emily at beSottied.com

My suitcase is packed (almost), my passport is in my handbag (I think) and my flip flops are ready to do their flippity, floppity best: I’m off on my hols in a couple of hours.

Mutti, Helen and I are heading to Rhodes for a week of quiet lounging and relaxation, with a few crappy novels and units of alochol thrown in. We’re jamming on up to the airport in Muriel, who will stay in the confines of the super-glamorous park-and-fly chain link fence, hopefully spending her time not getting broken into.

It won’t all be sunloungers and cocktails for me though, oh no. I’ve packed my running gear. Packed. My. Running. Gear. FOR A HOLIDAY.

The hotel has an (air conditioned) gym and, while I’m not massively keen on the idea of going for a five mile run before I get down to sunbathing, it would be pretty crappy for me to get home next week and not be able to run the distances I’ve already done. And I’ve told myself that, as a holiday treat, I’ll have the treadmill flat at all times - none up that running up and downhill madness I usually subject myself to.

A while ago, Laura and I went to a training and motiviation day whatsit at Gateshead Stadium. Jared Deacon, an Olympic athlete, spoke in an attempt to encourage us all. Unfortunately, his talk had the opposite effect on me: he told us how he used to throw up, be in agony, throw up… Anyway, Sickly Jared told us that we had to decide what our own motivation was. He spoke of his medals. He showed us his medals. He said something along the lines of “You have to decide why you’re running. Is it to get the medal? What does the medal represent? Not just that you’ve run the race, but all of the hours of preparation [and the vomit no doubt] that you’ve put into running the race.”

He did seem very keen on his medals. “Hah.” I thought. “No punk-ass bit of metal is going to motivate me. I care not for medals!”

But, as I was running around a 4-mile loop this morning (6 am, thanks for asking) I thought: I WANT THAT MEDAL.

If I survive this crazy run, I will gladly accept my medal. I will wear it to work. I will wear it in the shower. I will wear it when horse riding, even if I bounce about so much during sitting trot that it flies up and smacks me in the teeth.

I will wear my medal to the annual general meeting of a notoriously violent medal-haters club. I will wear it with pride and with defiance! I will polish it daily, and it will be mine.

Because I am no runner, but really, I’m not doing too badly after all.

(Oh PS, if the air conditioned gym is a lie, I’m not doing it. Not even for a medal. I’m not that dedicated.)

I feel as though I’ve barely touched the computer in weeks. I can’t think what else I’ve been doing with my time though.

Running. That’s what I’ve been doing. Hauling myself out of bed before 6, so that I can do my run before work and bounce off to the office all refreshed (hah) and full of fruit. Fruit which I ocassionally draw on.

Actually, running in the morning works out quite well, because walking around all day seems to ease my muscles. I’m also less likely to miss my run because I’ve spent my afternoon texting Laura to see if she fancies an evening trip to Pizza Express.

Being frugal! That’s another thing I’ve been doing. Trying to Not Spend Much Money. No new yarn, no new shoes, no new clothes (well, apart from one skirt from Primark, but that was so cheap it really shouldn’t count). No going into Boots for a can of deodorant and coming out with three lipsticks, two nail varnishes and a hairdryer.

My frugal plans were spoiled slightly by going to see Take That (scream!) last Saturday. I wouldn’t consider myself a big Take That fan so thought the tickets were quite expensive, but it was totally and completely worth it. I don’t want to write about the show too much, because I don’t want to spoil the surprises for anyone else who may be going. All I’ll say is, I’d go again without a second’s thought. If you’ve got tickets, you’ll love it, and if you haven’t got tickets… try to lay your hands on some!

I’ve been doing repairs, too. I finally fixed Leigh’s cardi last night. She snagged it when she was on holiday at the end of April, tied knots in the loose ends to stop the whole thing falling apart, and, on her return, brought it in to work and asked me to take a look at it. Weeks and weeks later, I finally did take a look and managed to fix it pretty quickly. I had to be quite cunning and resourceful: the cardi is made from a sort of cotton tape, a slightly variegated deep reddish colour that I had just about zero per cent chance of finding a match for in any yarn shop. Instead, I repaired the hole with some blue 4-ply cotton to get a gauge of how much yarn I would need, then set about taking yarn from the seams to repair the hole properly. I was pretty pleased with myself, thinking about it. Take that, Women’s Institute!

Next in line for a bit of TLC was my poor old (new) bike, as well. I got punctures back in April, and Dan helped me to fix them maybe a month ago. My tyres went totally flat again, though, and so a couple of weekends ago (perhaps it was the bank holiday? I’m not sure) when Mutti woke me up at some ridiculous hour by setting the washing machine off at the crack of dawn, I drove off to the bike shop in a strop and bought two new inner tubes. One mug of tea, one bike pump and a very vague set of instructions later, I’d fixed my bike! Woo!

