On Saturday I took part in a Parkrun, first in six months. I’ll tell you about some visitors and the latest adventures with decluttering the Quirky Museum.
Here at the Quirky Museum we had some nice visitors come to stay, also some really creepy ones turned up.
Firstly the nice visitors arriving were a group of five, all crammed into a little VW with a huge volume of luggage. They were enroute from a baptist church in Exeter to help refugees in Moldova, via us and Luton Airport. We were delighted to be a small link in a very long chain bringing help and support to needy folk in Eastern Europe. I think this will happen again.
The creepy visitors were a pair of mannequins turning up in the boot of someone’s car. As we opened the boot to bring them into the house, it must have looked like something out of a grizzly crime scene unfolding. I should say the mannequins are for a display in the village church and my task is to make some wooden stands. I thought I’d mention that, in case anyone was driving past the house and thought they saw something a bit weird. Weird it certainly was, but nothing dodgy.
Another group of six visitors was for a trustee meeting of a charity I have recently become involved in. We had a meeting, using our dining room table where we all sat around. Rachel was on tea duty while I kept good order in the meeting.
We are so pleased to have hosted these – and other – visitors. We want our home to be alive and buzzing, not a silent, dusty museum, although I’m quite content for it to be a bit quirky.
Parkrun
And the Parkrun…. well I got in touch with my Parkrun buddies Rosie and Dave. We met up at Houghton Regis and for me it was the first time since last October, 6 or 7 months ago. Since becoming a runner in my forties, this is the longest I have been without running. Although I had had a couple of short jogs, this was the first proper run.
Feeling a little apprehensive and doubtful about my ability to make it around the 5k course, I positioned myself right at the back, by the tail walker. The whistle blew, or perhaps it was the starting gun, or maybe something else; I was so far back I couldn’t hear a thing. I then realised I hadn’t started Strava on my phone so it was a bit of a slow, fiddly start. Before I knew it I was jogging slowly. After a while it seemed painfully slow and so I started to overtake a few runners.
Once I was half way around the first lap, I spotted Rosie ahead and managed to catch her up. I spent the remaining time running alongside her and we were continuously chatting away. As we reached the finish line I said “Rosie don’t let me beat you!” and so she sped up a little. I matched her speed and encouraged her to go faster to the line. It would have been so uncool for me to beat her as I would have felt like a fraud or a mean cheat.
I felt so encouraged. I made it around in 33 minutes. Quite a slow time compared to before but then I haven’t run in all that time. Perhaps it’s not too bad for a 60 year old bloke to run non-stop for 33 minutes and feel okay? My foot? Well that’s another thing. It is painful in exactly the same place as before. So now I am looking at more standing on one foot, more wobbling around and seeing the physiotherapist once again.
Decluttering
Rachel has been soldiering on with the decluttering process. Mostly things which have been inherited and where some care is needed. To the untrained eye (like mine) it might look like a pile of junk. Not so. The decluttering process is, sometimes it must be said, somewhat painstaking although it it definitely worth it.
So what has been uncovered this week?
There was, what appeared to be, a first edition Agatha Christie book, Ten Little N*ggers. Now hardly a PC title, which may or may not help things. Rachel thought it was a first edition and this was duly verified. What made it slightly curious was the different coloured book cover (or ‘boards’ as they say in books parlance). It turns out the dark grey-ish blue was a proof reading copy and this was backed up by the occasional typo which had been underlined in pencil. The book was cheaply constructed with a guillotine cut being on the crude side, or so I thought. We(!) got quite a bit of interest and it did go to an appreciative buyer in Nottingham who appears to be a private collector.
Another curiosity was a Mickey Mouse clock, from the 1930s. Not a hugely valuable vintage clock but one where Rachel felt some attachment. It was given to her father, so he could have it at his boarding school. The family had, by the way, felt they needed to retreat from their string of unprofitable businesses with the last being in Canada, where her father was born. The return from Canada coincided with Rachel’s father then needing an education. So they returned to the UK in straightened circumstances and could only afford a house in Royston (complete with staff) from where he was sent to a poor-man’s Eton
Speaking of Rachel’s father, his old cheque book from the 1940s was discovered. After a great deal of fascination in reading the various cheque stubs, it was decided it had to go. Go, that is, via eBay. It was bought by someone who collects cheque books from that very bank – perhaps somebody who also has a train spotter mentality?
So another week of pressing ahead, albeit at a fairly gentle pace but satisfying nevertheless. Thoughts of my forthcoming New York trip have been overshadowed by my mother going down with Covid. Thankfully, as I write, she seems to be on the mend, although it has been a worrying time. She does have a neighbour who is a Doctor and he has been looking in on her and seems fairly relaxed about things. Phew.