the quirky brunette: Sunday Summary

This week, I have mostly been...

Reading

Watching

Pitch Perfect 2 at the Screen cinema in Reigate

with AJ, followed by a truly delectable Thai stir fry at Giggling Squid (with much wine...).

I've learned to be a little sceptical about sequels to films I loved (I'm talking about both Miss Congeniality and Legally Blonde Twos... ahem) so I went in to PP2 with a certain amount of reservation.

Unfounded. I actually laughed so hard at one part I wept. Actual tears. Face-mess.

Walking

{Why yes, those are my legs!*)

Friends, in a week it will all be over. I'll have participated in the London 2 Brighton 100k Challenge.

No more** will you click on this here very blog (whoa, this is all a bit post-modern self-referential, innit?) and be confronted by my overly-verbose accounts of training walks about the area. No more will you have to suffer through photos of near-identical vistas and bluebell fields. And my scabby, fatigued, mid-walk selfies.

{"¡Gracias a Dios! ¡Ella dejó de parlotear sobre sus paseos!")

And I honestly don't know what I'm going to do once it's all over (except for: more writing, more reading, more singing, more badge-making, more cooking, more sleeping, more holiday planning, more scrapbooking of the unforgettable bucket-list-tickin' holiday I took eight months ago... oh but less carb-loading...).

**But it ain't over quite yet. And, y'know, never say never.

Just under ten years ago I took part in the Weekend to Breakthrough Breast Cancer, a two-day (60k) walking event that involved a forgettable night of camping in Finsbury Park (referenced in passing in this blog post). It nearly broke me.

After the last two MoonWalks I (probably) swore never again.

And yet here I am. Ruling nothing out at this stage. Besides, I'm a lot stronger in a lot of ways than I was ten years ago. Heck, I'm stronger than I was two years ago.

100k, I'm coming to kick your backside!

Yesterday I had a two-hour walk on the agenda; but I was also keen to finish off the North Downs Way Surrey leg I'd begun two weeks ago, as a final hurrah to long training walks, ahead of the Big Event.

I picked up the trail from Merstham and walked to Oxted, with only one or two minor diversions:

{Click to enlarge and thus view closer evidence of my idiocy}

and it was a glorious day for it!

{Crossing the first bridge out of Merstham}

{Merstham Church}

{#Well, it's set way back in the middle of a field //
just a funky ol' shack, and I gotta get back...#}

{Twerp on Tandridge Hill}

{Rather splendid look-out over chalk hills
from Tandridge Hill viewing point}

{The weird, beautiful poetry of shadows... | yep, I'd lost
the plot by this point}

I clocked up 10.52 miles in a slightly longer than planned 3 and a half hours which is... acceptable, I think.

I'm so nearly ready.

Bring it on!

*Making (more) gifs

Remember a few months ago I was so darn proud of having created these bad boys:

using Photoshop Elements, old badge designs, YouTube tutorials and some sticky-back plastic?

Brace yourselves, friends: I'm now so darn proud that I've created my very own gifs in Photoshop from personal videos!