up with this daily posting. I intended to do some blog posts, but that didn't happen, and I posted regularly on a private forum that I'm part of with updates on how I was doing - and got masses of support in return, too!

The running regularly started well with me increasing my longer run distance up to 7 miles and a total of nearly 15 miles covered in the first 8 days of the November but my run on the 8th had to be cut short as my hip was extremely painful and I wasn't able to run again for over 2 weeks which knocked my plans a bit. Managed 9 runs in the 40 day period in the end which in real terms, allowing for the 2 week hiatus in the middle, was actually somewhere close to where I was aiming. I also managed to get two runs with the RunTalkRun group in there too which was good - it's not always easy for me to make their runs not being London based but I love it when I can join and one aspect of the challenge was wanting to fit in more social running too! Lesson also learned about not trying to run on multiple consecutive days - my joints simply don't like it! Other exercise across the month consisted of a swim, masses of walking and lots and lots of strength and stability work - something which I want to keep up the focus on going forwards - as well as a couple of Metafit classes. By the end of the month I had also clocked up over 365km for the year thus "winning" a mini challenge that a friend had set us on Twitter to see which of us would be the first to reach that particular milestone in the year.

On the food front I looked for ways of mixing up some of the meals we have regularly with differing ingredients and flavourings, using more fresh herbs for example. Remembered how much I love brown rice rather than white, and finally managed to successfully poach an egg! Bought some wholewheat pasta but haven't used it yet, generally managed to step back from snacks "for the sake of snacks" and make healthier choices when out and about. At the time of writing my weight had headed back to pretty much where I want it to be which was the aim - if I can trim off an additional few pounds ahead of christmas I'll be happy enough.

One BIG challenge I overcame during this period involved attending the local climbing wall for a trial session - pretty much everyone when I said how much this worried me assumed that it was because the height scared me - in fact nothing could be further from the truth, those who know me well are aware that height has never phased me in the least! In fact as someone who is severely claustrophobic it was the fear of getting stuck that made this one truly terrifying - I've always been hesitant about climbing steeper hills as much as anything else because I'm afraid that I will find myself in a position I can't get out of - and this was one reason for wanting to challenge this. I was shaking like a leaf when I arrived but once the session got underway and I saw others climbing I relaxed a lot and eventually managed two climbs to the top on suitably easy routes. SO pleased to have done this and more than a little proud of myself as this was definitely a big thing for me!

I'm going to be taking a lot forwards from this challenge - and a lot of this ties in with stuff in my wider 2018 challenges too. Organisation and using my bullet-ish journal to keep on top of things - this is a winner all the way for me - each and every time I return to using the journal life gets easier. I'm making it less structured though with a straightforward list for each week, using the standard bullet journal arrow system to "forward" things on to do in a future week. More than two arrows on an item lead to a questioning of why I don't "JFDI" or "Does it actually need doing?".  Similarly is SLEEP - I need more of it than I often get, and when I get more of it, life is easier again. This is another area where forming a habit really helps. Strength & stability exercises - I need to remember that I NEED to do this stuff to carry on running - the stronger I am, the less prone to injury I will be, and with my temperamental joints, that's a key thing. (See also "Stretching" on this one!)   And in fact on the subject of the strength/stability/stretching stuff this is somewhere else I can form a habit which would be beneficial.

I've now started thinking about 2019 - and also back to all the stuff I've achieved and the targets I've hit this year. I'll try and do another post as the end of the year approaches specifically on my 2018 challenges - I'm really looking forward to going over those!

Robyn

Being brave...

I've always had a fear of setting goals for myself, and no more so than in any environment that could vaguely come under the heading of "sporty" - at school being shorter than average, bookish and with no great turn of speed I got accustomed to being among the last to be chosen for almost anything that involved teams. Indeed the only two sports I excelled at in school were hockey (surprisingly) and long-jump (even more surprisingly) - I represented the school at a minor level in both of those. The mention of netball or rounders sent shivers down my spine though, and cross country running was always one to be dreaded as not only did I tend to get left behind but I got out of breath too - there were no programmes to build up slowly back then - it was keep up or don't - and I didn't.  No great surprise that I stopped doing any kind of organised sport with a huge sigh of relief as soon as I left school and aside from brief periods of going to the gym, it's only in the past couple of years that I've felt any real inclination to have another go at being a "sporty person".

Accustomed as I was - in my head at least - to failing at anything "active" it came as no surprise when I first attempted the Couch to 5k programme and couldn't do it. It just felt as though it underlined my long-standing aversion to setting proper, solid goals - I wouldn't achieve so there was no point in trying, I'd just make a fool of myself. This time round though something was different - and the nagging voice in my head kept on at me to have another go. Each time when I started I took a deep breath and thought that maybe, just maybe if I could get through the programme I could do a parkrun "or something" - and then each time I failed I kicked myself AGAIN for being gullible - for being brave enough to stick my neck out. Of course I now know why I was struggling so much in the first place! In February I did my first 5k "race" and last week I did another - knocking a massive amount off my previous 29:36 time on the same course, coming in this time at 27:47! (Yes, remember those sub-30 people I "wasn't fast enough" to line up with? Now I'm one of them! I've also been doing regular Metafit classes - after years of running a mile at the idea of doing any form of group fitness this was another huge barrier broken down.

