Well hello and welcome to another week. A few titbits of news for you. I did eventually run 7 miles at the weekend (hoorah for that I hear you cry). It did hurt and I was very tired. That was pretty much it. It took me right back to my unhappy place with marathon training. You know. Those runs in the relentless drizzle, when it hurts almost from your first step. You know you’ve done the training and that you’re fit enough to do it, but you just don’t want to do it, so you spend the entire time arguing with yourself about doing it..... or is that just me??

Anyway that was my Saturday morning in a nutshell. I staggered around the streets of south west London in a slight mood, having procrastinated for a good two hours before even heading out for a run. When I came back triumphant the children were waiting for me. They ran to the front door to give me a massive hug before recoiling gently and shouting that mummy felt damp and smelt a bit funny. Children and their honesty. Don’t you just love it?

Well anyway having freshened up considerably, we headed down to the south coast to spend the weekend with friends. Now I don’t know about you, but I have a real thing about the seaside. I grew up in Cornwall and just love, love, love to be by the sea. So yesterday was spent ambling along Bournemouth beach on a beautiful sunny afternoon. The children played idyllically and we all looked like something out of a Boden catalogue. There were so many Labradors and golden retrievers I lost count and although one of them bounded up to me enthusiastically and shook himself dry all over my jeans, it still made me want a dog and a house on the coast.....

I know, I know, it’s not the same in a hurricane in November, but still, it would be lovely. In fact thinking about it, I would love it even more on a cold November morning, than I would in July, but maybe that's just me. But there is something calming and soothing about being by the sea that makes you feel healthy and glad to be alive. And I can’t tell you the level of excitement, shared by grown-ups as well as children, when we finally found an ice-cream shop. Rum and raisin, I’m telling you, it’s the only way to go with a cornet......

So happy days all round and now I am about to surf the internet to look at houses by the sea......Of course it is a fairly impossible fantasy right now.... but it will pass some time very pleasantly and put off the interval training session I have arranged for later this morning......ho hum. PS. I backed the winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Friday........yippeeeeeee