Update on my running and jumping!

For the last few weeks I seem to have spent quite a lot of time thinking about and doing athletics. At this time of year the club encourages all its members to try lots of different events just to see if there is any hidden talent. The coaches award grades that go from A (“you are county standard athlete in this event”) down to E (“certainly not the event for you”) 

100 and 200 metres – Although I am doing better times than I was last year I am never going to be any good at either event. I have the long legs that are supposed to make for a good sprinter but I cannot make them move fast enough! Grade D 

Long jump – I’m even more hopeless at this but cannot work out why unless it also related to a basic lack of top speed. Grade E 

Javelin and Shot Put – I’m unchanged from last year so still hopeless. I don’t have enough muscle to be even a club thrower. Grade E 

High jump – I’m good enough at it (undefeated for several seasons) but it is deadly boring. I am the club #1 jumper but wouldn’t mind if I never did the event again. Grade B 

400 metres – I’m better than last year so the speed training has done some good. I am, just about, good enough to be considered for the 4 by 400 metres relay team. Grade C 

400 metres hurdles – This event is called the “lady killer” and I have only run it a handful of times. But I had the second fastest time out of 12 runners in the trials, that was a nice surprise. Grade B 

800 and 1500 metres – I’m still improving and would be the 2nd string club runner in either event. Grade B 

3000 metres steeplechase – I have hardly ever run this event and it isn’t always run in inter-club competitions but I won the club trial on Saturday. Grade A 

5000 metres – I am the club champion. Grade A 

The most surprising thing I found out about myself was the coaches now think my best event might become the 400 metres hurdles or in the triathlon (swim, cycle and run). We shall see!  

My pre-course material has arrived for the PGCE. Stewart and I spend a couple of hours a day on it, a mixture of reading the set books, summarising the content and discussing it with each other to make certain we understand it. Quite a lot of the jargon is already familiar to me having been brought up by two teachers: I think that it would make them happy to think that I am going to follow the same career as them. We have also taken out a subscription to a couple of the teaching magazines as the course organisers think that is a best way to keep up to date with the profession. 

I have also managed to find a really good e-pal - she is German but her English is superb. This makes up for the problems I had with other people who expressed an interest in exchanging letters. I have had three penfriend requests from men in Nigeria or Pakistan in the last three weeks. I don’t even reply to them so they probably think I am very rude but I can tell from what they write that they send the same letter to lots of different people and that they are not honest or what they claim to be. Most say they are lawyers or teachers but since they cannot write a simple sentence this seems most unlikely. I have now been told that this is a widespread problem and that they are looking for money or a way to become a British citizen and so entitled to a British passport.
 

 

The strange world of pen friends.

OK - I have to admit from the start that I am unfamiliar with how this is supposed to work. I responded via a Facebook group to five requests for Email penpals with a private message and a few details about me.

One new friendship seems to be working well, three people never responded at all but it the final one that raises the most questions. We did an initial exchange of emails but then it all went quiet. It was her turn to contact me so I waited patiently but eventually I sent a short note asking her if she had received my letter - still silence.

Then I received what - on skim reading - seemed to be a "thanks but no thanks"  email ending our new friendship. Basically cultural and religious barriers were going to be a too much of a problem. I was fine with that because I agree 100%  that it is best not to start exchanging confidences if one partner feels incompatible with the other.

It was only when I re-read her letter when I noticed that she was critical of almost every aspect of my life. My blog, my hobbies, my lifestyle, my friends and even my deceased Mother seemed to displease or concern her. I have no idea why she wrote this letter. A simple, "I don't think we have enough in common" email would have been an honest and kind way of dealing with the situation. A thinly veiled attack on almost everything that makes me who I am is a different matter!

With hindsight the warning signs were there - ending her first contact with "God Bless" being #1 on the list. This is the third, or is it the fourth, time in the four years since Mum and Dad were killed that a religious person has extended the hand of friendship to me knowing that I was an orphan. Every single time, sooner rather than later, they would try to make me "see the error of my ways".

I am not religious myself but I accept that some of the kindest people I have ever met have been religious so in no way am I automatically "anti religious people". But, and it is a big but, it seems to me that some religious groups see it as their mission to target the lonely, the sad or the vulnerable in an attempt to achieve their quota of converts.

I attempted to find common ground with a 40 year old Malaysian stay-at-home Mother thinking it would be a valuable experience for both of us - I was wrong.

So now I move on with another entry in my hard lessons learned file. :)

 

 

Inheriting a house - a bottomless pit of expense!

When my Mum and Dad were killed I inherited the family house and as a grown-up friend of mine rightly pointed out once you own a house you are never going to short of things to spend your money on! It was a big decision to start changing the house from how Mum and Dad had left it: partly because it was like accepting that they would never be coming back again.  

It was during the summer term of my first year at university that I decided that I was going to live in the house with three friends for the second year of my course. In early September I had various painters, plumbers and electricians coming and going all the time and as I didn't like to leave them in the house on their own I was pretty much been chained to the house myself. Getting the right mix of workmen in the house at the right time seemed hard for the project manager to co-ordinate but as I was paying for the jobs and not the time it didn't cost me anything extra. The biggest change was to Mum and Dad's old bedroom. By the time all the work was done it really felt like "my room" - it would have been too full of memories to have it as my room but with their furniture.  

Most of the other internal changes were fairly cosmetic and from the outside the house doesn’t look that different. Neither Mum nor Dad were interested in gardening so the “low maintenance” spaces in front and behind the house are almost unchanged. 

What feels to have changed most are the neighbours. If I think about the three houses on either side of my house only two are still occupied by people who will remember Mum and Dad. Two of the others have relative new comers and two houses have tenants living in them, who are just renting the house while they look for a house to buy. Without exception all six houses are being lived in by professional couples with children or retired people with children who have “flown the nest”. So my house with 4 students living in it is very much the exception!  

There also isn’t much neighbourhood spirit. Like so many British people my neighbours all seem to keep themselves to themselves and while there is no animosity between the different households there doesn’t seem to be much friendship either. 

At the moment I don’t have any plans to sell the house. I will certainly want to live here for the year 2014-2015 while I am doing my PGCE course – what happens after that rather depends on where, or if, I am able to get a teaching job. While I am thinking about it I need to say that I was amazed, but thrilled, to get first class honours in my degree. I know some people, especially Mum’s sister and Dad’s brother automatically assumed that getting a better degree than I had expected would mean a change of career path but at the moment I am still planning to start my new course in September. 

Important note for readers – this “post-bereavement” blog follows on from my earlier “double bereavement” blog that can still be found at

 http://darknesslight1.blogspot.co.uk/