Rob, Rambling - A lot of things interest me...

Two runs in three days is pretty good, right? Admittedly they were only three miles each, but that’s still six more miles than a normal week for me…

I tried a new route yesterday, as it had been raining all day and I figured that the Common would be really muddy. Unfortunately, that new route finishes with a bastard of a hill, and even more unfortunately a friend of mine came out of her house just as I’d slowed to a walk for a minute. Highly embarrassing.

Thankfully, the brief pause whilst I stopped for a quick chat was just what I needed to get enough energy back to run up the rest of the hill, and the rest of the way home.

My legs are burning today though, which is a good sign, I guess?

Oh, and the total amount of gym fees I’ve paid since I last set foot in the place? Around £130, thanks very much. You’d think that’d be motivation enough to get back there, but I just can’t find any self-discipline at all. The running at home is an effort to reconvince myself that I actually enjoy doing exercise.

I have an aversion to pregnancy and small babies, it seems. I met up with a friend of mine for a quick bit of lunch earlier, and she’s seven months pregnant, blooming and pretty big.

I quite enjoyed chatting about the ins and outs of how it’s affecting her, but when she asked if I’d like to feel the bump and the movement coming from inside her, I politely declined. Well, in truth I think I made a face and said something “gross, no thanks”, but it’s all the same.

It just doesn’t appeal, feeling something that’s not quite alive moving around inside someone else. I’m not usually squeamish about many things, but that’s one.

And it’s a similar story once they’re out in the world: a colleague stopped into the office with her four month-old girl yesterday, the first time we’d seen either of them since she went off on maternity leave. Whilst she was very cute, and I liked making faces at her and her grabbing my finger, when it came to being offered to hold her, again I politely refused.

This time, I used the excuse of the girlfriend never forgiving me if I went home and told her that I’d been holding a baby, but in reality it’s more a case of me being really, really nervous about doing something like dropping the damn thing.

Seriously, I wouldn’t trust myself to hold onto a baby. I’m not clumsy, but I would definitely have a million “what if” thoughts running through my head, and by the time I’d hand her back I’d be in a state of panic with all sorts of horrible scenarios already played through to conclusion in my mind.

Maybe it’s best if I don’t have kids for a little while…

Who has two thumbs and saved himself at least £70 by managing to fix his flat’s toilet by himself and avoiding calling out a plumber?

THIS GUY!

Yep, a bit of lateral thinking, some superglue and I managed to get our loo flushing again. Sometimes I amaze myself with my handyman skills.

(Not really, as when we first moved in here I got our non-functioning oven to start working by electrocuting myself as I took apart its wall socket. My methods may be unconventional, but they get results!)

OK, so I may have had a sausage+egg sandwich for breakfast. But I did go to the gym just now, and am munching a mixed bean salad for lunch.

Two good things cancel out a bad thing, right?

RIGHT?

Man, I really wish that I had written to my MP about the increase in tax on cider. That would be a hell of a first entry to politics, getting a reply on that topic. Priorities!

For the first time in forever, it was still daylight when I got home. I forget that daylight savings time kicks in so swiftly every year.

Now I’ve got no excuse not to throw on the trainers each night and go for a run. Well, save for today, because it is/has been raining all day, obviously.

Things I need:

• an editor.

• or at least an editor in my head.

Seriously, I just write and write. I’d be useless at writing to a word count, I really would.