Tag: Juneathon 2012

My Juneathon Treasure Hunt List – An update

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Seeing as we’re over a third of the way in now, here’s an updated list of what’s been spotted:

  1. Creature
  2. Glitter
  3. Cake
  4. Cat
  5. Sheep
  6. Motorbike
  7. Hill
  8. Viewpoint
  9. An interesting tree
  10. An exotic animal
  11. Road kill
  12. A geocache
  13. Goat
  14. A roadside egg stall
  15. A view through an arch
  16. A pebble
  17. Something orange
  18. 39 steps
  19. Trig point
  20. A red door
  21. A blue fence
  22. The ark of the covenant
  23. A tree with someone’s name carved in
  24. An orchid
  25. A piece of grass longer than 50 cms
  26. A cloud that looks like someone/ something (preferably a crocodile)
  27. Rhino
  28. Llama
  29. Pub
  30. Milestone
  31. Pothole
  32. Feather
  33. Parkrun t-shirt
  34. Union Jack
  35. Local ale
  36. Manchester tart
  37. Post van
  38. Cyclist
  39. Fire engine
  40. Unicorn
  41. Penguin
  42. Kiwi
  43. A dignified pigeon.
  44. A piece of street furniture that looks like a face.
  45. The meaning of life.
  46. An ice cream cornet without the ice cream
  47. A shell
  48. A penny
  49. Unusual bit of rubbish
  50. A Lego mini figure
  51. A dragon
  52. A badger
  53. A pirate
  54. A stick shaped like a letter (but not an I or an L)
  55. A giant rabbit (preferably wearing a bow tie and/or a top hat)
  56. Dr Who with an iguana
  57. A half eaten Greggs
  58. A Kentish Orchard
  59. Teaspoon
  60. Teabag
  61. Dice
  62. A pink car
  63. A chalk drawing on the pavement
  64. Treasure (money)
  65. A baby swan
  66. Run an errand i.e. run home with a 2kg bag of potatoes
  67. Climb a tree en route
  68. An interesting plaque
  69. Pretty bunting
  70. Beach
  71. Pier
  72. Olympic torch relay
  73. Supermarket
  74. Ducks
  75. Riverboats
  76. Castle
  77. Motorway
  78. Thunderstorm
  79. A proper Cornish pasty
  80. …

Juneathon 10/30: A walk in the park

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Today’s run was supposed to be straightforward; I would join Ginge in the gym for a bit and then run home. I got to the gym and it dawned on me that I’ve neglected the gym a bit during Juneathon. I enjoy doing my weights at the gym but can’t get past either the tedium of cardio equipment or the rubbishness of the telly that’s on.

Anyway, at the gym I managed to climb 39 steps (the first of Follystone‘s suggestions that crop up today)…

I can also offer blurry photos of 38 and 40 steps if anyone’s interested

…and did a bit on the cross trainer before I got restless. Sometimes I keep myself entertained by swearing at the adverts. No matter what channel is on, they’re always a variation of payday loans, Uniform Dating (do you fancy people who have to wear a designated outfit and a name badge?) and the Veet one with the girl who’s inordinately proud that she no longer gives herself third degree burns whilst waxing her legs. Sadly the EDF energy advert wasn’t on, which deprived me both of something orange and the opportunity to mutter darkly at what is essentially a jovial orange poo with backing dancers.

It’s called Zingy apparently

After a while I think I must have been annoying Ginge because he suggested the grand idea of me running round town looking for treasure (yes mum, there was shades of this being ‘a good job for me’).

Off I trotted, optimistically seeking a half eaten Greggs or someone’s dropped treasure, but unfortunately the locals are too frugal to waste pastry or spare change. I made my way up to the park, getting some slightly odd looks as I darted from tree to tree looking for one from my list. I didn’t quite find Jo’s a tree with someone’s name carved in, but this one did have a declaration of love so I think that counts.

Today I shall be mad woman taking photos of trees

I headed up to the lake to see if I could spy some baby swans, only to get into a conversation with a couple who were looking for exactly the same thing. Apparently, the swans have been on the nest constantly for the last week, but today both were off it and yet there was no sign of any cygnets. The nesting island was covered in ducks and gulls, which is a bit odd if there were eggs or babies on there. I am awaiting updates.

Swan: may or may not have been a neglectful parent

Even though there were no baby swans, there was this chap who, with his waterside hangout, certainly looked like a dignified pigeon (and his feet weren’t deformed or nothing). If you want to see the very definition of a dignified pigeon have a look at Deadly Knitshade, yarn bomber extraordinaire and keeper of both Cooey the Pigeon and Plarchie the Giant Squid. Her book (Stitch London) is bloody awesome.

I am a pigeon. This is my lake.

After all the socialising and pigeon paparazzi, I thought I better head back to Ginge whose eagle eyes had spotted a blue fence (another of Follystone‘s) at the railway station.

I’ve spent ages defining what is a fence and what are railings. This is most definitely a fence.

Gym graced with my presence, three miles run, four treasures spotted, not bad for a Sunday.

