The Running Man

Today I cycled to the seafront where it was very busy. We went via the laundrette so that Jof could finish the laundry: she was unwilling to use the washing machine because it was sparking and making electrical disturbances and whiffs of ozone, all very healthy.
Fences abound and blocked our path, luckily you can carry bikes over obstacles etc. We arrived about 11 minutes before the hooter was due to go for the Great South Mini Run, and even then I got bored.
Straight away we found Ex-Puddler Emma so I started next to her, and I also saw Poppy, Bertie and Elizabeth.
The bloke on the rostrum did a little dance that we had to copy and told us we should already have eaten a banana for breakfast, sadly I'd had a fry-up so no luck there. The road was full of kids in pink shirts although some of the braver ones had refused to wear pink. The pavements were full of parents with cameras and quite a lot of runners had their Daddies with them, but I had resolutely refused to be accompanied and made him leave the Adult Accompanier ticket at home.
The hooter hooted and we all sprinted off to many cheers and hurrahs. After the big loop round the crazy golf course I saw Jof who had done the laundry and I only walked once, honest. I did it in 9 minutes 30 seconds, not bad for a first time also with a slight tummy-related handicap, I shall return next year. My face got as pink as my shirt but who's counting.
At the end you get herded round the corner by stewards on bikes and even more fences and I got a goodie bag with my very own metal medal! It's the first time I've won a medal for ages, I got one when I was 4 years and 1 month old, when I cycled without training wheels for the first time, and I got a few for schools gymnastics. My bedpost is absolutely covered in medals but the rest are either Great South Run ones earned by Bud, or plastic efforts saying I've been on the Needles Chairlift ride etc.
We had a cup of tea by the Skatepark to get my breath back and cycled home to do Lego.
But it wasn't long before we went out again and dropped Jof off at Giant Marks and Spencer in Hedge End, for she loves big shops like that. We continued west and bought a 6-pounder artillery shell off a man in Totton for a tenner, as you do. I put it on my arm and pretended to be the liquid metal terminator, because that's practically all I talk about nowadays.

A Fungi to be with

But we did have time to rediscover Millbrook Park in Southampton where I climbed and swung and did all the stuff I never get to do at home. The zipline is missing its rope and the spinning cup falls over but the climbing frame is ace and the park didn't have mattresses instead of trampolines like the one just up the road, and it wasn't on fire like the one in Somerstown.
I got an ice cream (of course) and we wandered the rather large open spaces and found a little yearling frog and a lot of mushrooms like the ones that Dave Lister fed to Rimmer for his special breakfast. It was a magical time. A chap kept riding his motorbike over the fields.
When we got back to Hedge End we scoured Giant Sainsbury's in disbelief looking for her but she hadn't even made it out of M+S, turns out the shop was so big she'd got lost in it. We spent oodles and got home in the dark.