I recently photographed a friend's baby's christening - which also took a degree of "being brave" -  I'd be the first to say I'm no event or portrait photographer - it's a long old way outside my comfort zone and I hesitated like mad when my friend asked me. Not because I didn't want to do it, but because I was frightened of messing up, frightened of letting him down and frightened to take the risk. As I said to him while I was hesitating "I'm trying to work out if I'm brave enough" - back came the reply with absolute confidence "of course you are!" - and yes, I was, mostly because of the pure sense of belief HE had in me. I probably only have two friends who I would even contemplate taking on something so important for - and I've now shot the wedding for one of them and this christening for the other - and in both cases it was their absolute faith in me that gave me enough confidence to take a deep breath and say "OK then!" Two people, both of who's judgement I trust - if they reckon I can do something, they must be right, yes? Another huge first at the christening was that I said to MrEH (Who was using the second camera to pick up on extra shots I might not see or be able to get) that I didn't mind if he got me in any photos - now bearing in mind my aversion for having my photo taken this was also a massive thing. In the past with anything like this he's had to be careful to shoot around me and I've been constantly conscious of the other camera. This was definitely "being brave..."

Yesterday I posted this on Instagram...

...for a long while I've been admiring other people's Transformation posts - being super inspired by how well they've done and what they've achieved, but it was only as a result of a comment from someone else that I finally felt brave enough to post my own - and only then as a result of the prompting from the photo on the right - taken by one of the official photographers at the 5k last week. Taking the step of posting the two pictures also made me brave enough to go into a little more detail about my state back in 2015, when the left hand photo was taken. Having been hit out of nowhere with crippling anxiety and struggling significantly with depression as well - and no real idea how to handle either - the holiday that this photo was taken on, along with our trip the Hebrides a few weeks before between them I am certain saved me from sliding fully into a deep black hole. Spending time both alone and with MrEH in the Hebrides, and with him and other friends on this trip to Lundy forced me out of the repetitive cycle I'd found myself in and on return home I managed to pin down both the cause and a way of working through things, and claw my way out. I'm not "cured" - it's not that easy, but I have coping strategies, and the knowledge to see when things are becoming problematic and deal with them early on. The most valuable thing I read when I got the diagnosis was "You're not going mad - even if you think you are" - I cried with relief at that one. Add to that having been able to take up regular exercise which has itself been superb for my mental health, it's also had effects physically as well of course - I'm finally back to a size that is entirely more natural for me and, as I said in the text above, that means getting back to feeling more comfortable with myself all round.  Previously "wanting to lose weight" was back there with the "setting goals" thing - set an over-ambitious goal > fail to meet it > give up > not bother trying again as "I'd only fail". This time round there were no goals beyond "do a bit more than I did yesterday/last week/last month" and that worked for me. I'm a long way from being "confident" still - but I'm on my way there, hopefully.

There's more bravery to come I'm sure - but now I really AM brave enough to face the idea and set goals - yes, proper ones - to achieve the things I want to, and indeed to admit that there are things I want to achieve too. Covering both the "not being sporty" and the "group exercise" thing I'm joining in with a running group for a run after work tomorrow (weather permitting, but the forecast looks good!) and actually looking forward to covering 6.5 - 7k with other people - none of whom I have even met before! MrEH and I are starting to make steps towards our long-term dreams, and I'm starting to think about stepping up my running distance towards doing a 10k later in the year too. It's actually starting to feel like those targets for the year that I set myself are taking off - I'm pushing myself outside my comfort zone and I'm definitely doing it with a smile on my face!

Robyn

More walking...

We decided almost on the spur of the moment on Sunday to go and walk a bit more of the Jubilee Greenway in London. We did section 1 a few weeks back - from Buckingham Palace through to Little Venice, near Paddington, and it's been on our list to do for so long that having started we were keen to get some more of it walked. It was a bit of a grey day but the London walks always feel like they're a bit less affected by less than brilliant weather, to be honest, so we weren't going to let it stop us! 

Exiting Warwick Avenue tube station we headed for the Canal - almost the whole of these two sections are walked on the towpath which is great - always nice to get in a London walk a bit away from the traffic, noise and bustle of the capital. In fact this first picture - taken from the Canal Bridge at Warwick Avenue - sums up pretty well what the walk was going to be like.

