Happy Birthday To Me

This year my birthday fell on a Sunday - at the end of a Friday-Saturday-Sunday long weekend. 

I only realised on the Thursday afternoon that the Friday was a public holiday and while I had a lot of work to do, being a public holiday gave me 'permission' to ignore emails and do other stuff. 'Other stuff' turned out to be quite a bit of garden work. We'd had more rain and strong winds during the week, which broke a branch off my neighbour's tree (landed on my side), a branch off a tree in my garden and left my yard in somewhat of a disarray with leaves and disorder everywhere. It was quite satisfying to tidy up and spend time in the garden, with the dogs, doing manual labour.

The high winds had brought down trees in the forests, which had blocked many of the trails in the area. With parkrun cancelled, I joined a group to assist with trail clearing. Some of the guys has chainsaws so they did the cutting and the rest of us helped to roll away the logs and clear the debris. With many hands, lots of energy and two hours, we had a section completely cleared.

Back home, I prepped for friends coming over for afternoon tea. With the rain, chill and wind starting up again, I decided to make a langtafel (long table) in the lounge instead of the garden. It worked very well and I enjoyed a wonderful afternoon with lovely tea-time snacks and excellent company.

My birthday-day dawned with perfect weather - as forecast. I started with fixing the leg of the wood dining-room table that has been wobbly for months. The joy in this is in using my drill and the accomplishment of fixing something. 

I then tackled the old peach tree in the garden. The poor thing has probably never been pruned. It had a lot of dead twigs on it. This past season it had fruit, but they rotted on the tree and almost before they fell - stung by insects. I watched some videos on YouTube about pruning peach trees and gave it a go. A few rewarding hours later, the tree was done and I was chuffed with my work. It looked like the old-and-neglected tree was smiling when I was done.

Although finished later than planned, I had enough time (I hoped) to hit a trail that I've been wanting to do. Campherskloof starts from the top of the Outeniqua Pass, skirts the side of the mountains and then drops into the Campherskloof valley on the other side. The vegetation is completely different on the other side of the mountains, the blousuikerbos proteas were in bloom and the trails were runnable. As sun and warmth and the company of Rosy-dog and it was the perfect recipe for a perfect afternoon.

Dropping into Campherskloof

My mom had very kindly dropped us at the trailhead. On arrival, we saw a lost dog. He had tags on and so I called his owners. He had been lost about three hours earlier (out running with his mom). She was on her way back there when I called. I left him sitting in the car with my mom and headed off. Not 5-minutes later I saw them all drive off, the dog successfully reunited with his family. Sweet boy.

Blousuikerbos proteas. A lot of pale and white ones in this area.

Rosy-dog. Good girl.

If I recall correctly, that's the back of Craddock Peak.

Before I came off the trails and hit the Montagu Pass, I called my mom and she and the dogs - Rusty and Bella - set off to pick up me and Rosy from Herald. I must have reached the pick-up point not more than 10 minutes before she arrived - perfect timing. I got to watch the sunset colours while waiting for our ride. 

Sunset colours - waiting for our ride.

Total distance was around 13km.

I have mixed feelings about this year's Days of Running challenge as I wasn't completely committed. My head hasn't really been in the right place although I have been doing more runs of more distance, more frequently the past two months. I also decided to give the '28 Days of Wall Pilates' a try - I kept seeing it come up on my social media. I'm quite enjoying it and substituted some of these sessions, especially on cold and rainy days, of which we have had a lot the last two months. 

So, that's me. 47-years young. Knocking on 50's door! haha haha