And Relax...

Holiday over, and back to work today. Boo hiss.

Still, I did have a fine time while I was away. Luckily, the weather held for the most part, so I was able to bask in bright, un-Scottish sunshine for almost the entire week. I've even managed to get one of those absurd t-shirt tans, where I'm the colour of fine mahogany on my face and forearms, but still a sickly, pasty white on my torso from the neck down. My arms and face look like I'm quite healthy and outdoors-y, but the rest of me looks a bit like I've been living underground for the past five years.

'Twas a bit of a hectic week, but I loved every minute of it. During the day, I was working like a navvy, lugging buckets of stone chippings, sand and other heavy stuff around for hours on end. And breaking big stones into smaller stones with a tiny hammer, which was surprisingly satisfying.

Me and my Dad are still (perhaps foolishly) entertaining the notion of running the West Highland Way, so there was a lot of running going on as well. My first day there, I flippantly made the comment that I didn't want to run for less than two hours a day - unfortunately, my Dad held me to that, and woke me up at six every morning for a two hour/two and a half hour run every single day afterwards.

God, but Pitlochry is hilly. Lots of beautiful scenery, but it's very up and down (and mostly up). High hills to tackle early in the morning. But it was lovely to run through wooded paths and plant my feet on bare earth rather than the usual concrete pavements I run on here in Dundee. Here in this city I count as home, I run the same course day in, day out - seven days in Pitlochry, we took a different route every time.

Also ran the furthest I've ever ran ever on Saturday. Three hours: up Ben Vrackie, then downhill towards Killicrankie, and back to Pitlochry. Ate a sandwich the size of my head, then ran another three hours (and four minutes) doing the same course the othe way round. Six hours of running in one day. I'm hopelessly proud of that, but at the same time I'm aware that it's impressive only to me.

At one point a butterfly fluttered before me and my Dad - kept pace with us for at least a mile or two. Quite touching, until I realised that, like all the woodland creatures, it had realised how slow we were going, and was probably just taking the piss. Not long after that, I swear I saw a fox giving us the finger.

Holiday...

As of today (or Monday, if you're a pedant) I'm on holiday. Hoo-bloody-rah. Not a moment too soon - I don't want to bore you with work stuff (I bore myself enough with it already, but then I do get paid for it), but, due to circumstances beyond my control, my current project has just descended into a cut-and-paste fest that seems to be interminable. A brand new circle of hell. With none of it any of my my doing! Aargh! Jam fingers in ears, slam face into keyboard whilst humming the latest maddeningly catchy (but still hopelessly bland) tune that Radio 2 have decided to put on "high rotation" on their playlist. Repeat as desired.

And relax. Full stop, draw a line under it - that's the last little bit of thought I'm going to give to work until I'm back there and have to face the sprawling monstrosity of my current project once again. It breathes fire and everything.

I'm on holiday now. Holiday! My timing being as poor as ever, I think I've managed to miss to the bulk of the heatwave we've been having here in the UK by a very thin margin - I'll be just in time to get the rainy, humid and possibly thunderstorming aftermath of Scotland actually having some nice weather for a change. Looking out my bedroom window as I write this, it's all misty and mysterious out there - very romantic looking (in a pea-soup, Jack the Ripper kind of way), but not the kind of cloudless, sun-kissed skies I was hoping for.

Anyway - I'm off to Pitlochry tomorrow to begin my holiday proper. I'll be staying with my Mum and Dad for a week, laying slabs and generally helping them out with their garden. Do I know how to party or what? Slab-tastic.

All sarcasm aside, I am actually really looking forward to it. Hard physical labour will actually be a relief compared to the cutting and pasting stuff I'm currently doing as I sit on my arse in an increasingly comfortable chair.

Me and my Dad have been speaking about running the West Highland Way recently - it's something he really wants to do, and I think it'd be an adventure and a real achivement to accomplish. Only thing is - the West Highland Way is very, very long, 95 miles, to be exact. And my Dad also wants to run up Ben Nevis - the UK's highest mountain - at the end of it as well.

Now, my Dad's ran more marathons than I've had hot dinners. I thought I was catching up when I had a particularly steaming stew at a friend's house, but that's just a stupid joke. I've never ran a marathon. Done a couple of half-marathons, and at the moment I'm running 12 miles a night, but I've never actually ran for more than three hours at a time. Doing the West Highland Way the way we want to do it will mean running a marathon a day for four days in a row. Then running up a big fuck-off mountain. I'm more than a little concerned, as I hope you'll understand...

So, intermixed with slab-laying, I'll also be running like a bastard. I'll try to take some pictures as I go. I'm sure I'll love it, but it seems a bit daunting at the moment. Me and my Dad have already agreed that we should do a six-hour run (up a couple of mountains) just to prepare for immanent death/long distance achievement.