MrEH spotted the first thing of notable interest - this blue plaque on the wall of a house at Aberdeen Place - always nice to find an unexpected reference to a total hero and this is no exception...

That felt like a really nice way to start the walk actually - we saw it within the first few minutes and for me it felt really good to have two of my hobbies tied together with something like that.  Always good to have a reminder of those who gave their tomorrows, too...

Finally after quite a lot of walking parallel to the canal but not actually alongside it we reached the point where we dropped down onto the towpath - and were immediately confronted with this - look

The boats moored alongside here are all people's homes too, and the owners have adopted the towpath as their gardens. It's a riot of colour along there with beautifully planted pots and wisteria climbing everywhere - so pretty! Also some really clever re-use and recycling - I loved this planting wall...

Yes, that's the ends of pallets cut off, attached to the wall, filled with soil and planted, it looks amazing! The planks from the pallets are in evidence being used for various things as well so clearly nothing has been allowed to go to waste on these boaters watch!

Onwards and under the first of many railway bridges. This is the Marylebone mainline running ovder the top - later in the walk we would also go underneath both the West Coast and Midland and over the East coast Mainlines too.

When I was little my Nan and I used to make regular trips to London Zoo - usually during the winter as we always felt it was better then, the animals were more active and there was more to see. I can remember many times looking across at the canal and feeling quite sorry for the people walking along as they weren't at the zoo and we were - well on Sunday the tables were turned! Yep - these buildings are indeed part of the Zoological Society of London's London Zoo - we walked past the Giraffe house, some creatures that looked like Dingos perhaps, and on our side of the canal the famous huge aviary with masses of birds that we couldn't identify at all!

Not long past the zoo we saw a cow on a roof terrace....as you do! We wondered whether this might have been one of the Cow Parade cows from a few years ago.

Another railway bridge - west coast mainline this time - and some standup paddle-boarders too. we kept seeing this group all the way from when we first joined the canal right through to Camden - sometimes we were in front and sometimes they were - they looked to be having a great time anyway!

Camden Lock and its market are, next to the Zoo, probably the most famous stretch of this walk, and as ever it was heavingly busy! Oddly we'd passed someone we know a bit further back along the path and she'd told us to leave the towpath and cross over the bridge at this stage as the market was so crowded it was impossible to get through - handily that lead us straight past a pub so we decided to pause for a pint - particularly once MrEH spotted the Adnams Oyster Stout that they were serving!

A bit of a detour to get back to the towpath at the other side of the road as just past where you can see in the shot above it's closed while some building work is going on - yes, where those cranes are!  When we did rejoin it though we were amused to see this reminder of the Zoo that we'd passed not so long before!

On to St Pancras Basin - and this clever use of gas holders. The holders themselves are listed apparently so the company that wanted to build the flats had to incorporate them into their plans - clever eh? The nearest one to me has been left open and planted as a garden with a fantastic mirrored arbour all around the bottom - it looks utterly amazing!

Look carefully and you can just see St Pancras Station here! The lines on the right of the shot include the Eurostar tracks and we did in fact see a train heading off to France...or possibly Belgium!

Approaching the Islington tunnel now but just time to stop and look at this brilliant Bookshop on a boat!

And then for the Islington tunnel - an 878m long stretch with no towpath, originally boats would have had to unhitch their towing horse and the boat would be "legged" through the tunnel by a man lying on the boat roof and pushing with his feet against the tunnel roof to propel the boat through - now engines take the strain which I imagine comes as a bit of a relief! Rather like the men leading the horses we had to find our way through the streets here - thankfully it was brilliantly well signed...

...with these rather lovely blue plates set in the pavement at regular intervals. We did however make a planned diversion to another pub - one of the Craft Beer Company outlets.

Back onto the canal and this coffee stall's signage made us laugh! Very witty and it was clearly paying off as he was doing a good trade! 

Almost immediately after that we came to the corner of Victoria Park and that was the end of the sections we'd planned to walk - but we still had to get back to the tube. A brief discussion weighed up the options - to backtrack to Bethnal Green or walk on - although not still on the Greenway - to Mile End. Mile End won so we turned right in through the park leaving the next section of Greenway off to our left....then came across another Greenway marker on the path...hmmmm. Turning back to the Canal - and there was another one - very curious! We continued to Mile End Park, all the way seeing the Greenway markers and getting more and more mystified...*

Just before Mile End we got to do something we have both wanted to do for years - crossing the green bridge over the Mile End Road - we used to live in Bethnal Green and have driven under this so many times, almost always saying "we must walk over that one day!" and now finally, we have!

A really enjoyable walk this one - a bit over 12 miles with our odd detours, but almost all really pleasant walking, away from traffic. In spite of the weather this is probably one of the nicest walks we've done, although I think part of that might be down to me feeling so much more confident about my abilities to walk longer distances now. Can't wait for the next section now!

