Started last Monday with the usual full day at nursery, cut short at 5pm when Ed collected me to lay a run trail for OCH3 round the South Norwood/Woodside area. It looks unremittingly urban from the road that passes our school, apart from a smallish triangle of grass with Victorian water trough and War Memorial that forms Woodside Green itself; but in fact there's a pleasant Country Park round the back, and a couple of other small parks and recreation grounds/sports fields as well, so that in the end we cobbled together quite a nice green run. Except it was dark and raining, but that's the nature of November evenings... After our >10 mile trek (setting the trail, then jogging it again after the pack) I realised I'd left my car keys in school, so we had to drive home, collect my spare keys and drive back to pick up my car and drive home again! Dunno what time I finally fell into bed.

Tuesday was of normal length, work and effort wise, which was just as well as I was slightly less than my usual bouncy self!

On Wednesday after work Irene and I went to visit our colleague who is unwell, who had arrived home from hospital earlier that day. It was lovely to see her, but a bit upsetting too. She is tired but unremittingly cheerful and upbeat.

Then Thursday was another marathon. Irene and I stopped working just before 5pm and did our usual Thursday evening 3 mile jog round the block a little early, as I had a Governor's meeting at 6pm which went on till well after 8pm. It was a full governing body so a dead bore as it just precised everything that went on in committee, so I was nodding off by the end. Luckily my dear husband had just got back from the chip shop when I finally arrived home, so no need to cook - hooray!

Consequently Friday and Saturday were taken at a leisurely pace, with lies in, some slow housework and laundry, phone calls to Mum, emailing and genealogy, a bit of gentle Christmas shopping for nice people (not the difficult ones that I leave till last!) and vegetating in front of the telly. Lovely!

More running today (am I a glutton for punishment or not?)followed by a Birthday Lunch at our friend's with the other hashers, a bit of genealogy with my new found distant cousin on the Bradley side and looking forward to Strictly Come Dancing and Cranford this evening.

Christmas starts at school tomorrow - "Colour Magic" computer pictures to be turned into calendars, and "10 Tubby Snowmen" in singing!

"What shall we do today?" "I dunno" so we read the papers. Later "What do you fancy doing?" "I'd got nothing planned, except a load of washing, what do you want to do?" We stayed in.

As it happened the grey day got greyer and now it's raining, so we probably made the right decision. And I've had a lovely time with my genealogy, exposing a family of liars!

I've been unearthing the hidden facts that Albert William LOCKING (1888-1954) of Ontario, Canada was actually born Albert William JONES in England, possibly even in Lincolnshire; that his brother Percy Ludwig Locking (1892-1917) was only a half brother, born Percy Ludwig WEBB, who had a full sister Myrtle Amelia Webb (b 1893) who also became Myrtle Amelia Locking; and that of four siblings only the youngest, Grace Adelaide LOCKING b 1898 was the only one who was the blood daughter of John Ludwig LOCKING.

Once John Ludwig had married Annie Adelaide WEBB, nee JONES, all the children took his name. Which is fair enough. But he later claimed to be their father on official documents, which is a shame for at least Charles Percy WEBB, the true father of the middle two.

Annie Adelaide is a mysterious figure. She claimed to have been born in Wrexham c 1868, daughter of Albert and Florence JONES, but I can find no reference to her in either the BMD or 1871 or 1881 censuses. She was in Canada by 1891 - but their 1891 census has not been published online yet.

I collected the first installment of my new glasses today. No, not just one lens, but the "free spare pair" you get in the "two for the price of one" deal at the optician's. As far as I can tell, it's two pairs for the price of two quite expensive enough pairs, but it's like similar deals at the supermarket, you can't actually get just the one at a discount - one pair on it's own would be almost the price of two.

Anyway.

The reason I've got the spare pair first is that my main pair are rimless again, and they take longer to make up. I could have waited and collected both pairs at once on Saturday week, but having seen the difference the new prescription makes, I thought I ought to be wearing them as soon as possible.

I've been thinking for some time that I wasn't seeing quite as well as before; I'd also begun to develop the occasional 5 o'clock headache, which isn't me at all, and the clincher was having to take my glasses off to read, even though they are varifocals.

But it wasn't until I was having my eye test that I realised just how badly I needed new specs. Those nice square letters (invisible to the naked eye in my case, but nicely legible with my glasses on) had transformed into nasty elongated blurry things, even in my specs. The optician says that I'm as myopic as ever, and have now also developed an interesting new astigmatism in my left eye.

But now I'm wearing my new "free" spare pair of glasses, which cost the arm in the arm and a leg deal and all has become clear again. And all square.

As usual on a Hash Remembrance Sunday, we stood for our two minutes' silence before the run. This year our GM spoke about two uncles of his that he was never to know, as they were both killed on board mine sweepers in World War 2.

