Today was village fête day: my husband was up at 5.30am to set up his bushcraft corner of the field (I slept on, only to be woken at 6.55am by a surreal phone call from him: ‘Can you bring the antlers from the hooks in the garage with you when you come down please, darling?’). I followed at a more decent hour with the kids- and the antlers – to set up a much more modest stall for St James’s church with a sunflower planting and craft activity. All day we’ve been meeting friends and neighbours, entertaining children, talking about the weather, cheering the various racers and performers as the day wore on, losing at raffles, winning ludicrous prizes on the tombola (hair perfume, anyone?).
And this evening after the clear up we drifted over to the pub at the other side of the meadow with neighbours to listen to music and have a few well-deserved drinks as the sun set.
Which is all lovely, except that by this point I still hadn’t done my daily run.
I felt tired, mellow, happy, relaxed. I did not feel like running. Not one tiny bit. But the streak is a powerful thing. When you’ve run 230 days on the trot,* it’s got to be something pretty damn serious before you break that golden thread.
So before I could think about it too much I got up, turned on the ‘outdoor run’ on the Apple watch, and ran round Clift Meadow until I’d hit the mile. It’s the first time I’ve done my daily run in jeans and ankle boots. The kids, delighted and bemused, joined me, peeled off to play, rejoined me, outsprinted me, collapsed theatrically in a heap, leapt up again as I caught up. The teenagers on the park benches gave me an ironic round of applause as I passed for the fourth time. It was, frankly, ridiculous. And also oddly satisfying. For now at least, the power of the habit has beaten the force of inertia for another day.
*for the background to this bonkersness, see here.