Robyn

* The mystery of the extra Greenway plates was solved when I re-looked at the route map on Tuesday morning - dog-legging off from the point where section 3 ends and 4 starts is section 10 - and that was what we walked approximately half of at the close of our walk! 

Snails...and other interesting objects.

I took way too many photos on our Underground Overground Walk on Sunday - I actually joked to MrEH that I reckoned I was going to have to do multiple blog posts if I wanted to share them all with you as putting them all into one would just make that post far too slow to load up. Then I thought about it a bit more and thought "Why not?!" - it would be great to think that someone else thinking about walking the Victoria Line might find my post one day and get some inspiration from it, so I'll link this and any subsequent ones into it - our "interesting things seen" are mostly different to those of the other people that have completed the walk so I reckon there's space for some more posts on the subject!

When we arrived at Walthamstow Central we walked across the road to the Bus Station so I could use the loo there - I felt a pre-emptive visit might be a good plan. In the event they were closed for repairs, but while I was finding that out MrEH spotted that around the glass enclosure that surrounds the escalator shaft to the tube were a whole load of china garden-type ornaments. When I saw this one...

...I took a photo of it saying to MrEH "You'll see why later in the walk...And so will you...no scrolling now! (Unless you're a vegetarian, in which case you might like to scroll on past the next photo...)

I loved the section of Walthamstow Market we walked along and was telling MrEH all sorts of interesting odds and ends that I remembered about it, both about the history and things I remembered from my childhood too. Manzes Pie & Mash shop is an East London institution and I can clearly remember the delicious smells emanating from it as we used to walk past. It's a beautiful shop front too - very traditional of its type, and I was pleased to see that it's now been given a Heritage Plaque. (My parents can remember the "eel man" outside chopping live eels into portions for customers to purchase, take home and cook - all the little individual sections used to wiggle around on the board as the nerves took a while to catch up with the fact that the creature itself was dead!)

We veered off the route that a lot of others had taken when we got to Pretoria Avenue - I knew exactly where the route of the line ran at that point - because of this...

That is one of the ventilation shafts that helps to keep the air fresh down at platform & tunnel level, and it happens to be right next to the school I attended for 4 years when I was little - you used to be able to hear the noise of the trains from it occasionally, although not since it's been fitted with a fancy-pants water cooled cooling fan I'm guessing - although that 3 degrees of cooling it apparently achieves is  much needed in those deep level stations! It's not the most attractive of buildings but I do like the fact that they've painted it Victoria Line Blue - and I wondered whether perhaps more of them had been painted similarly.

Onwards and from Blackhorse Road station came what I suspected would be the dullest bit of walk being on busy main roads and without any backstreets to divert through to add a bit of interest (and some peace and quiet!). Part way along Ferry Lane though you pass by the reservoirs/Walthamstow Wetlands nature reserve which makes for a bit of a better view..

...and crossing to the other side of the road we crossed over another walk we did a while ago - the Lea Navigation - you might remember that we walked that back in 2014 - this time we kept walking on down Ferry lane though, tempting as that towpath looked even in the rain! 

Finally just up the road from Seven Sisters station and brightening a very dull stretch of the Seven Sisters Road, we reached it...

This snail has been painted on this wall looking exactly the same for as long as I can remember. It must have been repainted a number of times I imagine but always in the same colours. A quick search on Mr Google has confirmed that it has in fact been there for pretty much as long as I would remember as it dates back to 1976, it was painted for the Jubilee. The Silver one, that is, not the two we've celebrated since. Oh and it's called Sid - next time we pass I shall be sure to greet it by name.

I'll be back with another of these posts at some stage - goodness knows I've got plenty of pictures to share still!

Robyn

Underground, Overground...

I may have mentioned on here before that MrEH is exceptionally good at buying books that turn out to be a really good read. One example of this was a book about the shipping forecast which was utterly fascinating. And another was Mark Mason's excellent "Walking the Lines" book - the story of one man's decision to walk all the lines of the London Underground system overground. For a born-and-bred Londoner the tube is an endless source of fascination - we're fiercely proud of our rather excellent subterranean transport network, whilst utterly taking its presence for granted! Of course we're all familiar with walking between the odd station here and there - I grew up near Blackhorse Road (Victoria Line) for example, and frequently walked to Walthamstow Central as it wasn't quite far enough to justify paying for a tube ticket. When living in Bethnal Green the walk to Liverpool Street was a regular feature, and all Londoners are aware of the various journeys in the centre of the city where it is quite simply quicker by far to walk, than to undertake the necessary changes required for a journey on the underground instead. Mr Mason's book however made me think about the system in a rather different way, and while we harbour no particular ambition to try to walk ALL the lines, I did find myself wondering whether perhaps we could walk "my Childhood line" - the Victoria - from end to end in one go.

