Autumn thoughts from my head

A few months ago, I stepped back from social media. I’m still on Instagram and Facebook, but X and Threads were seriously stressing me out. There’s some very nice people on Threads, but there’s also a lot of people whose only mission is to be nasty to other people and I was fed up of it. Life is better without it.

Apart from talking to nice people, my main reason for using Threads was to share the random thoughts from my head and little observations about life. So I decided to share them on my blog. Strangely, the random thoughts of a woman clinging on to her early 50s by the skin of her teeth turned out to be quite popular. So I’m sharing more.

(These are autumn thoughts because they’re from September and October. They’re not about autumn. Although I’m quite obsessed by weather and light, so maybe they are about autumn.)

How to guarantee it will be sunny? Put washing in the tumble drier

Maranoia is setting in (even though I’m only running a half marathon). In my head, a twinge in my knee has stopped me running not only this half marathon, but the entire remainder of the road race series and I’ve come second, not first

I always call them twinges rather than injuries, aches or pains, because a twinge is minor, therefore I can keep running. I also don’t mention them to my husband, because I feel that if I speak about them out loud it will make them real

My daughter’s best friend is running the half marathon. My daughter has given her all the advice on pacing and fuelling, entirely based on living with me and my husband all her life and hearing us talk

After a very good half marathon, a predictably bad sleep because my legs were hurting 🙁

I’m usually very good at going to the gym twice a week, but somehow my daughter going back to uni today has given me an excuse not to go. Now I’ve had that thought, there’s no going back on it

Bumped into dog walkers I’ve never met before at the park today. The lady was crying and told me her dog was on his last 24 hours. I was crying by the time I walked away from them. I can’t even imagine

Nobody would say my sister and I look alike, yet somehow the half marathon photo website has found three photos of her it thinks are me. Once it found a photo of my sister when it was looking for photos of my daughter!

Just after we went to bed last night, there was a strange, loud noise. It started Hetty barking. We thought it was the bathroom fan going wrong. We heard it again, my husband turned the fan off at the isolator. We heard it again. He went to investigate round the house. I was terrified the bathroom was going to explode. Then we discovered it was the electric toothbrush malfunctioning in the drawer and vibrating against cans of deodorant!

Someone sent me an unsolicited article to publish on my blog. I didn’t publish it. It contained the words: Most runners never consider what happens legally when a motorcycle hits them mid-run. Well of course they f*cking don’t consider it! Why would they?!

For some reason, husband left a pair of trainers in the bedroom overnight. I tripped over them going to the toilet in the night, then on the way back from the toilet, then again when my alarm went off

Levellers headlined Wychwood Festival this year. Maximo Park were two places below them on the bill. Just discovered Maximo Park have twice as many monthly listens as Levellers on Spotify (I love them both and give both their monthly listens a nice boost)

My daughter wasn’t able to get a part-time job over the summer, so I selflessly paid her to do the hoovering and clean the bathroom every week, so she could earn a few quid. Now she’s back at uni and I’m remembering how much I hate doing my own cleaning!

26th September and the outdoor furniture has gone away and the electric blanket is on for the first time. Sad times. (Although the electric blanket is one of my absolute favourite things)

Saw a Daily Express headline about ‘pensioners aged 65 to 80’. Why can’t it just call them people?! And why does the media have to always describe women as mums or grandmas in their headlines? Why can’t they just be women?

We’re into damp towel season and dirty dog feet season. Noah Kahan hasn’t written a song about these things

28th September and I’ve worn my coat for the first time. Photographic evidence suggests I’ve previously worn it in early September

I always say no heating until October, but usually have to turn a blind eye to my husband sneaking it on for the occasional hour in September. This hasn’t happened this year!

Note to self don’t say ‘Hello, hello, hello’ out loud when watching Drag Race UK, because it starts Hetty barking and running to the window

Also on the subject of Drag Race, had a sudden memory of me and my friends doing a lip sync to Rick Astley’s Take Me to Your Heart for a charity concert in year 10. (It was so long ago, it wasn’t even called year 10, it was called 4th year)

Excited for my daughter, who starts teaching a weekly dance class at university today

Felt a bit sad for the old lady over the road struggling to put her bin out. But not for long, because she hates me. She won’t talk to me or look me in the eye because my house was built in 1987 and blocked her view (I didn’t move in until 2014)

Husband and I just spent half an hour going over Manic Street Preachers lyrics and comparing what we thought they were to what they actually are. Motorcycle Emptiness is crazy

That’s probably enough thoughts from my head for early autumn. No doubt I’ll share some more soon!