I went with my Mum today to the Panoramic 34 restaurant in Liverpool. It’s a wonderful place, on the 34th floor of the West Tower just down the road from the Liver Building.

Jude and I went for our anniversary a while back, and the meal was delicious. The evening view in June was beautiful and I’ve been meaning to go back for a while, but when we were going into the city they were always booked up. However, we were looking for a place to go to celebrate my Dad’s 70th later in the year with extended family and it seemed like the perfect excuse for a bit of research.

Plus it’s nice to go out for lunch with Mum.

Before our meal we took a walk down to the Albert Docks and back, it took a little over 30 minutes and maintained my daily walk habit. Now deep into the third week, I’m really happy to be maintaining a “streak” of consecutive days. Not that it’s a “thing”. It’s not. I could give up at any time.

The lunch went on for quite a lot longer than we expected. You’d think that I’d be on top of what time it was, given that I had the clocks of the Liver building right in front of me. But no, apparently not. So I had to call the school when we left to explain that we might be a “little late” picking up Lily and Joel. We got back just after 4pm. Yikes!

The children had baked beans on toast. With grated cheese on top. We all ate like kings today.

Consequently, my work was squashed into the morning and when I came back. I didn’t get a chance to run until well past 9:30pm once the children were in bed and I’d sorted out my stuff. Five steady kilometers on the treadmill, perhaps too steady, coming in at 32 minutes. But I was pleased with that, if only because I’m pushing the time that I’m on the treadmill back to a decent length. Now I just need to pick up the pace again, and perhaps push to one hour. That’s something for when I start the 10k programme later in the month.

I watched the first half hour of Swing Kids while I was running. It’s pleasant enough, but not a gritty documentary of Nazi Germany. The music and dancing is fun and it kept me running. I wanted to watch it after watching this clip, which I love – and seeing a young Robert Sean Leonard dance is cool too.

More tomorrow.