My thoughts turned as they frequently do to my genealogy research. Recently some Military Pension Documents have become available online, and I've been looking up members of my family. Today I thought of William East Bulley:
Records show that he was born in 1896 in Hertford Heath, and got a job as a footman in a large household. He enlisted on 11 Aug 1914, aged 18. He went to France 1 Jun 1915 with the British Expeditionary Force and was shot in the scalp 15 July. He was treated in the military hospital at Versailles and returned to duty a couple of weeks later. In Feb 1916 he sprained his left ankle badly, but was back in action by April, when he was shell shocked and deafened by gunfire on three separate occasions. He continued in action until 3 July 1917, when he came under gunfire again and was hit in the neck, abdomen and groin. His injuries were serious, and he was shipped home to the UK after treatment in Boulogne hospital. He died in England 1 Oct 1919 and is buried in Little Amwell, where his cousin Thomas Locking's name is also on the casualty list on the War Memorial.

We set off to view the Millais exhibition at Tate Britain - we've always been fond of the Pre-Raphaelites, and one or two of his paintings are amongst our all time favourites.
Arriving at East Croydon however, news of a broken down train at Redhill decided us to take the London Bridge train, instead of the Victoria one we'd gone for, and do our usual London walk back to front for a change, starting from the South Bank and wending our way North.
It turned out to be a good idea. We hit Borough Market too early to buy food to carry around and bring home, but just nicely to buy lunch on the go, in the form of goose rolls followed by lardy cake. (I'd heard of lardy cake, but never before tasted it - similar to Chelsea bun really - fruity and delicious!)

Tate Modern, not Britain, was now our first art stop. We were amazed by the new installation - "Shibboleth" by Doris Salcedo. She has created a large fissure down the middle of the gallery floor, starting with a hairline crack near the door, and gradually deepening to about 50cm deep and 15cm wide towards the rear of the turbine hall. And that's it!
As usual, I'm not quite convinced it's art, and was certainly left spiritually unmoved in the ways suggested by the accompanying leaflet, but we were well impressed by the imagination, sheer effrontery and brilliant engineering of it. We got into conversation with lots of other people, all debating how it was created and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.
We think it should be filled in with coloured glass when the exhibition is over!

The Oxo Gallery showed an exhibition "Northern Fire" by the Northern Potters Association. There were some lovely pieces, and we had an informative chat with Jill Ford about porcelain. I loved her monochrome work, and also some jewel coloured pieces inspired by Indian textiles, by Pollie and Garry Uttley.

We did finally get to Tate Britain, after a lovely autumnal stroll along the Thames and the Millais exhibition was well worth the delay. All our favourites were there - "The Order of Release", "Ophelia" "Mariana" etc, plus some new to us, or ones I've admired without realising they were by Millais. Not many studies for larger works in this exhibition, because Millais was also an illustrator, so the drawings were finished works rather than preparatory sketches. I really liked his portraits and the late landscapes were wonderful.

One of the wonderful things about a long and happy marriage such as ours, is that you know for sure that you've always got someone on your side.
One of the problems of a long and happy marriage such as ours is that, having reached an age well on the shady side of 40, with temperature control going a little skew wiff and the old bones starting to crunch and ache, when you get in bed at night, there's bl**dy well always someone on your side!
I've been complaining for some time now that we need something a little wider than our old 4' bed. We bought the original wood and iron framed version from an auction room with the money my grandmother gave us when we got married. When she died some 10 years later, we replaced the frame with a modern divan and mattress, but kept the small size because we love the old headboard and wanted to keep it, though we did ditch the matching footboard.

But now I need an extra 6 inches to spread out in! Ed, the user of the other two thirds of the mattress, has been fighting a rearguard action on the grounds he has plenty of space. So I took a unilateral decision and ordered a new bed, to arrive on Tuesday, all being well.
I didn't order a headboard - who knows, maybe the old favourite will still look OK - I'll give it a chance.
Talking of chances - what do you reckon on me still only occupying a third of the new bed?

Last weekend we went to Blackpool to see the Illuminations. The Illuminations were wonderful, especially the story boards towards the end of the promenade, and the rather oldfashioned moving ones in the middle - moving by means of lights flashing on and off to give the effect of kicking legs, etc.
Blackpool itself was even seedier than I remembered it. It's always been a down market resort, of course, but since we last went, the phenomenon of the stag and hen away weekend has emerged into our culture and the saucy souvenirs have become more explicit and not quite what you want your accompanying 5 and 6 year olds (Jake and Georgia, of course) to see.
And there were far too many acres of unclothed flobby flesh for me to see too; nowhere is it more obvious that we are getting more obese as a nation, because the folks in Blackpool are happy to flaunt it in skimpy evening wear and raunchy fancy dress. Query - if you wanted a tattoo, why would you have it placed just where your strappy top's strap half hides it, so instead of a complete design all you can see is half a bruise effect?
As you might have gathered, I came over all middle class! We did, however, enjoy some delicious fish and chips in a very clean cafe during the course of our long meandering stroll along the prom and the kids waved their sparkling wands to great effect as we crawled by car past the lights. I think I can say I've done Blackpool now and may never return.