Apart from making some extra trips from my desk to the printer (instead of doing big eyes at passing colleagues in the hope that they’ll bring me my stuff), my exercise was gentle but worthwhile today. I say gentle, I simply sat, squeezed my buttocks, crossed and uncrossed my feet, and clenched and unclenched my fists. Oh, and a nice young man stuck a needle in arm, took a pint of my blood and sent me on my way to eat some guilt-free biscuits.

By sheer coincidence, this week is National Blood Week and NHS Blood and Transplant wants people to fill the gaps in their donor numbers (you might have seen the #missingtype – it’s why I’m missing my As, Bs and Os). Every year, they need over 204, 000 new donors to replace those who can’t donate any more but numbers are dropping. If you can donate, it would be amazing if you could sign up as a donor. It’s incredibly simple and donating is absolutely nothing to worry about.

It only takes about an hour (I was in and out in 45 minutes today, even though I turned up 20 minutes early for my appointment) and if nothing else is an education in brilliantly run logistics. Think about it, the team turns up in the morning, sets up a reception area, two waiting areas, a few private consultation booths (for the health questions and iron checks), the beds for donation, two clinical areas where things are labelled and generally dealt with, and a chill out zone with tea, crisps, biscuits and squash. And at the end of the day, it all gets packed up into the back of the lorry and off they trundle for the next day’s donating. Bloody amazing.

Everything (in my experience) runs amazingly smoothly. Today it was a bit like crowd surfing, I had only just finished reading the essential information when I was passed onto the health check lady, the health check lady got me a nurse to check I could donate while using creams for my manky skin, someone appeared as if by magic to check my iron, I was directed to a waiting area where my bum had barely hit the seat when I was summonsed to donate. And did I mention the biscuits?

I’m incredibly fascinated by the whole process and want to badger them with questions about what everything’s for and how it all works, but they’re all busy being really efficient so I don’t like to interrupt. As I have donated today, I am now banned from strenuous exercise, heavy lifting  and flying planes, so I plan to sit back and relax for the rest of the night.

To find out how to register as a blood donor visit www.blood.co.uk.

Thank you all for your kind wishes and concern, I’m very pleased to report that there doesn’t seem to be any proper injuries. My left hand is still a bit sore, my calf looks like someone has been at it with a cheese grater and my shoulder hurts if I poke at it (I know, don’t poke at it then).

Anyway, I was planning to run again today before the fall and it was important that I didn’t chicken out. Leaving Ginge and Mini-Ginge with In the Night Garden, I pottered off for a three mile out and back. Starting in a fine and not unpleasant drizzle, I was relieved to find that apart from a bit of general achiness, I didn’t feel too bad. I was also relieved to remember that I can run two days in a row without exploding and that I can run in the rain without melting.

Phew.

First of all a disclaimer, MUM I AM FINE – IF ANYTHING IS SWOLLEN IN THE MORNING I WILL TAKE MYSELF TO CASUALTY.

We have had a fabulous day out today, Open Farm Sunday looking at tractors and piglets (and pretending that I actually live in The Archers) then on to Crosby to see what Mini-Ginge thought of Antony Gormley’s Another Place. It turns out that Mini-Ginge was far too excited by sand, puddles and seaweed to offer any critical opinions of the piece.

My plan for a morning run had to be postponed so that we could fit in all of this excitement so the plan was for me to squeeze one in before tea. It was supposed to be six or seven miles – mentally I know that I need to get past six to avoid The Fear setting in about longer distances. On the other hand, I was looking forward to my tea. After a bit of umming and ahhhing, I decided to do a route that could be a little out and back if I couldn’t be bothered running six miles fancied a shorter, fast run, a six mile out and back, or a more creative, undulating 6-or-7-not-really-sure mile loop.

Coming up to the 3 mile mark I decided to go for the creative, undulating, unknown mileage route. At 3.36 miles, my plan fell over. Literally.

I was coming to the bottom of a long, steady hill where the footpath peters out without a proper kerb, but there’s no real trip hazards when I did a spectacular dive and the floor was rushing up to meet me. I leapt up, praising the fact that there was no one to witness this but also cursing the fact that there was no one to help me.

Then it hit me that I was three miles from home.

I considered knocking on the door of the neighbouring house and announcing pathetically “I fell over”, but I’m not sure what they would have been able to do for the red-faced sweaty woman brandishing a grazed knee at them. At this point, I felt the woosh of a faint starting to come on (I have a track record for fainting after a fall) and my next thought was “if they take me to A&E, I’m not wearing any pants” and was so mortified by this that the potential faint didn’t dare happen.

Photo doesn’t make it look as bad as it feels.

I turned round and set off walking, pausing occasionally to investigate my scrapes, bruises and the hole in my running tights. I was feeling very sorry for myself and was willing someone to notice my distress and offer to help me. No one did (possibly because I didn’t actually look that distressed) and I plodded on back up the hill that I had just run down. It dawned on me that it would take ages to get home, so I reached the top of the hill, put on another podcast and set off running. I ran-walked all the way home (and rounded up to 3 miles, well I wasn’t going to stop at 2.83 no matter how injured I was) and announced pathetically “I fell over”.

Photo (pasty skin) makes it look worse than it is…

A quik inspection revealed an inventory consisting of; grazes to my left knee and shin, a slight scrape to my right inner  knee, a sore and possibly bruised left hand, a bashed left shoulder and a few little scrapes on my right elbow. I was also very relieved that my favourite irreplaceable race t-shirt had survived intact.I keep thinking that I also bruised my right thigh, but keep reminding myself that this was a pre-existing mystery bruise. I am now really hoping that they come up with a decent bruise so that I have something to show for all of this.

One of our village pubs holds a folk festival on this weekend every year. Historically this weekend has weather best suited to November, so today’s grey skies and blustery winds made a nice summery change. 

Mini-Ginge got his groove on and discovered that a man wearing a flat cap who then takes off the flat cap is hilarious. And I realised that I’m raising a child on pork pie and folk music, which in the great scheme of things isn’t a bad plan. 

My Juneathon effort was a 2 mile round trip to the pub (pram pushing on the return mile). 

Well the plan had been to get up early to do a rare before work run, however Mini-Ginge knows when I have such plans and he scuppers them on a regular basis. Last night was a 3.30am alarm call for no discernable reason. It was resolved fairly quickly but was enough for me to swipe away my 5am alarm clock and enjoy a pretend lie in. 

So an after work run was called for. It seemed a good chance to run somewhere different so I parked up and set my Garmin off looking for a satellite. I fear for my Garmin. When I turned him on he told me (in teeny tiny letters) that I was doing a bleep test. So I turned him off and on again, and he told me it was 1am. So I turned him off and on again, and he seemed ok, but it turns out that Wigan is too leafy and rural to get a satellite sign (who knew?). 

I waited. And waited. And waited.  And got bored of waiting so I set off with no signal. I vaguely know the area and had a rough plan in mind, only to choose a ridiculously steep road, then missed my turning and ended up doing a ridiculous kind of figure of eight of a route. 40 minutes, not sure of the distance, hot, sweaty, more lung dislodged, really enjoyed myself.