Juneathon 8/30 – Giving Ernie a run for his money

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After yesterday’s exertions, the last thing that I wanted to do on a wet Friday night to go for a run. Especially with the prospect of a chippy tea in the offing. A token mile was agreed and out came the treasure list for perusal. I tried to tempt Ginge’s nemesis (a big fat fluffy black and white beast that poos in the potato patch) to hang around so that I could tick cat off the list, but to no avail.

Our eyes fell on another of Rachel’s suggestions (that’s Rachel of legendary Lego tableaux fame) – run an errand. We needed some milk. I would run for milk.

There are milk selling shops within view of our house, but I felt that even if I ran 10 miles, running mere feet with my shopping wouldn’t be in the spirit of the treasure list. We debated the morals of this for some time until Ginge declared that if I didn’t get a move on then I wouldn’t get any tea; this wasn’t a veiled threat, just the fact that the chippy would be shut…

Anyway, there’s a Spar half a mile down the road, so on the 8th day of Juneathon I ran a mile loop, for half of which I was accompanied by two pints of semi-skimmed.

Milky milky

My Juneathon Treasure Hunt List

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Thank you all for your suggestions – I fear for the sanity of some of you.

UPDATE: I also fear for the sanity of me. Due to tiredness and being a numpty, I somehow missed a load of suggestions, so I’ve recalibrated the list to an equally untidy 79.

UPDATED UPDATE: Just spotted that we had two badgers in the list, I have culled one but we’re still untidy with 78. I’m not very good at this am I?

  1. Creature
  2. Glitter
  3. Cake
  4. Cat
  5. Sheep
  6. Motorbike
  7. Hill
  8. Viewpoint
  9. An interesting tree
  10. An exotic animal
  11. Road kill
  12. A geocache
  13. Goat
  14. A roadside egg stall
  15. A view through an arch
  16. A pebble
  17. Something orange
  18. 39 steps
  19. Trig point
  20. A red door
  21. A blue fence
  22. The ark of the covenant
  23. A tree with someone’s name carved in
  24. An orchid
  25. A piece of grass longer than 50 cms
  26. A cloud that looks like someone/ something (preferably a crocodile)
  27. Rhino
  28. Llama
  29. Pub
  30. Milestone
  31. Pothole
  32. Feather
  33. Parkrun t-shirt
  34. Union Jack
  35. Local ale
  36. Manchester tart
  37. Post van
  38. Cyclist
  39. Fire engine
  40. Unicorn
  41. Penguin
  42. Kiwi
  43. A dignified pigeon.
  44. A piece of street furniture that looks like a face.
  45. The meaning of life.
  46. An ice cream cornet without the ice cream
  47. A shell
  48. A penny
  49. Unusual bit of rubbish
  50. A Lego mini figure
  51. A dragon
  52. A badger
  53. A pirate
  54. A stick shaped like a letter (but not an I or an L)
  55. A giant rabbit (preferably wearing a bow tie and/or a top hat)
  56. Dr Who with an iguana
  57. A half eaten Greggs
  58. A Kentish Orchard
  59. Teaspoon
  60. Teabag
  61. Dice
  62. A pink car
  63. A chalk drawing on the pavement
  64. Treasure (money)
  65. A baby swan
  66. Run an errand i.e. run home with a 2kg bag of potatoes
  67. Climb a tree en route
  68. An interesting plaque
  69. Pretty bunting
  70. Beach
  71. Pier
  72. Olympic torch relay
  73. Supermarket
  74. Ducks
  75. Riverboats
  76. Castle
  77. Motorway
  78. Thunderstorm
  79. …
  80. …

 

J minus 3 days

9 Comments

Like an angry badger lurking in a nearby hedgerow, Juneathon is waiting and ready to pounce. I am responding by going “la la la la la la la” with my fingers in my ears and my eyes shut. I have considered tearing June out of the calendar in an attempt to bypass the whole thing, but I suspect that this wouldn’t work and it might muck up the whole wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing.  Anyway, I’ve booked my train ticket for the Juneathon picnic and the Queen of the Athons has a very much zero tolerance policy for slackers (no Juneathon, no al fresco dining in the park), so it looks like I’ll be doing it again.

Anyone who has done one of the Athons will confirm that exercising every day is the easy bit, the challenge is to blog about something vaguely interesting every twenty-four hours. This Juneathon, I have a plan… I’m going on a treasure hunt.

What I would like is suggestions of thirty items treasure that I can find on my daily runs – things, concepts, stuff – and I’ll somehow try to incorporate one into each day’s blog or photo. This may turn out to be a ridiculous idea, but then it’s probably no more ridiculous than signing up for Juneathon again.

If you would like to suggest something, add a comment or send me a tweet (@knittingpenguin) but please bear in mind that I will be  doing most of my running around rural(ish) Lancashire, except for the nine days of my ten day holiday in (proper) rural Kent.

Oh, and Ginge has just declared himself Keeper of the List, apparently “so you can’t cherry pick the easiest ones” from people’s suggestions. I don’t think that I like that part…