Finally, a Half Marathon Runner Again!

 I've probably mentioned in passing here and there the half marathon I had been training for, and how my training had been stymied a bit by getting cellulitis in my leg, and pulling a muscle in my backside. 

Well earlier in the month I walked down to Sconce Park, full of trepidation at 745am on a slightly chilly morning, to pick up my race pack for the start at 9am. I was running for a local hospice I had raised some money for, and was resplendent in one of their "technical running shirts". 

I don't know what was that technical about it, it caused some rather painful chafing. 

A thousand runners, the vast majority of them looking rather fitter than me, were milling around, stretching, fuelling with energy drinks, bars and gels, and applying various hi performance creams to their limbs. Me, I had eaten some very retro cola bottle sweets. 

IBS is such a pain sometimes. Well, most of the time. 

A Mrs Motivator gave us a pre run stretch routine, and then we formed up in a long conga line in predicted time order. I was towards the back, with my fellow two hours 20 people. 

We then crocodiled out the park like a school trip, before beginning our run on the main road. 

I started far too fast. Of course I did. But running with the 2 hour 20 pacemaker just seemed very un-natural, so I just went off and did my own thing, knowing full well my legs were going to fall off at some point and hoping to get as far as I could before this happened. 

I was hoping to get to 10 miles. I made it to exactly 8, on the long two mile country lane section which I knew was going to be a bleak, hard and lonely section. Being a mainly rural course, there weren't the cheering crowds you get at the London Marathon. Unsurprisingly. 

The next mile and a half or so was a real struggle, more so as it was getting quite warm by now. I would force myself to run for brief sections by saying "Tree", "Sign", "Hedge" or "Water Stop" before walking again. 

Fellow runners must have thought I was going mad. 

After getting to Thorpe village, it got easier, helped by the hospice putting a cheering squad at the 11 mile mark, with the pull of home drawing me along, albeit pretty slowly. 

I trotted through the finishing line in two hours 17, and immediately drank all the things, and ate a bag of haribo like a pig. I felt pretty proud, and so did my sister, which was the loveliest part of the day. 

Now, will I do it again? 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.09.26 

Collander Eclipse Astronomy

 With eclipse glasses going for about a grand on the black market, I was never going to be able to get hold of a pair, so it soon became apparent I would have to try and see this partial solar eclipse by other means. 

Being far too dyspraxic to construct something like a pinhole projector, I went with the most low tech option of all - the humble kitchen collander and a piece of paper. 

Off I went to my chosen venue - the parched brown grass of the slope by the castle. I thought it would be kind of fun to project the sun onto the castle walls with my revolutionary optical device. 

This I did, creating little crescent suns on the brick wall at the base of the castle, and showing a couple of passing people - there was a little crowd of folk there, most of whom  were trying to ruin their eyesight by using sunglasses, or looking through their fingers. 

No wonder a lot of people reported by underwhelmed by the experience. And to be fair, I get it. Although we did get quite a pretty light for a few minutes, 10% of the sun is still a heck of a lot of light, and you need full totality to have a truly magical experience. 

But as a collective piece of citizen science, it was still fun! 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 14.08.26 

Latest Photos and Half Marathon News

 Well, it's a scorched earth out there; scenes from a JG Ballard novel as the straw brown ground supports very little in the way of flowers now. The beautiful library gardens have gone over, with only a few white scabious still in bloom. My own flowers have gone over, although the buddleia I cut back to less than a metre high is now standing at well over two metres and will hopefully soon come into flower. 

Sunny days are no longer a novelty, they just drive anyone sane for the shade. 

On Sunday 16th I will take to the local roads for the Newark Half Marathon. Training went well up until a month ago, upon which I pulled a muscle in my backside, which has limited running since then, and has stopped me entirely playing cricket. 

I'm hoping a ten mile run a month before will be enough. Mercifully, cooler weather with perhaps a dash of rain is forecast. Hopefully I can drag my sorry old body round! 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 11.08.26 

A Red Admiral - You'd Better Salute!

 No more cellulitis, but training for a half marathon on the 16th August and trying to play cricket at the same time have given me the indignity of a pulled muscle in my left buttock, and the hot weather has been very enervating for both human and wildlife alike. And that's before we (won't) talk about the debilitating bouts of IBS. 

I have kept on doing "my thing", whatever that may be, and a lot of that has involved getting a tea from Greggs or some other quality outlet, and visiting Sconce Park or the library gardens to read, clear my head. 

I have upgraded my garden with the pollinator stepladder of delight, and the various wild buddleias that have sprung out of the ground have flowered to attract more buzzers and flutterers. I did have a star visitor though, a perfect red admiral butterfly who was delighted to present itself for my irritating mobile phone camera. 

I hope you are all keeping well and enjoying the world around you, scorched and brown though it is. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 31.07.26 

Recent Butterfly Finds amidst Illness.

 Well, been a interesting couple of weeks. 

Last week, I noticed that I had a very area on my shin, and another in my inner thigh, which by Tuesday morning had turned into a more or less shin sized hot swollen area with a rash in the middle of it, plus a hot rash on my thigh. 

A hurried snap of the afflicted area was dispatched to my GP surgery with a description of the symptoms, and sure enough, later in the afternoon they texted me the confirmation of what I had already suspected. 

I had got a cellulitis infection. 

Now, normally this doesn't sound like very much, but it can lead to sepsis if you don't get on top of it quickly with antibiotics. Not fancying hospitalisation, amputation or death, I was a good boy and cycled off from work to get my prescription like a Temu Tadej Pogacar. 

