Various Ramblings

Saturday was a historic day in the Irish province of Munster. For the first time, the rugby team won the Heineken Cup (the top European rugby trophy), and the whole province is going bonkers. We happened to be in Limerick yesterday, the hotbed of rugby, and not only was the town half empty (there were tens of thousands in Cardiff for the final), but most of the remaining few people were congregated in O’Connell Street where a huge screen was erected to screen the game live. The whole place went nuts at the final whistle. Today the roads are dead quiet, even more so than usual, as everyone seems to have to biggest hangover since, well, last Paddy’s Day.

Unfortunately, the weather God isn’t celebrating with us. Friday and Saturday gave us a break from the relentless rain. Alas, reprieve was short-lived, and today the heavens have opened again. I got up at 8am, but waited until 10.30 in the hope that the conditions would improve. Eventually I gave up waiting and just headed out into the rain. I might be completely mad, but I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t very windy, which made the rain much more bearable, and somehow running in the lashing rain gives you a feeling of “I’m hardcore!”. Maybe that’s why I ran too fast yet again, or more likely it was attempt to keep warm. My ankle had been painful for most of yesterday and even this morning, but I didn’t feel it at all while out running. Thanks go to Hilda for reminding me about icing it. Oh, and guess what – it stopped raining half an hour after I came home.

I haven’t reported much about Cian’s misbehaviour recently. Well, he did scratch yet another DVD this morning (which infuriated me, but I’ve calmed down by now). The real mess was when he discovered a 5 kg bag of lentils in one of the kitchen cabinets. It was maybe half full, but you can still cause an awful mess with 2.5kg of lentils. To be fair, he didn’t actually pour it out, he just seemed to be fascinated by the texture, and kept running the lentils through his hands. Even so, the chaos caused was considerable. And he’s just started toilet training. I promise I won’t give you the details, and I still remember that time when we trained the twins, with me once saying that this was my least favourite part of parenthood. As I said, I’ll spare you the details, but at least we haven’t had any major accidents so far.

21 May: 7 miles, 54:31, 7:47 pace