It's Christmas

I am not a Christmas super fan. I mostly enjoy it but I would never have it in a Top Ten Highlights of the year selection. Not that I'd ever get asked.

But Christmas this year for me is a bit of a washed out affair. And it shouldn't be. My son has returned home for a while and my daughter is home for the festivities from New Zealand. Even so , family problems ( on the wife's side) and the trouncing Labour got at the election has put a real downer on this year's celebrations.

This isn't the place to go into my wife's soured relationship with her parents and her sister and her husband but it has been a long time coming and the blame lies on all sides. I am just a sometimes bemused bystander thinking that if they only kept their opinion to themselves they would still be talking to each other, like my family. I have little time for my older brother and only occasionally speak to him, normally at times of crises with the parents. I speak to my younger sister more but not regularly. I speak to my Mum ( Dad never answers the phone) about once a week and see them about 4/5 times a year that's all. Politically and culturally we are miles apart, but we all skirt round each other in conversation and I rarely challenge them, except on their casual racism and ignorance on refugees and asylum seekers and the NHS and Housing which I do know a lot about. They know this so rarely bring the subject up. Is that hypocritical?.Yes of course it is but at least we all still talk to each other on the couple of occasions a year we get together. Unlike my wife and her family who aren't speaking at all since last Christmas..

I didn't campaign for Labour at the election , there was little chance of Newcastle Central going Tory and work and lack of holiday precluded me from campaigning in the marginals in the North East. My son did campaign here and in London and said from Day One Labour would lose. Brexit and Corbyn being the main reasons and to a much lesser extent (and ONLY in the seats on the outskirts of London) anti Semitism in the party. This leaves all of us who rejoined the Party to get Corbyn elected with a dilemma. Do we stay and fight for Corbyn MKII or do we just quietly cancel the Direct Debits and move on back to the wilderness licking our wounds. In the last 40 years there has only been 13 years of a Labour Government and I can't help feeling that this election it was a bit like turkeys voting for Christmas here in the North East. But you can't think like that.

The conclusion I draw from the defeat , and the one I have been drawing for myself since 1979, is that our electoral system is not fit for purpose. I hope the Party's review of their failure leads them to accept this and we ( if I stay a member) start to campaign for proportional representation. Sign the petition at The Electoral Reform society website and give us a chance of having a Government that represents everyone not just a minority.

Autumn Almanack

Another random update to while away a Friday afternoon.I ran the Kielder Marathon in the pouring rain and finished in 5:17:25. Now this is still slow but timewise it was my fourth fastest marathon of the last three years and 6 minutes faster than the last time I ran round the reservoir in 2011. Consequently I was pretty pleased with myself as I sat with a cup of tea and a Vegan flapjack ( baked by the local WI) waiting for my running buddy, Andy to finish in his slowest ever marathon time. I was however put in my place by another running mate Ed who finished in 4:30. Not a record breaking time but Ed is 70.

I only have a 10k in December so Kielder was my last distance run of the year. Another up and down year of running , a poor Spring marathon in Copenhagen, a good 10 mile run around Northumberland in August and return to form Great North Run in September. But it all means that I have not really made much improvement in times or performance. I need to rethink my running goals and strategy for next year.

Outside of running, work remains the same, that is, tedious. Some Friday's I leave the office dreading the return on Monday. it can almost ruin the weekend.And that isn't me. Bills and mortgage prevent me from jacking it all in as well as sheer bloody mindedness. It doesn't help that my boss is useless. And I am 58, not that old but old enough to be most of my colleagues' Dad. That is sometimes hard to deal with. At least I get well paid for it.

Football wise Peterborough seem to be mounting a real promotion push this year, but I am refusing to get involved. I have only been once this season and don't intend to get overexcited this time round. I will see if I can maintain this detached position if we are top of the League come next February.

Music wise it has been a good year so far , Embrace, Suede, Billy Bragg, Sharon Van Etten and St Etienne. I did miss The Wedding Present though as we were away in Norfolk

My son is currently at home after returning from Poland. He has got overexcited at the prospect of a general election and is disappearing back down to London to campaign in Chingford to support the strong local Labour attempt to unseat Ian Duncan Smith. Talking about Universal Credit that benefit continues to bring misery and uncertainty to claimants here 3 years after it was first introduced in Newcastle. Apart from the still lengthy wait for new claimants and the capricious application of sanctions,structurally the benefit is fundamentally flawed. Here's hoping for a Labour Victory in December. although I am not getting overexcited about that either. My daughter remains in New Zealand but is returning in December for a month. It will be only the third time in four years we have physically seen her, although the internet means we are in touch almost daily.

I really don't like this time of year after the clocks have gone back. A brief respite of lighter mornings but soon get up in the dark, go to work in the dark and leave work in the dark, home in the dark. Dark, dark, dark. It's shit.

Long Distance Runner

I mentioned Copenhagen marathon in my last blog. Well, my time was frankly shit at 5:34:45 , my second slowest time ever. However this time I have a real excuse as I have been suffering from a proper running injury for months now. A real excuse that is as opposed to the usual lack of training excuse.

I have plantar fasciitis in my left heel. Bloody hell it's painful. This meant I started the Marathon in pain and finished it in even more pain. But like the hard long distance runner I am , I still completed it and beat my running buddy too!!!

Of course this has meant that ,apart from the Blaydon Race,I haven't run in 5 weeks. I wouldn't have run at all but I wasn't wasting my entry for the Blaydon, not after spending 3 hours on my phone, laptop and Kindle one evening earlier this year in order to get a place. That run was painful too, only not as much and I finished the 5.4 miles in 50:49. which is a good time for me.

I finally gave in and spent 42 quid on physio assessment and my heel is slowly getting better.I have had a couple of pain free days this last week so I intend to start running again soon.

A friend on my completed the 69 mile race along Hadrians Wall a couple of weeks ago. That's my aim for next year.

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It's Spring Again

As the weather warms up, well apart from yesterday when we had snow here in North East England, thoughts turn to the end of the football season and spring marathons. Peterborough started really well then faded really badly and now sit on the edge of the Play Off places in League One. Darren Ferguson is back ( third time lucky) and who knows what will happen now. I've seen them a few times this season and we haven't looked good.

This year's overseas marathon is in Denmark, Copenhagen to be precise. Hoping to get back to faster times and enjoying the run and fingers crossed it wont be in the high 20Cs temperature wise.