I mentioned in a previous post that I'd signed up for a challenge which involved me covering 100km under my own steam inside 7 days, and suddenly that gave a bit more purpose to the mused-on idea of the Victoria Line walk. We played about on Google maps - Walthamstow to Brixton as a walking route, dragging the route to all the stations en-route, and it gave us a distance of 14.5 miles - not so bad (The actual line distance is 13 miles) although we were well aware that the physical route walked would end up longer than this by the time we'd meandered off course to look at things, or taken a slightly more zig-zaggy route in places to stay a bit closer to the line. We found a few other accounts online of other people who'd done the walk including this rather jolly Canadian chap who's made a bit of a habit of tube-walking and doesn't look likely to stop any time soon! When we started thinking about potential locations to stop for breaks, and what sort of food to carry with us, we knew that we were hooked on the idea and the walk was definitely going to happen!

My 100k challenge meant that I had to do a fair bit of walking in the days running up to tackling the Vic Line - that would only account for (playing safe) 16 or so of those 63 miles. My week didn't start well with a Bank Holiday Monday featuring a lot of time in the car and horrendous weather meaning only 2 miles clocked up that day. The following days picked up a lot - with a low of 7.15 miles and a high of 10.16 meaning I was very much on track so long as the Vic Line was doable at the end of it... 

Wanting to keep "off walk" mileage as low as possible on Sunday we elected to drive into London, parking the car close by where I work and hopping on the bus to Walthamstow where we'd decided to start. The main reason for doing the walk this way round was that it meant we dealt with the bit we knew best at the beginning, meaning that by the time tiredness and sore feet started to bite we'd be onto areas which would hopefully be a bit more interesting. 

The bus stops directly outside the original Tube Station entrance - there is a new one across the road in the "new" bus station (it was opened in 1987 if I remember rightly, but it still feels new to me!) but this will always be the entrance to me.. 

We were off! Along Selborne Rd, past the shopping centre (also "new" - see above!) and then right and left onto High St - or "Walthamstow Market" as it's known. (Think "I'm goin' dahn the market" for context here). No market on a Sunday though - it was blissfully quiet. We then strayed off the route that others have taken as I knew exactly where the line ran at this stage - outside one of my old schools is a Vent Shaft that rather gives the game away - more on this in a future post! Onto Forest Road and a left turn up to Blackhorse Road...

This one probably has to take the award for best station exterior thanks to the plaque of the horse. I loved that when I was a kid! Of course this is the design continued on the platforms below - each Victoria Line Station has its own design, linked in with the area the station is in - so Walthamstow Central has a William Morris design, Victoria has a picture of Queen Victoria, Brixton has a picture of rioters...no, just kidding with that last one! ;-) The next part of the walk is along a busy road with a brick wall one side (concealing the overground Barking to Gospel Oak line) and a palisade fence on the other beyond which are a succession of reservoirs which are also now home to the very new Walthamstow Wetlands Nature Reserve. Crossing over the Lea Navigation brought us to our next station. Tottenham Hale is undergoing refurbishment (again) so this was as good as I could get for an exterior shot. The place seems to have been constantly pulled apart and put back together again for years now - and in the process has gone from an easy to use station to one that simply doesn't work, sadly.

Onwards - round the busy Broad Lane one way system and past the retail park - a short section of zig-zagging through back streets and we encountered the first entrance to Seven Sisters station - there are entrances at all sides of this busy road as well as the "main" entrance (although I suspect used by far less folk than the satellite entrances) so I opted for photographing this one.

The next bit of the walk was probably the part I was least looking forward to. Seven Sisters Road is mostly dull and dreary, very full of traffic and generally not somewhere we'd choose to walk. The distance between Seven Sisters and Finsbury Park is also the longest between two deep-level stations on the network other than out at Heathrow - for me, psychologically, this was the tough bit. This was also the section we encountered our first tube station not served by the Vic Line - Manor House on the Piccadilly line. It also gave us our first bit of "off road" walking as we were able to come off the main road and walk through Finsbury Park itself which was a nice diversion if rather muddy. Finally after a lot of steps we arrived here...

Suddenly there were a lot of people around with red & white scarves and shirts on - yep, Arsenal had a home match in the afternoon! Finsbury Park is the closest Vic Line station to the Emirates Stadium - home of the Gunners - and we were about to walk right past it, but we'd done our homework and knew that as long as we were past the stadium by around 12.30 we'd be fine, and we were well ahead of that. We encountered another Piccadilly Line only station on this stretch too - Arsenal Station. That also gives the game away as to the road we were on - Gillespie Road was the original name of this station until it was renamed Arsenal in October 1932. The football fans continued milling around but we continued onwards and shortly afterwards were able to tick this one off our list...

