Who, me? Overshare? D'you think?

I had a bit of a first today.

Today was the very first time I've done housework in the nude.  Yes, you read that right, completely starkers.  Before you think I've gone all German and naturist on you, I shall explain.

I've started running again.  I had a bit of a hiatus - throughout the whole of May, June and half of July I only ran 8 times which averages out at about 1.25 runs per week, which is a bit rubbish really.  But the weather was often against me and then I sort of 'forgot' that I was supposed to be running.  The weather from mid-July, though, has been much improved.  Plus I also remembered that I'd got a portable blood pressure monitoring machine so thought I'd better check it one morning a coupla weeks ago and it was a bit higher than I would like.  Admittedly I'd woken that morning with a tickly throat and had, in fact, just had a massive and prolonged coughing fit before strapping on the armband, which can't have helped, but even so, I thought, time to step up the running again.

So I'm trying to get back into the habit of going out if not every other day (it's best not to run every day, a day's break in between is optimal for muscle recovery, etc., and, yes, that does include shamblers like me) then the day after that - what's that, every 2 days? every 3?  It's maths and counting, I can't do maths and counting, but you know what I mean - run on Monday, rest Tuesday, possibly go out Wednesday and, if not, then definitely Thursday (but Wednesday if I feel up to it), you get the picture.

At the moment I'm averaging around 1.8 miles per run but I'm also suffering from bloody shin splints again and the only 'cure' that I can find online is 'don't do too much, or go too fast, too quickly' so I'm trying to keep the pace slow but steady so it doesn't get too painful.  Therefore I'm resigned to not seeing the far side of a 2 mile run for a very, very long time, but that's okay.  Slow and steady will get there, I hope.

Anyhoo, I went out this morning at about 9.30am and went my usual route - down the road, into the meadow, along the path down the edge of the poppy field (which, this year, had no poppies in it but was spectacular last year) and into the corn (maize) field which has grown as high as an elephant's eye.  I wonder what variety it is since it's MASSIVE.  The corn I grow at the allotment is lucky to make it to 5 feet tall but this stuff has to be 7 or 8 feet tall.  I usually get through one of the cornfields before the voice on my C25K iPhone app chimes in with 'you are halfway through your workout', which is the cue for me to turn round and head on home.  It was a lovely morning, blue sky, sunny with scuds of cloud and just this side of bearably hot.  I shambled home, sweat literally pouring off me, shut the front door and plonked myself into the chair in our hallway while I checked the stats on my iPhone (I'm SUCH a geek) and took my shoes off.

It dawned on me then that we'd left our sitting room curtains closed this morning (we often do this as the sun comes up on that side of the house) so rather than go all the way up two flights of stairs to strip off my sodden running gear and then eventually traipse back down two flights of stairs with it to put in the washing machine, I could take it all off in the hallway and just load it into the washing machine in our ground floor utility cupboard right there and then.  Head on upstairs, pass through the sitting room (on the first floor) and carry on upstairs to the bathroom for a shower; curtains are closed, no horses (or neighbours) would be startled by the amazingly pink and wrinkled suit I was apparently wearing, job's a good 'un.  So mote it be.

I was on the final, skyclad, approach to the bathroom when I suddenly realised that I had told myself that I was going to do the hoovering today.  I'm not very good at doing housework - I have a bloke's natural inability to see clutter and dust and stuff and so it doesn't bother me.  Until it does.  Like now, when the cat gets stuck to the floor because it's so sticky and we're fending off giant tumbleweeds of his discarded cat hair spiralling around in various corners when there's a draught.  I know I have to get the hoover out but I hate doing it - a three-storey house has a lot of floor space and two flights of carpeted stairs are a right pain in the hole to do.  Plus - and this is the whole point of my rambling - hoovering always, always gets me very hot and extremely sweaty - I've been known to need a shower after doing it.

You're ahead of me, aren't you?

I had a lightbulb moment.  I halted my progress to the bathroom, turned back and headed off into the garage to get the Henry.  Stark bollock naked.

Took me about 40 minutes to hoover everything and, yes, I did get very hot and sweaty again, and I felt perfectly justified for doing it au naturelle when I felt the big trickles of sweat running down from under my giant lolloping boobs (can I offer you some bleach for your mind's eye?  It's just over there, help yourself...), knowing that it wasn't soaking into the clean clothes I'd have put on following my post-run shower because I wasn't wearing any and I hadn't had one!  Hooray!

So that's how I spent my morning - how was yours?

PS.  Yes, of course I had a shower afterwards - I'm not completely without standards, you know!

PPS.  I'm getting all my hair cut off next week.  Finally.  After threatening months ago to do it, the time has finally arrived.