Daffy's Garden

It's been a funny sort of a day. A standing-in-queues, walking-uphill-in-the-rain kind of day. You know, those days where you get a few things done, but they're functional things, not really cheery things, and at the end of the day you don't feel particularly satisfied. Well, I didn't, not today.

I should acknowledge this partly stems from a set of unrealistic expectations I have of myself around a bit of voluntary work I'm doing for some very nice people, who don't at all have unrealistic expectations of me, and are in fact, Very Nice Indeed. There, I said it out loud, so hopefully that'll make me take some notice.

Anyway, as the evening wore on, I have to accept that Nothing More was going to get done, and admit defeat. But it's just not very nice admitting defeat and then just going to bed, because then you still don't feel like you've got anything useful done.

And there was no milk for a restorative cup of tea.

It was time to pull my socks up, literally, put on my running kit, and trot out of the door for a little plod. I don't know whether I've mentioned running much on here. I love it, and I'm incredibly slow, to the point of stopping a lot, walking even more, and sometimes not even getting out of the door at all. I've been known to stop to buy jelly beans in the middle of a race. That's how much I care about winning.

But I do love running, especially when I've been doing it regularly for a few weeks, like I have been now, and I can do more than stagger for 30 seconds at a time. I love the freedom I feel, I love the way it lifts my spirits, I love the scenery, the sights and the sounds. And I love my gorgeous online running community, over at Runner's World, who were my introduction to the wonderful world of online friendliness and cheeriness, and who I count as Real LIfe Friends. Some of them are over there in my blog list with blogs of their own. Some of them even talk about running!

Oops, wandered off the topic there for a minute... The point of all that was to say, I laced up my trainers and went out for a little slow plod in the dark and the rain, and I plodded away for 20 minutes without stopping (a rare thing round here, I have to tell you), and I felt so SO much better. And now I'm home, I feel quite giddy with the cheeriness of it all.

And then I remembered I hadn't posted pictures of my lovely purple flowers I picked up from the bargain bin at the florist yesterday. I don't often buy cut flowers, but I'd been promising myself a few tulips at the weekend for a while. Then I spotted these, and they were so irresistible that I just couldn't resist. I'm glad I didn't, because they're making me very happy indeed.