We decided this would be a good time to stop for a bit of a break so popped into a handy Wetherspoons pub for a sandwich and a glass of juice. 6 stations done and about half the total distance covered. From Highbury we chose to zig-zag through the back streets of Barnsbury to cut across to the Caledonian Road as this kept us closer to the actual route of the line than the online suggested route would. By this stage we'd realised that Google's "public transport" map overlay showed the rough "real life" routes of the lines so were consulting with that on a regular basis to see how we were doing. I deliberately photographed Kings Cross with St Pancras in the background because that is of course the correct name of the Underground stations - the two mainline stations share it so it serves both.

 This was probably the easiest stretch on the line in many ways as within a very short stretch of straight-line walking we ticked off three stations - the beautifully refurbished KXStP above, then the hideous concrete nightmare that is Euston...

(The statue of Mr Stephenson used to prevail over the "Grand Hall" in the original station - he looks like he wishes he was still there to be quite honest!) Then on to Warren Street in the shadow of the BT Tower just beyond...

The route we took led us past the base of the tower - the closest MrEH had ever been I believe - and then a further bit of zig-zagging to get us to the madness of Oxford Circus while missing as many of the crowds as possible! Tube nerds will instantly spot that this is a Leslie Green station - with its distinctive Ox Blood tiling!

A short stretch of crowd-dodging on Regent Street followed - before we shot off down a side street and subsequently onto the VERY Smart New Bond Street past some rather expensive looking boutiques. We short-cutted through The Royal Arcade, stopped briefly to drool over some rather nice chocolates (we decided that even with 50% off the Easter Eggs we still didn't want to know the price!) then stopped under cover at the end of it to eat a rather more downmarket banana each!  A few more left and rights and we emerged on Piccadilly opposite The Ritz and just a few steps from our next station - Green Park.

The next stretch was straight across the park itself to Buckingham Palace - and was probably the most pleasant stretch of the walk. A brief stop to look at the St James' Park lake even netted us a new bird for our year-list with a sighting of a White Fronted Goose. An almost straight line then brought us to Victoria where we decided another break and a cup of tea was in order - once again Wetherspoons came to the rescue!

Once we started walking again we were both aware of starting to feel a bit tired in the legs but this really felt like the home stretch which fired us up to keep going. Google wanted to take us straight along Vauxhall Bridge Road, but instead we chose a slight detour which would bring us straight past Pimlico Station. As well as being the only station on the line that only serves the Vic Line with no other interchange at all it is also without question the most uninteresting station of all those we passed. 

Over Vauxhall Bridge, being sure to pause and peer over the parapet to find the emergence of the River Effra into the Thames - it comes out under the MI6 building - you know, the one that got blown up in Skyfall? ;-) Thankfully they've done a great job of the repairs...

Vauxhall underground station sits in the middle of a teemingly busy one way system - even on a Sunday it took us a while to cross but finally we were over and heading for South Lambeth Road.

This brought me back onto a route I knew - I spent a fair bit of time in Stockwell years ago and so knew this last stretch of walking with no need to look at the map. Across the road from Stockwell Station, past the Swan (we didn't bother going in - the far better Priory Arms is not far away and had we been wanting a pub right then we'd have aimed there instead)...

...and on down Stockwell Road. Nothing remarkable here, although there are some really beautiful houses in the streets off to the left. Finally towards the very end of Stockwell road we took one final short cut through Stockwell Avenue and it's little alleyway that pops out onto Brixton Road itself - a right turn under two railway bridges, and there it was...

Two people have probably never approached Brixton Station wearing quite such broad grins!

I tracked the walk using my FitBit - apart from the stretch from Victoria Station where I only realised at the bottom of Belgrave Road that I'd forgotten to restart it again - and the mileage tracked at 16.59 miles - that stretch that didn't track was probably about half a mile. We managed to keep a quite impressive pace of 3.1mph which was a little faster than I was expecting - unsurprisingly our first mile was the quickest - with the slowest being mile 11 for some reason. (I suspect because we stopped for longer at various places on that stretch). I burned 1,997 calories, and we were walking for 6 hours and 9 minutes. I'll do a subsequent post with some of the interesting things we saw on the way - for now though I just intend to say "We did it!" and feel smug! 

Robyn

More posts on this can be found at : Snails and other interesting objects...

More challenges...

I seem to be determined to push myself out of my comfort zone this year so far! I've mentioned the "Spitfire Challenge -100k in 100 days" I'm signed up to for the RAF100 celebrations I think - that challenge is being run by the RAF Museum and I've already committed to the idea of running the distance for that one. It should be relatively achievable for me, looking at the mileage I've run so far this year, so long as I can continue running my standard sort of distances and at my current sort of frequency.