I tried to get cracking on my Branching Out scarf again, but it’s driving me ker-azy so I’ve hidden it nicely out of sight in my bedroom. I might get it out in a little while, have another go at fixing it. I thought that I’d ripped it back enough to my original mistake, but I keep spotting more and more as I go along. It’s knitted in a smudgey blue Kidsilk Haze, too, so it’s a nightmare to undo. No chance of just pulling the whole thing out and starting again: I’m undoing the stitches one at a time. Tink, tink, tink.

I sampled fairy-and-rice-krispie-cake delights at Neil’s niece’s birthday party last weekend, after which we took his sister’s (hello, Helen!) boyfriend’s kite to the beach. It’s a big kite. Neil almost cut my head off with it, making it swoop all over the place. He’d have been laughing on the other site of his face, Mr Clever Kite Man, if he’d had to take me home to my mother, my body over his shoulder and my head in a rucksack!

So I suppose, on reflection, I have done quite a bit with myself this month. I also keep thinking about Maltesers. So much so, I do think I’m going to have to buy some. They can be a Friday treat, tomorrow night.

I know how to party.

It’s been another busy couple of weeks here at Camp beSottied. I did no knitting (still) but finished all of my uni work in plenty of time to skip off to the Lake District for a couple of days with Neil. There was a lakeland village, a gorgeous hotel, a fair bit of wine and plenty of cake, but it wasn’t all about relaxing and getting fat: I’m sat here typing with very tired legs, as we made the most of our couple of days away and did a fair bit of scooching up and down hillsides, too.

Typically for a British summer break, the weather wasn’t too kind: wine glasses sat on a rain-spattered table; an evening meal was partly burned off with a sloshing jog through a wet night; an evening outfit of a sundress and sandals was stylishly topped off with a bright pink waterproof jacket and pouffy hair; jumpers dried on radiators, and hands warmed around mugs of tea. Ocassionally, clouds took pity on us and sheeting rain gave way to sun-streaked afternoons, and we thanked them by plonking Muriel in (extortionate!) National Trust car parks and working our way up the fells. On one walk, near Coniston, I gleefully spotted a 2CV sitting outside a youth hostel, and felt obligated to take a photo: proof that it had managed the gravelly, damp ascent to its hilly perch.

The best day of the lot was, as is usually the way, the day we were due to come home. The rain had obviously had enough of work and decided to stay in bed for a while. The sun shone, white clouds scudded across an arc of blue sky. Armed with rucksacks filled with useful equipment (Neil) and boiled sweets, water and a camera (me) we made our way to Langdale to tackle the fabulously named Stickle Ghyll.

The path snaked up the hillside following the course of a waterfall. Every so often I would lose my footing, suck in my breath, scrape some skin. Mr Boyfriend, clearly having spent some time studying the climbing habits of particularly energetic mountain goats, had no such trouble. As we clambered, smoke-grey ewes and tufty lambs shuttled up and down the crags so easily they may as well have been cable cars. More than once, I considered the probability of one of them carrying me to the top without complaint or sheepy bite. Slim to none, I decided.

For 500 metres we climbed - Neil never without a sprightly spring in his step, me slightly less bouncy and slightly more red in the face - until we reached the beautiful Stickle Tarn, its waters so inviting after our walk I would have happily thrown myself in, fully clothed, before the audience of perky fellwalking types sporting flicky ponytails and springy sticks.

After a few minutes spent appreciating the view from a grassy bank beside the tarn, Mr Boyfriend turned his attention towards the grey rock soaring up from behind the water: Pavey Ark. It is fair to say that Neil is much fitter than me, with much more experience of this sort of thing. Also (crucially, I maintain) his legs are a good few inches longer than mine, and so we split up to tackle the peak in two different directions: him, Jack’s Rake: the Crazy-Boy narrow ridge cutting a diagonal line across the front of the rock; me, the curving, gentle Lady Version (hah!): a rocky path scooping its way around the back of Pavey Ark to its summit.

For around forty minutes I grunted my way to the top, stopping ocassionally to admire the spectacular views across the Lake Distrct towards the west coast. It was not exactly an easy walk: I had to climb every so often, finding footholds and handholds in stones slicked with water. I took my time and loved the challenge. My brain flitted between feeling smug and lording it over those part-timers lazily lounging by the tarn far below, to composing soaring and ridiculous poetry about what I was seeing (don’t worry, I won’t actually write any: I’m really not a poetry kind of person), to wondering just what exactly I was doing clambering up a bleak rock dripping with water, moss and lichen. Just minutes from the summit and feeling quite triumphant I managed to plunge my foot into a big, boggy splodge. It wasn’t a winning look.

Eventually, with weak knees, damp feet and a rhubarb and custard sweet clamped between my teeth, I reached the top. A short time later Neil popped up on the opposite rock. I was very happy that he had survived his Mad Climb. I was very happy that I had survived my own Mad Climb. And was it worth it? Well, the fact that I’m desperately thumbing through my mental thesaurus in an attempt to come up with a suitable way to describe the view, the unashamed natural beauty spread out below the pike is answer enough.

I think I could really get into this walking malarky.

