Damage limitation

By the weekend, I figured that enough was enough. Apart from Wednesday's little one-mile excursion, I hadn't run for ten days; my eating habits had gone completely off the rails; and when the summer skirts that I'd been so proud of started to feel just the tiniest big snug - well, that was the last straw.

So I figured it was time I did something about it. First, decision made (and mostly managed to stick to it) to cut out at least most of the butter, and leave the Nutella on the shelf, and stop picking at the cheese; and when the mid-afternoon sightseeing refreshments were offered, kept to a drink and avoided the giant sundaes.

Next, the running. Our hosts, Alison & Jon, who owned our gite, were great fun and a lovely couple; during one of our conversations earlier in the week, Ali had mentioned a run round the village and described the route. I gave it a go. (These photos were actually taken on another run later in the week.)

Out of our gite and to the end of the road. Past a field of sunflowers (sadly past their best). Follow along the road and across the little stream.



Up the hill (the what?! - we don't have those in Norfolk...) but I just about kept going and ran up the whole thing. As you can see, it wasn't really all that steep, but it felt like a mountain at that point.



Turn left along the cornfield. (I do like looking tall in a shadow!)



Through a "green tunnel" and past an orchard - those apples looked seriously tempting for scrumping. Left again down the long road back into the village, past the house with the collie (who, like all the dogs I met - and any humans - thought the idea of running was, if you'll forgive the pun, totally barking mad). Over the stream again, past the chateau, and down the final stretch back to the village.



Run nearly as far as the church you can see in the distance, and turn left into our street.

Later in the week we clocked the distance in the car, and it turned out to be a respectable 2.4 miles. A bit more than my regular training run, enough to turn me tomato-faced, not quite as far as the 5K; peaceful, beautiful and highly satisfying.