Bela Lugosi's dead

Properly engaged

Ten days ago I bought Stef an engagement ring. A very good friend (who's been married for four years and now has two super young children) said buying an engagement ring felt a very 'grown-up' thing to do and he was absolutely correct, as is often the case

Last night after work I collected the ring and nipped into Costa for a quick coffee. I was going to go for a pint but was still feeling grown-up so came home. The ring fitted perfectly (it'd been off to a retired jeweller appropriately on the edge of the Lake District for adjustment and a 'clean and polish'). Stef, who's been right off it with a bug for two days, perked up amazingly on recieving it!

In the evening we had a lovely dinner at home plus a bottle of wine and I decided my streak (59 days at that point) had come to an end. Around 10.15 we were off to bed and as I was undressing found myself pulling running kit on almost without realising what I was doing. Stef said you'd best go out and do your run and away I went. I felt dreadful (it was probably the rich food and wine) but I managed a loop of the village and my streak lives on

Let me in your life

Urban trout

I have a long standing (nine years and counting) ambition to catch a grayling from our local River Wharfe. For large chunks of my life fishing was as big a part of life as fell running is now and music has always been been. This morning I spotted reference to Urban Trout on the great 'Caught by the river' blog and I very quickly added a link to my blog. I was telling a running pal about flyfishing the other day (now is absolutely the best time of the year for grayling) and memories of Treacle Parkins, Grey Dusters, dry Adams and F-flies came flooding back. One day...

R.I.P Lou Reed

I never had any interest in the Beatles and only a passing interest in the Stones and Bob Dylan. However, Lou Reed and his music have fascinated me since as long as I can remember. I wore out a vinyl copy of Transformer when I was in my late teens and have most of the music the Velvet Underground recorded. They're in my top five bands (I think maybe top three)

Anyway, I was shocked to see Lou Reed died earlier today. Tom Robinson was playing his music on the BBC and hopefully there'll be more to follow tomorrow, when I'm out in the car. The surprise was Lou was 71 years old. I thought he was probably older than that, although he's 'lived a bit' and has done well to top three score and ten

Sweet Jane

Jackie Wilson

Update

I'm still running every day and did my 55th consecutive run today. Life is very hectic at the moment with our wedding to plan. We've settled on the Satuday of May Day Bank Holiday weekend (May 3) next year and have actually made a huge amount of progress with the church, fell race(!), reception etc already booked or organised

Stef is away this weekend and I am going to the Swan beer festival tonight and meeting my old pals Dave and Sara tomorrow evening for a Strictly Come Dancing night. A run up Dave's local hill (Pin Haw) is planned in the afternoon and I hope the weather is better than it was earlier tonight when I got half drowned on my Friday evening 'saver'. A saver is a short run done to 'save' the streak and everyone has their own rules as to what constitutes a minimum run; typically a mile or 15 minutes etc. My rule is if I get my kit on and stay out long enough to break sweat then it's very much game still on

Let's build our dreams together

The Paragons

How long will it take

Day 44

I'm still running every day and tonight's very steady 15 minute plod around the village was my 44th run in 44 days. We did 20 minutes on the treadmill on Friday, around 8 miles from Mardale on Saturday and the vast majority of the Fairfield Horseshoe yesterday, so I have had a good weekend's training really

Wedding proposal accepted!

Stef got her certificate (#1804 on the list) last night at the Bob Graham club dinner, which she was expecting. What she wasn't expecting was a wedding proposal from me! I'd spoken to Selwyn and Morgan, who were MC'ing the certificate presentations and told them of my intention and I proposed in front of around 250 fellrunners and friends, many of whom we know. Stef said yes so now we have a wedding to plan for next summer. It was quite a memorable night!

Chapel of love

Marcia Griffiths

Errol Dunkley

Streaktember is done, bring on Rocktober!

I managed to run every day in September as hoped. As I've posted before many of the runs were relatively short 20 or 30 minute trots round the village, but at least I'm back running (if not really training properly again yet). Stef and I have entered the Hebden and the Grizzly already for next year and Stef had a decent run at the Rab MM last weekend so things are on the up now after a lethargic spell this summer with accompanying weight gain!

It's the Bob Graham dinner in a couple of weeks so that should enable us to get a Lakeland run or two in the bag that weekend. We're both looking forward to Stef getting her BG club certificate plus seeing some of our friends for the first time in a while   

Slim Smith