Chez Emily has been a hive of activity this weekend. Zero knitting took place (I’ll say that straight away, for the benefit of those poor deceived visitors who have discovered me through Ravelry) but Keith has been waging war on the giant crows and wood pigeons who have taken to bullying all the small birds away from his new bird-feeding station; Dan and I finally fixed my bike (only the tyres have gone down again, so I’m going to have to go and get new inner tubes anyway); Neil bravely came to meet Mutti and Keith and, on Monday, the two of us went to Durham, walked a lot, climbed to the top of the Cathedral tower, then ate a giant piece of chocolate cake that probably contained more calories than we’d burned off. But it was BRILLIANT cake.

I’ve been able to shamelessly enjoy all of this adventuring as, on Friday, I went to a very sunny York to hand in one of my two dreaded essays. I celebrated this scholarly victory by buying myself a nice Muriel-coloured Pantone mug on the way back to the park-and-ride bus stop, and by walking to Neil’s local pub that night for curry-based sustenance (excellent plan: walking distance = no designated driver needed).

On the motoring front, I’ll be driving to the Lake District later this month and I recently realised that, if I drive all that way the way I usually drive, Muriel will slurp her way through approximately 4 tanks full of petrol (in a very elegant, very French way, or course) just to get there and back. This expensive thought, coupled with a little bit of gentle reprimanding from people who will remain nameless (that means you, Captain Coconut) has tempted me to try a novel idea: driving under the speed limit. Gadzooks.

Typical, then, that just days after deciding to be a law-abiding motorist (sigh) I think I’ve been snared by something I’ve managed to dodge for the four years I’ve been driving: a speed camera.

I was heading home from York on Friday, pootling along at about 67 miles per hour (ish), when I spotted a black Rover-type car idling in a lane, waiting to cross my carriageway and the central reservation to reach the other side of the road. I was heading down hill, and my speed crept to 70ish, more likely 72 mph. There was a big group of cars in front of me, then a pretty sizeable gap, then me and Muriel on our little lonesome, then another gap, and another group of cars.

“Aha.” I thought, feeling kind in my new aviator sunglasses (Oasis, £14, thanks). “I will le speed up, catch up to the cars in front, then that Mister Man can whip out in the gap behind me.”

And so I put my foot down a little bit. The man behind the wheel of the black car was looking the other was as Muriel and I rolled on down the hill. Mu’s speedo read 78mph as the guy behind the wheel turned, saw me coming towards him and… and….

LIFTED A SPEED GUN TO THE WINDOW!

!!!!!!

My face (behind the stunning new aviator specs) must’ve been a picture. Mouth dropped open in shock, I composed myself in time to surprisedly hiss a rude word as I scorched past. Yes, I was recklessly speeding and endangering the lives of myself and others, but I was trying to be nice. I was making a big enough gap for him to get across the road! Cheek.

And so now, we wait… will a speeding ticket drop through my letterbox in the next week? Will I get 3 points on my licence and a £60 fine? Or was I far too close to the speed gun for him to have clocked me? Let’s hope it’s the latter, since I really have turned over a new leaf and have been driving steadily, steadily, steadily. It takes me about three hours to get anywhere, and it causes me physical pain when I’m overtaken by grandmas in Nissan Micras and people carriers full of squabbling kids, but I’ve been doing it nevertheless.

If you have pity for a naughty, naughty speeder who’s realised the error of her ways, do keep your fingers crossed for me =) Unless you’re a traffic police officer, in which case this entire blog entry is a work of complete fiction and I don’t actually own a car. Wink wink.

And now, my dears, I’m off out for a run. I haven’t been out for a few days now and I’m starting to panic a little bit. Let’s just hope I make it back alive!

If there’s one thing that stops me planning holidays at home in the UK, it’s the weather. The thought of spending a week off work holed up in a hotel room while rain buckets down outside is usually what sends me trotting off to the travel agent to book a flight to somewhere hot.

It’s a shame, really, because there are some absolutely stunning places all over the country: a lot of them are more or less on my doorstep.

Yesterday, Neil and I jammed on up to Northumberland in my green bean for a bit of adventure. We ate crab-filled stotties at the Ship Inn in Low Newton before walking south along the curving beach to the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle. Luckily for us, the weather was good: sunny, but not blazing hot, and just a bit hazy.

We climbed the hill to the ruins and followed the fenceline to the back of the castle, which sits atop rocky cliffs overlooking the North Sea. We plonked ourselves down on the cliff top (I stayed a few feet back: all those years of Mutti screeching “Stay away from the edge!” must’ve had an affect on me) and stayed there for… well, I lost track of time but it must’ve been at least an hour. It was warm, with hardly anyone else around. There were seagulls and the sounds of the waves hitting the rocks pretty far below. I didn’t think about work, or about my Stupid Essay (which still isn’t finished), or about fixing my bike or writing a blog or doing any knitting. I didn’t think about the huge, wobbling pile of ironing sat waiting for me at home. I just thought about where I was, and who I was with, and how I could have happily stayed there for a long, long time.