First Day of the Holidays

I am off work for two weeks.  Hooray!  I bought two lucky dips for Euromillions on Friday night.  With any (i.e. a hugely unlikely amount of) luck, I’ll not need to go back.  I’m deliberately not checking them yet – might as well leave a glimmer of hope for as long as possible.  If the news starts going on about the mystery winner from Dunbar, then feel free to get in touch with me and spoil the surprise.

I’m not going away away this year.   I’m economising – I’ve got plenty of things planned to do, but my view is that you don’t always need to spend a fortune on flights and accommodation.  We have a perfectly serviceable house and car, and there is lots still to see and do in the UK.

First up was a long slow early morning run with my new camera.  Jo got me it for my birthday recently.  It’s a Nikon in the same family as Jamie’s little pink camera, but an upgrade in terms of pixels and zoom.  Although still small enough to fit comfortably in the hand for 20 miles, and modest enough not to cause too many tears if I accidentally drop it or fall on it.

Buzzard?

Horses?

A crop circle - probably caused by flooding, but you never know

I saw lots of thistles on the run, which reminded me of a conversation I had with Gordon E at the Turf Cutting Run the other week.  I’d told him that our eldest Jack is going for his first boys holiday to Corfu, and that it has all the makings of The Inbetweeners movie.  Worryingly he is the sensible one of the four going.  He asked me if his European health insurance card would still work after the Brexit vote.  I said yes, but that it wouldn’t cover removal of ill-advised drunken tattoos.  Gordon told me about one of his daughters’ similar holidays from a few years back.  One of the boys she went with had (in spite of warnings not to) decided that he wanted a tattoo of a thistle.  The local Magaluf artist had never seen one before so there was a protracted explanation of what a thistle was.  The artist suddenly seemed to get it, and set to work.  Producing a pineapple.  Well, they’re both jaggy in places.