Holiday: Done!

And, wow. It was a lovely lovely week but my dog it wasn't easy on the wallet, spending more on tests than on the plane tickets! And of course it was stressful as things always take more time than you expect (I didn't have a lot of free time when I arrived thanks to arriving at the wrong terminal and needing to take two buses). Plus on the way back, my stupid prepaid reference number for the prepaid day 2 test wouldn't go into the stupid government site as it was too short, so I couldn't check in for the stupid flight, and I only managed to get around it all by pure luck, otherwise known as, I told the stupid site I'm exempt from testing and they let me through passport control without questioning it 😐 Obviously I did the test anyway since I'd paid for it, but what an idiotic system... it was squeaky bum time and I made it to the gate with minutes to spare.

As for work, I am still not doing fabulous at my time management and it is going to Be Discussed, which I'm pretty bummed about but not much I can do. I just literally run out of time. I still didn't even manage everything tonight and for the entire shift I got only a 10min break to wolf down a sandwich (I'm supposed to get 90 minutes, but that just Never.Ever.Happens). Boss Lady does pay me the breaks but I'm still... tired, worn out and not completing my tasks. Sigh. It's sad times when you wonder for the 110th time whether maybe you can afford to just retire a few decades early 😁 

Free: pasta salad, milk, radishes, lettuce, and a BLT.

Four Days

Four days I waited after my Ouchrun, thinking that since my muscles felt ok, it was enough recovery time before hitting the gym.

No. No it was not. I merrily started my brisk walk on the treadmill but when I broke into the run, everything hurt. And not just the usual sore muscle thing, which wouldn't have bothered me in the least. Joints ached and it was actual pain. To be honest it was actually very irritating as I was quite in the mood to get the heart going, but I'm also a big fan of listening to my body and I'd clearly done myself more injury than I had realised.

I spent a shift with Grace and took her through the basics. It was a reminder of just how ridiculous my task list is during a shift, when I actually wrote it all down and filled an A4 sheet just with the basics. Grace did handle everything really well (although I don't expect so much information to all penetrate in one go) but she did remark in surprise at the sheer number of tasks. Quite separate from Parkrun and the gym, my feet hurt every single day. Nine hours on my feet without a proper break, sigh. Normal normal.

Must keep the faith, flight is booked to visit the kids in Finland and I cannot wait.

Shopping Experiment

So this week I had a bit of a chuckle as a grammar pedant ranted about people beginning their sentences with "so". 😁

Ahem. This week there has been an offer in the newspaper whereby you can present a little coupon and get £5 off a £25 shop at German Affordable Competitor Supermarket (GACS). Ordinarily I would ignore this offer - in fact I managed to forget to use their "sign up with the app and get a fiver" deal last year and missed out. But this time, well, the vouchers came at me free so I wondered if I might at least stock up on some snack products to go in my lunch box. When I buy these at work, I generally only touch the "on sale" lines which is annoying and disappointing when the ones I actually want require a mortgage, so the experiment was to see whether I could get generic versions with some flavour variation.

Well. I figured this would be easy, then I stupidly began in the fresh foods section. Half way through the store and before I even got to the snacks, I'd reached the £25. Ok then... I paid, put that in the car (ready meals and yoghurts and desserts and basically food our little convenience store doesn't have) then went back for a round two and a second voucher. Only their snack selection was a bit disappointing. I did manage to reach the minimum but only by doing a second lap and buying extras. Annoyingly, I saw that some of their staple branded items were more than our price! How is that even possible? I feel like I've been sold a lie 😐

Anyway, just over £40 spent and mixed results. The "goat's cheese and butternut squash" frittata that I spotted and was so looking forward to tasted like an egg with potato cooked in, basically boring as hell. I did get a massive tub of their yoghurt potato salad which I used to buy years ago and that is lovely. The luxury lemon cheesecake was ok but not worth the luxury price tag. And I forgot to buy coffee! The horror!

Related: the horror of Pugsley not starting on an early shift and being rescued by a co-worker when no taxis were to be had anywhere in the town. Also the horror of £110 for a new battery. But hey, the one in Pugsley, which testing showed had a 9A capacity out of 300A, was the original 13-year-old battery. I definitely got my money's worth out of that and it's a miracle it was even starting most days.

Ouchrun

So there's this thing called Parkrun where 200-odd insane people get together every Saturday and run 5k around a park. I've known about it for ages and always wondered why anyone thinks that's enjoyable in any way. But since I heard rumours that you can walk it, and since I found out my colleague goes every week and achieves similar times to my treadmill 5k, I thought, hell why not?

Well recently I've discovered "why not" and Now I Know Better. I didn't come last, I managed to beat five people (possibly in wheelchairs, on crutches or with walking frames). It felt like I pushed myself harder than ever before. It felt like 10k. It was, quite frankly, horrible, and I missed my time estimate by a long way. This rumour that people walk the 5K? No. No they do not. Not one person walked it all. The slowest of the bunch power walked alternating with jogging (like I did). I felt like I was dying and also on fire, and barely able to brain enough to think: I need to stay ahead of the marshals right at the back. Embarrassing.