I've also now entered a second "RAF 100" related challenge - another virtual one, meaning that you cover your chosen distance within the timescale and then submit your evidence to receive your medal. This one is a little different though as rather than setting you a target to aim for, this asks you to set your own challenge. Harder in some ways as it comes down to striking a balance between something that is a challenge, but still should, with a push, be achievable. It was further complicated for me by me wanting to do something around the "100" years of the anniversary, but not wanting to make it so tough that I stood a chance of injuring myself and mucking up my chances of completing both.

In the end I have settled on making that second challenge a combined walking/running distance - and the target I have set myself is 100 kilometres total distance covered in a 7-day period. 100 Kilometres = 62.137 miles - and the furthest I've ever managed to cover in a single week in the past is 53 miles, so make no mistake, this IS a proper challenge! I'll be counting all my time on my feet walking or running throughout the week, and will be using my FitBit to count distance covered - as much as possible I will track walking by using the Fitbit > Phone GPS connection to try to keep it accurate - however, where I forget, or choose not to for any reason, it will actually make my task harder as my Fitbit currently underestimates the distance I cover when I walk if it's not tracking via GPS! Running during that week will be tracked by Strava or my running watch and all running will also be counting towards the Spitfire Challenge. I've very deliberately said "a 7 day period" too as this gives me some flexibility with fitting in one long walk that MrEH and I have planned which if we can complete it would give me around 15 miles on its own.

I said I wanted to challenge myself this year and so far I really feel that I am. It feels exciting to be doing new things, and to be doing things I never imagined I would be able to - At the weekend I clocked up my fastest mile running so far, running it in a pace of 8.47 minutes and knocking a hefty 16 seconds off my previous best time over that distance! That's not fast by the standards of serious runners (A friend routinely runs 5k distances in well under 20 minutes!) but for me it felt like a massive achievement. At the point at which, about half a mile in, it got tough, rather than giving up as I might have done previously I reminded myself what I wanted to do and dug in a bit deeper. I'm trying hard to, rather than making excuses about what I can't do, to work at the things I can.

Aims for April now then are to complete the walk/run challenge, and to get as many miles in the bank for the Spitfire challenge as I can. I'd also like to start to increase my running distance a little - with a possible thought of aiming towards a 10k distance run towards the Autumn. I'm intending to get to some more parkruns, and want to do at least one more organised chip timed 5k - possibly back at the QE Olympic Park, possibly around another (and rather older) London Park - so watch this space for news on those.

My running/walking for the two challenges will, in the light of recent events, be done in memory of Corporal Jon Bayliss of the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team The Red Arrows. Jon sadly lost his life in an incident at RAF Valley last week, an incident which also left Red 3 from the team - Flt. Lt. David Stark - in hospital. I'm currently trying to work out whether I can do any fundraising around the two challenges and will update further on that when I've established what is doable - the entry fees for both already involve charitable donations however so I'm unsure of what more I am allowed to do. 

Robyn.

Every day's a school day...

I'm still so new to this exercise/running thing, that I am learning each and every time I go out for a run, go to the gym, or indeed even just do some reading on the subject. I got a short sharp reminder of this last week which caused me to reflect on lessons learned.

I got home from work last Tuesday evening, it was still daylight and I was keen to get out running. It was the first time this year that I'd been able to do a daylight evening run and felt like finally spring was really on its way! So out I went, and had a terrible run. Not just bad, not "a bit harder than usual" but truly terrible. My legs felt heavy and sore, by halfway round my breathing was dreadful, wheezy and uncomfortable, on arriving home my fitbit confirmed that as I thought, my heart rate had been through the roof for most of it. I felt utterly demoralised and more than a little baffled, asking myself why, what I'd done differently, was there a physical cause - indeed the last time I'd honestly felt that bad running was before my admission to hospital last year, and I was fairly sure that my iron levels couldn't have dropped again, and certainly not that far! I passed a few days feeling sorry for myself, and also if I'm honest, very worried. I felt physically OK - maybe a little low on energy but nothing more, but my head wouldn't let up up, whispering constantly "Yes, but what if..."

Some advice I got given when I was ill was that I'd recover from the physical side of things very fast - blood transfusions do that, effectively "re-setting" your body back to a proper level - but that just because I'd bounced back fast I shouldn't forget that I HAD been seriously ill, my haemoglobin & ferritin levels were critically low on admission, and that sort of level of illness has mental effects as well as physical ones. The mental effects, I was warned, would take rather longer to recover from. This was the first time I'd encountered this though, so it wasn't until a conversation with some friends a few days later than I recalled what I'd been told, and began to think about things slightly more rationally.

