Pains, Training and Automobiles

As usual the plan is for an early morning run so I get back my Friday night. It's less rushed than usual as I'm working from home so no commute. However nothing is that simple in the Gardner household. The car needs an Mot so I've booked it in for 7:30am. The plan is to drop the car off in Hammersmith and I've worked out a 3 mile route to run home. Claudia (5 months old) is finally getting a bit of a sleep routine, so after a feed at 2am I expect sleep until 6ish. George (2.5 years) has other ideas. George is not feeling well and threw up Thursday night at about 8pm. Then from midnight to 6 I was up 5 times and Sharon twice. That breaks down 4 requests for water, 1 general "feel unwell daddy" and 2 falling out of bed. So after a night where the longest period of sleep was 55 minutes (yes I timed it) I got up at 7 and left the house at 7:20am. It's cold and raining and as I pull away in the car and flick on the wipers I find that the driver-side wiper is broken - must have slipped Sharon's mind as unimportant when I said I was taking the car for an Mot. I drop the car off 5 minutes later. The burly Polish mechanics do give each other strange looks as I step out of the car in my short running shorts and bright red top, hand in the keys, stick in my earphones and trot off. The run is good fun, 3 miles is an easy run and the streets are fairly quiet. The rain is quite heavy and very cold and the main problem is avoiding the puddles and flooded pavements. I reach home just after 8am and while I am cooling down and eating my slice of wholemeal toast the mobile goes off - it's the garage, the car has passed with the exception of a broken wiper which they've replaced. Good news is the car has passed, bad news is that I've just lost my lunch hour - I've got to collect the car.


FCB - 4 DP -1 H- 0