The day was planned to be a quiet “getting on with things” day. After yesterday’s fun with the party and the walk on the beach, I was hoping that things could be a bit more productive today.

First things first, and I had to get to the Youth Zone to check some fingerprint recognition problems. One of the staff couldn’t get the system to register their fingerprint. It’s a long way out and because of when I’m working in the week and weekend commitments, it’s taken three weeks to get a time that we would both be able to be at the Youth Zone.

As usual with these things, I explained what I wanted doing and then the finger was placed on the scanner. Unsurprisingly the whole thing worked as expected. I really hate it when this happens – mostly because it makes the person who had raised the problem feel foolish, but also because at some point, I expect someone to say “it only works when you’re here”, which is plainly incorrect, and if it’s said at the end of a long tiring day, it can lead to quite an exchange of views.

Anyway, it was a journey out at 10am to Wigan which I could have done without as it meant that the whole morning was spent travelling with the children.

The afternoon was spent shopping for groceries and just sorting things out. Nothing spectacular, but at 3pm I realised that I hadn’t yet had a run, and I needed to get something in before heading over to my parent’s for dinner for 4pm. My usual faffing about time was, therefore, compressed down to about 5 minutes. Just enough time to explain the plan to the children and then get changed.

The original plan was to do 2 miles slowly (basing this on the runkeeper 10k plan which kicks in on Tuesday), but instead turned into 3.2 miles on the treadmill in 30 minutes. Mostly interval style running after 20 minutes, a couple of minutes at 6mph and then a minute at 7 or 8mph. I iterated over this a few times and then it was time to get off the machine. With only about 20 minutes to shower, organise the kids and get over to my parent’s.

We were a bit late. Nothing ruined, I think/hope.

I was also due to catch up with my cousin Mike at 5pm, and so I grabbed my Dad’s laptop and fired up Skype at the appropriate time. However, after finally connecting there was then hardly any sound. Sometimes quiet, sometimes intermittent and then sometimes just not there at all. So we had to abandon it until next week.

I use Skype a lot, mostly for text messaging, but also for the occasional video meeting. The video connections are difficult to get set up in the first place, usually requiring two or three attempts, and it doesn’t seem to handle fluctuating bandwidth at all well. I don’t know how Skype / Microsoft get away with it. Especially when compared to FaceTime which Just Works. I hate to say it, but with every passing day I’m reminded what a good job Apple do at making things work easily. Perhaps I’ve sold my soul to the devil, but if that’s the case, then I’d say it was worth it.

Later it started to snow and the children almost exploded with excitement. Living in Ormskirk means going without snow most of the time, and this makes Lily very sad through the winter. A reasonable amount fell in the space of about half an hour. Enough for them to have a bit of a snowball fight and make a snowman.

It was also enough snow to make the pavements of Up Holland treacherous. I dragged Joel around for a walk later in the evening and every step felt like it could be your last. If one just looks at the reported numbers in runkeeper, then it was slow and pathetic – but in reality it was a battle against the elements. I was happy to get back in one piece. God help up if we actually get some snow here in Ormskirk.

And so we got back home shortly after 9 and I put the kids to bed, knocked back the bread dough and finally got to sit down.

I’m really feeling tired today, and tomorrow everything starts again with a vengeance. But before I head to bed, I’ve got some more bits to do, so I’d better crack on.

Day 18 – 5.2km run and 2.63km walked.