By yesterday morning I felt mentally ready to have another go - I knew I had to do it at some stage, my natural stubborness wouldn't let me do otherwise, but I felt so let down by my body it took quite a lot to gird myself to get out there. However the sun was shining and having mulled over several different route options I decided just to go with a gentle confidence building short loop, starting out on the trail through the woods as I knew that would slow me down a bit to start with, and I really wanted to keep the pace easy. That turned out to be very true - the trail through the woods was far muddier than I expected and so the first few minutes were by necessity a sort of mince along, hopping from dry-ish patch to dry-ish patch in the hope of avoiding ending up on my behind! I was quite glad to get to the track and turn back onto a more stable surface. From there all went smoothly - the first half mile or so was, as ever, a degree of mind over matter as I kept telling myself that yes I was fine, yes it would get easier but then it settled down and sure enough I found myself positively enjoying it - it felt lovely to have the sun shining on me and I even started to feel a bit too warm which was a novel experience! I started to struggle as I turned up the long steady hill towards home, and part way up decided to stop before I reached the point where it was a serious struggle - could I have carried on? Probably yes, but this time I erred on the side of caution. I used the walk back to home as part of my cool down, got home, paid careful attention to stretches and then checked out my stats on Strava - and what I saw surprised me.

The run felt nice and steady - at no stage did I feel as though I was pushing it massively, or running over-fast, yet what Strava told me was that I'd run at 9.20 average pace over the 1.4 mile loop, and that in fact I'd put in my fastest ever mile, at 9.03! So this started me thinking - and I suddenly realised the problem: daft and obvious as it sounds, I'd quite simply been running too fast! I've been trying to get out of the habit of having my phone in my hand with Strava active during my runs as I've kept on reading about running "tech free" being better sometimes as it removes the pressure that we put on ourselves to be constantly striving to get a bit quicker. It makes sense - if you don't know what pace you're running at you have to learn to listen to your body and read the pace from how you feel, but for a newbie runner, without the phone in my hand to keep myself to my more standard 10 minute mile pace, my legs had overtaken my lungs. Lesson learned then - while tech-free running might be great, and liberating, and lots of other things, for a brand new runner it can also be a problem. I'm now on the search for a dedicated running watch I can use alongside my ever present fitbit in a bid to make monitoring pace easier. Having realised that, inevitably the next step was to wonder why Friday's run was so much better that the Tuesday night disaster in spite of the pace being similar - and there were some more lessons to be learned...

We'd done a Metafit class on Sunday morning - a brutal short HIIT session - and this weeks workout was seriously hard on the legs. I took Monday as a rest day, which I knew would be needed, but if anything my legs felt even more sore on Tuesday - and it was joint pain rather than muscular too. I still ran because it was daylight and I wanted to get out there, not because it truly felt like a good idea. The lesson there then - listen to your body and take an additional day of rest if things don't feel right. "Need" over-rules "want" on this, every time.

I've been neglecting the "little things" - not enough strength work, not enough sleep, diet's probably slipped back a bit, not warming up properly pre-run and not enough stretching either - and all this stuff starts to add up. My average weekly mileage has dropped over the past few weeks - not just running but walking miles too - in short I'm just moving less than I was at the start of this year. On Tuesday night I did at best a "half arsed" warmup and then set off too fast to boot - neither of which are ever likely to  make for a great run. My sleep hadn't been consistent in the days running up to it either, and my focus on the small strength building exercise sessions had dropped to almost nothing - I'd still been going to the gym, and adding in those Metafit classes, but I've done almost no short HIIT sessions of core or legs work for weeks. For my body to cope with running it needs the investment of time in the strength stuff as well - another lesson.

I've started worrying more about "where to next" on the running without taking a pause to just enjoy where I am right now - and I need to dial things back and remember that yes, people keep demanding to know when I'm going to be doing a 10k then, or what my aim is for my next 5k - but that's their expectations, not mine, and just because I answer "possibly never" to the first and "to run it" for the second that doesn't mean I'm not pushing myself, or somehow failing. This needs building from the ground up - so having discovered I can run, I now need to focus back on the small stuff and then start making small wins from there. I'd also started stressing about the RAF100 "100k 100 day" challenge that I have starting next month - and that I think has been holding me back a bit as I've been worrying more about "what if things go wrong and I can't complete it" than remembering that actually, it IS a relatively small weekly commitment (as long as I run a little over 7k each week on average, I'll complete the challenge in the time), and that I am more than capable of getting in that sort of distance.

This week then - it's "back to basics" for me - increasing footfall again generally, aiming for a consistent bedtime right through the week, making sure I spend at least some time each day stretching, and at least 5 minutes of warmup time before I run. I've already done one HIIT session and will aim to do several more through the week - I can enlist MrEH's help on this as he's a fierce taskmaster at getting me working harder than I would push myself. Similarly on stretching - he takes me through a sensible progression of stretches targeting the right areas. I'm aiming to run a couple of times and if both feel OK both physically and mentally then I might add in parkrun on Saturday at my favoured Gunpowder Park course - no pressure on that one though, I'll see how it goes as first I need to rebuild the confidence that I actually can run that distance still! Above all, I want to get back to just enjoying myself - otherwise there's no point in doing it, is there!

Robyn