Two and a half weeks before D-day

It's a shame in a way that I am feeling the need to 'share', when I really haven't yet done anything of interest. I'm sitting at my desk, overlooking the gentle bosomy hills of North Shropshire. My feet are a little chilly thanks to the draft from the french windows, but otherwise I have no physical discomfort to complain of. I will be sleeping in a centrally-heated bedroom tonight after an evening meal that will without doubt involve a minimum of one meat and two veg, and with the exception of the odd frog that takes me by suprise, I do not feel in the least threatened by my direct environment. That said, I do think we underestimate the impact of hair-straightners on the UK's domestic security risk, but apart from that, physically, there's not much to worry about from my point of view (apart from over-use of metaphors involving creatures such as blue-arsed flies and kangaroos-on-speed having actual physical repercussions, but then we're into Hogwarts territory, and I think I'd best leave that to Ms. Rowling).

Quite why I'm writing this with two weeks 'til we begin our journey I'm not sure, but it does bring me to the point that only when in a quagmire of trial and tribulation or on an endless test of physical endurance is one allowed to get away with a truly self-indulgent online diary.

"I'm running the London Marathon in April!"
"Ooh, that's amazing! You could write a training blog."

Is it not wierd, that as soon as someone does something hard, they feel the need to put pen to paper? Surely they should be focussing as much energy as possible on getting that hard thing done. Or not...

"I'm running the London Marathon in April! And I'm writing a training blog - you should read it" (CLOSE MOUTH) ... because if I'm going to be the only person who understands how fucking hard it is, what the hell would be the point in doing it?

I labour under no illusion that I am doing this for your pleasure.

I was forced to sleep in my car near the Elephant and Castle the other week. This perhaps sits better in the 'ard, rather than hard, category of things to do, but still is probably the closest I've ever come to sleeping in a tent in rural sub-Saharan Africa: I was thrice woken by the cries of wild animals (next time, I'm taking the North Shropshire Fox Hounds with me), but I respected the natural habitat (careful off-street parking) and any creature that might have caused me trouble would have been more afraid of me than I of them (specifically the wide-eyed clubbers spilling out of the Ministry at 6am).

Don't worry, soon I will be doing something reeee-ally hard and will tell you all about it... just bear with me.