I've literally pulled muscles SO badly that when I crouched down to work on bottom shelves that afternoon at work, I was in agony and considered just assigning that task to someone else. Muscles in agony on the same day is a new one for me. I really, truly overdid it and soreness gets worse on day 2 and 3... So if you're looking for a nice, relaxing and enjoyable little bit of fun at your local park, I recommend not Parkrun.

Having said that, I really highly expect that once I pick up my fitness a bit more a whole lot more, I might revisit the idea. The people were nice and they even played Eye of the Tiger as we were nearing the end 😂

Spendy McSpenderson: Plane ticket (WOOHOO!) plus pre-departure and post-return Covid tests all booked. 

Umwhat?

Boss Lady is going away for a week, and as she had stuff to do, she took me aside at lunchtime to prep me for the week ahead. Ok, cool. So I'm nodding along as she lists a bunch of stuff. She's already done ABC reports, Work Bestie is going to take care of X, Cousin Store's manager will drop in on Friday to make sure everything's ok, and you might get a visit from Checklist Lady, but that's no drama because reasons, reasons, reasons and all you need to do is show her paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Cool, cool, cool. And of course you'll keep managing the rota and filling overtime. Yeah fine.

Then she drops the bombshell, Oh, and I'm going to make you acting manager while I'm away.

Wait wtf what? I actually asked if she was insane.

I still actually think she's insane. I don't know what I'm doing.

I have a favourite minion, Coco, who is just so ready to be a trainee team leader, and I eventually convinced Demiboss to let Coco take over in the mornings so that she could learn. It went really well, and I was just about to arrange the same for the evening shift, when... she successfully scored a position elsewhere as a team leader 😭 I am thrilled for her but crushed for us. So I've now put all my energy into training Grace. I've learned the hard way and am not nagging for permission this time, I'm just doing it then announcing: hey, it's done! Wish me luck.

Derpina Here

I even look like Derpina.

During the week I decided to buy myself a cheap padlock for the gym lockers, from eBay. Being my usual derpy self, I've ordered one far too small. So, seeing the bigger ones were only £5 from the gym vending machine, I merrily selected my item and looked down to realise I had purchased... not a padlock, but a gym entry keyfob. Well. I suppose it's lucky I was thinking about one of those anyway... derp again. Bought locker padlock successfully then got changed for my workout.

I reasoned that having walked up the incredibly steep cliff pathway to get home yesterday, it would not be a wise idea to push myself too hard at the gym. (Can I just add here that I looked up at the horror of the cliff pathway, steeled myself for absolute agony in climbing it, and was pleasantly surprised not to find it as awful as expected? My fitness is clearly picking up.)

But anyway, I could definitely feel it in my calves today and I had decided to only walk on the treadmill. But did I? Nope. After walking ten minutes I felt loosened up ok, and figured I'd do the walk-run repeat I usually do. So I went into my usual slow jog, and by usual slow jog I mean start jogging, be desperate for air after ten seconds and finally stumble back into a walk after 45 seconds. Well, I made it to 75 seconds each time and that is a record for me. It was a slow 5k but I still got my 5k in.

I am sure that tomorrow I'll feel crippled with sore muscles, because well, because derp.

Derpina then came out to the car and realised she hadn't eaten dinner and, well, a McDonalds was had. Why did I even go to the gym again?

Spendy McSpenderson: A dashcam and memory card. 

Forward Marching

I have escaped the plague lurgy... for now.

I made a list of eleven things I should do on my day off. I've done... one. Writing a blog post was not in the list, by the way, but I'm the master of procrastination. (I paused here, like a good procrastinator, and I've now checked off four items.)

Went to the beach: another check.

Since September marks the second month running that I've forgotten to post my monthly extra earnings, I'm just going to stop. They're very low now because I've lost interest in a lot of them and I'm often working six days a week (such as the last two). This week I went to Sister Store and looked after their bakery for the morning, which is much busier than ours, but it was a nice change to just roll my sleeves up and do my thing. Demiboss called me today and tried to get me to work at Other Sister Store. I think it's the first time I've ever answered "No" so quickly and with such conviction 😂

Dinner: Thai green curry ready meal.

Good Times!

I'm a little bit snotty and clearing my throat a lot. I'm... vaguely aware of an achy chest and unsure as to whether I have a diminished sense of taste. I took an allergy tablet but I am still very unsure as to whether I'm getting ill. I don't feel fluey and don't have a temperature. The rapid antigen home kit says negative. But I have ordered a home PCR testing kit (the big gun) which is far more accurate and should arrive tomorrow.

I got stuck into my kitchen, cleaned it and cooked up six meals just in case I begin to feel absolutely rotten.

The app has pinged me and told me to isolate for 9 days, which is ironic since I am double jabbed and don't even have to self-isolate. I will go into the Big Supermarket tonight when it is dead quiet, buy myself milk and bread, use the self-scan while wearing mask and gloves, and lather everything in hand gel. And then I shall stay the heck at home until I know.