Having a very hot swollen leg infection in 34C temperatures isn't really ideal, but I didn't want to get cabin fever so I did take a couple of short walks outside for a cup of tea on the market square or at the library gardens. Plenty of flutterers around at the moment - red admirals, peacocks, various whites, holly blues and the inevitable painted ladies this summer. So I was able to get a few nice photos! 

Back at work this week, and only a faint trace of rash left, so all good! 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.07.26 

Return to Bat and Ball Action

 After a fair few weeks of having been dropped, I was recalled to the side last weekend to take on Riverside CC, who were late substitutes are our scheduled league opposition dropped out. 

We wondered before the match if this was a bad idea, as they were a bunch of grown adults with rather elaborate practice drills, and when they won the toss and batted, we were thinking we were looking down the barrel at 300. 

As it turned out, they were a super bunch of lads, and although a superior standard to standard third team opposition, they were a good side for our young team to play. 

Fairly quickly it became apparent they weren't going to smash us all round the park, and our young - in the main - bowlers did a good job of containing them with some early wickets taken, including a casual one handed catch by yours truly that I only took because I thought it was a no-ball. Probably. 

With our side short of bowling, I got an early go second change with the expectation that I would bowl a full 7 over stint, which I haven't done in years. And you know, it went well for me - bowled one of their senior bats, had another caught at mid off - with a couple of wides thrown in when the ball slipped over my spinning finger. 

The last over where bowling over the wicket to a left hander was a total disaster, where I lost my rhythym completely and got spanked rather hard. 

We bowled them out for 167, with a surprise final wicket being taken by our quondam wicket keeper. 

Break time, and time for me to do some nature photography, because hey it's what I do, and reflect upon the red kite that swept majestically over the ground, the first one I've seen at Kelham Road. 

Now to batting, and as ever, I opened the...umpiring...while better bats went out there to take on the Riverside bowlers. After an early disaster when one of our openers nicked off. 

There followed a fantastic 100 stand by the aforementioned sometime keeper, and a returning senior bat who sadly has had injury problems, on one occasion being cuased by our club captain's dog running him over during a Sunday game I captained. He made batting look so easy, but after he politely retired at 50, it became a lot harder for our young bats, and we finished about 30 runs short, despite me maintaining my infinite average with a score of 6 not out. 

More importantly, this was the first game on our front ground for three years after major flooding problems, and that was the most important thing. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 03.07.26 

A Holly Blue and other Insects

 After the blistering heatwave, we've had a slightly more pleasant week so far, with me enjoying time in the library gardens, running slowly and stiffly, and playing cricket. 

The latter causing the former. 

My best encounter in this time was with a well behaved holly blue butterfly I came across in the currently very colourful library gardens. It has been so species rich in there this year, in an area about the size of two tennis courts. 

I love to sit there with a cup of tea and read, take photographs, do some sketching either "live" as it were, or from photos later, I've dabbled with waltercolour, wax pastel and soft pastel, with varying degrees of semi-competence. 

Been playing cricket again too after a long time, and golly my body hates me for it. It doesn't go well with half marathon training! 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.07.26 

Small Skippers Close the Butterfly Gap

 We have now emerged from the June butterfly gap, with the cooler weather of most of the month so far replaced with this savagely hot weather of the last few days. 

For those weeks, there was barely a butterfly to be seen, but now we are seeing the high summer species like meadow brown and ringlet in the air, and in the library gardens, a very fresh and confiding small skipper feeding off a cultivated campion. 

I spend a lot of time in the library gardens, with a tea or a cold drink, and love to take in the vivid colours while photographing the myriad of insect species that populate it. I sit and read, or sketch, and just take it all in. 

When you have Tourette's, you have to enoy the peaceful and colourful moments. 

Si 

All text and images copyright 25.06.26 

Bee Orchids Return to Campus

 They've been missing for a couple of years, but today, in the less than glamorous surroundings of a workplace smoking shed, that I came across some beautiful bee orchids in flower. 

I had been tipped off, and if it wasn't for my guide who took me there, I wouldn't have seen them in the longish grass. 

Relying on a species of bee you don't actually find in Britain to fall for their cunning apine ruse, they are self pollinating in this country, and are not uncommon. But still, I love finding them, after all they are an uncommon sight to me! 

It's been a day of intermittent heavy showers, with not much sun around until evening, but in a gap in the downpours, I came across a real bee, and a glittering swollen thighed flower beetle feeding of musk mallow that grows in a scrubby little spot next to a footpath. 

I wonder what a sunnier day will bring, as always. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 10.06.26 

Bumblebee Three Different Ways

 Struggling today with my various Tourettes and ASD associated symptoms - IBS, flaring eczema, rampant ADHD and all that stuff. 

We've been having more "Four seasons in one day" weather, and it was a brighter interlude that I got a decent capture of a buff tailed bumblebee feeding off bramble. 

In one of my fits of inspiration this evening, I decided to try and do a watercolour of it. I really am no kind of painter whatsoever, and I've never found a way of doing it that works. For this attempt, I decided to outline the subject matter in fineliner pen, before filling in with watercolours from my travel paint set. 

Not sure this has worked. 

In a flying flap of creativity, I then doubled down and did a soft pastel version which I am much more happy with, happy in the sense of not wanting to throw it on a bonfire in the morning. 

I suppose this is neurodiversity in manic action, I guess. I've started creating work relating to my Tourettes, but golly lolly gee, I won't be posting that here. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 04.06.26