The sunshine was glorious and my teenage daughter was here at the Welsh Hovel to help drag her aged father around the track we have cut in the grass around three of our fields. Quickly I established some good news.
I had thought that the track was 1.1km long. But my daughter, being a sports nut, the sort of girl who does 10km runs just for fun, has a more accurate tracking app and now tells me that it is 1.185km long. And that means that on June 13 I shall only have to do 45 laps of the fields not the 50 I had incorrectly calculated. Fabbo.
There is more good news. And that is that Mahmud Kamani of Boohoo.com says that he really takes pleasure in the idea of me suffering and is donating £5,000 to rogue bloggers. That will be added to the total today and means that that we have now raised £23,500 (or c£26,000 with gift aid). As a reminder, our target is £48,000 which is the amount that Woodlarks needs to survive until next year.
And so at about 3.30 my daughter and I set off notwithstanding a few protests from her about my choice of headgear, a MAGA baseball cap. It was hot and sunny and so the cap was needed as were regular water stops. But we slogged on averaging just around 4.7 km per hour. One lap was slower when the Mrs and Joshua joined us, the latter is a bit of a dawdler.
After about three quarters of a lap we walkers could not handle the dawdling and marched ahead. A lap later we found that Joshua and the Mrs had managed about 100 yards having been stopped by a neighbour at the top of the top field. She had a bottle of water and he was devouring a chocolate ice cream. Now he says he likes walking.
Thanks to that dawdle lap and the brief water breaks we only finished at 7.50 but we did so in fine form, jogging up the hill by the graveyard which is towards the end of the circuit in each of the last two laps. I know I could easily have done another ten laps without struggling. And to prove that, my daughter and I shall do 25-30 laps at some stage this weekend, rain permitting.
Ahead of that suffering would you also please take pleasure in that pain and make a donation to rogue bloggers for Woodlarks today HERE