So where were we?

Ah yes, being quite smug about my abilities to recover from a long run. Not so smug now though, heh?

Yes, things didn't quite go according to plan in the lead-up to my long-planned 75km ultra-marathon on Easter Sunday. It wasn't a surprise to me. I've always been one of those people whose successes (such as they are) tend to be the result of working and playing by the rules. The training rules in ultra-marathon training are, respectively, do a lot of miles, increase weekly mileage by no more than 10%, and increase the distance of your weekly long run by also by no more than 10%.

Well, I didn't play by the rules: my mileage was erratic, I didn't always do a lot of miles, and I lurched up to running 34 miles one particular Sunday - which was when the dreaded knee problem came on. Seems I have a very small tear to my medial meniscus, nothing that stops me running a few miles, but enough to cause anything upwards of a half-marathon to be excruciating.  Ho hum.  Time to repair it, do some cycling, and try again next winter.

Strangely, however, while I was disappointed I had to withdraw from my Canalathon, I wasn't devastated, probably because the withdrawal coincided with finishing work for a while, and soon afterwards (that being yesterday), coming across to France for an extended period.

Yes, I did it - I've made myself unavailable for work until the start of August, and I intend to spend as much of it as possible in France. The plan is the same as the one I hatched earlier in the year - manual work, cycle and learn a bit of French.

There are two cycling excursions planned - one to Provence with Mendip Rouleur for an attempt at joining the Club dec Cingles du Mont-Ventoux (that being 3 different ascents of the great mountain in a single day), plus some very civilised cafe-based riding besides, and one to Normandy with Mrs M for a spot of gentle cyclo-touring.

Right now though, I'm even more excited - rather sadly - to get stuck into some Bloke Stuff, most of which I've no idea how to do right now.  Quite a lot of it will involve Bloke Tools too. I've already bought a trailer for picking stuff up at Brico Depot (B&Q) and getting rid of it at the dechetterie (tip). There are steel toe-capped work boots in the garage, overalls, and best of all - I think I might need a cement mixer. Ten years ago I used to covet other men's bikes; now I sneak furtive looks at their tool shed.

What's the cause of all this Blokery? Three-quarters of an acre of unruly and disintegrating garden, that's what. There are fences, sheds and greenhouses to be taken down, other fences and roofs to be put up, and digging, seed sewing and weeding to be done. Not to mention power washing, mowing, strimming, hedgecutting, and bonfires...ahhh, lovely bonfires.

So, there's going to be a lot of outdoor time. I've done one day so far, and my hands are already red and chapped, I'm so soft from the last few months of keyboard-jockeying. Tales from French France and - hopefully - progress that doesn't involve loss of limbs or too much blood to follow.

Recover

...nothing much of interest in this post for non-runners, though I guess cyclists might be half-interested...

Now I'm not saying I've been doing my training runs recently at any great pace, but they have at least been quite long - marathon plus in a few cases. And amazingly, I've not had any DOMS the day after, and been comfortable running again two days later. I don't know whether or not this is the down to the following regime, but in case it is, I share it in a spirit of not wanting to see old men walking on a Monday like they've had an accident in their underwear.

So, when finishing long run / ride and enter the house, I, in order, and starting the moment I've said 'hello' to anyone who's around:

• Drink a pint of water to top fluids up (having taken electrolytes whilst exercising)
• Lie on my back with my legs in the air, resting against a wall or chair, for 5-10 minutes
• Have a hot shower - not sure it contributes to recovery, but it feels good. Don't have a bath, unless it's a cold one, and who wants that?
• Eat some quality food, including some protein - eggs, whey powder, or similar
• Later on, take lots of ginger - a cubic inch or so - in whatever form it can be stomached; I like soya milk, apple and ginger smoothies
• Sleep within 90 minutes of finishing exercise - doesn't have to be much (30 mins will do), but it just seems to kickstart recovery
• Consume as little sugar as possible - I still have some lovely dark chocolate, but it's tempting to shovel cake down your neck after hours of exercise; the less you do, the better you'll feel

That's it; nothing funny, nothing more. Just shared because I seem to have stumbled on something that works.

Fewer and further between...

I don't seem to have blogged much lately. I'm not sure why - it could be my usual autumn bout of SAD, or it could be that after nearly five years of doing this, I've lost a bit of motivation. What I do know, however, is that when I've got something interesting to report, this is the medium through which that happens.

A lot of people these days, it seems to me, and especially at this time of year, love to make a statement and/or draw attention to themselves: "I've gone vegetarian!", "I'm having a dry January!", "I'm going to the gym 18 times a week!". What's really happening is that they're cutting down on meat/having a couple of weeks off the sauce/doing a bit more exercise than usual - but saying those things isn't nearly as eye-catching (in their eyes), as the Grand Gesture, the thing that enables them to say "look at me!", and frankly, it's a bit annoying.

I'm not going to fall into that trap and renounce blogging forever. It may well continue, and 2016 looks like it might be a year with plenty to report - I'm 50 during the year, and plan to mark it by having a decent length of time not working (in France), learning a bit more French (in France), doing a bit of cycle touring with Mrs Monmarduman (in France), riding my bike for a week in Provence (yes, that's in France), attempting an ultramarathon (not in France), and having a trip to Iceland (definitely not in France). I'm not going to expand on any of that now, because you know what they say about God having a good laugh what you announce your plans - and whilst I'm not religious I think I'm going to play it safe on this occasion.

So the blogging will continue; there'll just be less of it, and probably concentrated in the summer when I'll probably be glad to swap bike or spade for keyboard once in a while. A Very Happy 2016 everyone, and if you make a single resolution, promise me you'll learn the difference (if you don't already know it) between 'purposely' and 'purposefully'. I thank you.

Paris

I was going to write something deep, meaningful and insightful about last Friday, but frankly I don't think it would add much to the sum of human understanding.

I'm also not going to change my Facebook profile pic so that it has red, white and blue running through it, nor post any virtue-signalling tweets.

Instead, I'm going to support the French by doing what me and the missus are lucky enough to be able to do regularly, and what we're doing the weekend after next. That involves paying our French taxes, buying French wine, and talking to our French neighbours.

We talk to our neighbours regularly of course, particularly Mrs M with her reasonably fluent French. She had what media people would call a "breakthrough moment" during the summer, when on showing our 80 year old retired farmer neighbour a calendar featuring pictures of Macclesfield from the early decades of last century, he declared (in French obviously, for never a word of English has knowingly escaped his lips), "you're not that different to us really" - the "you" being the English/British of course. For someone who's barely left the local commune in his 80 years, this was a cultural earthquake.

By telling them we were just as shocked by last Friday as we would have been had it happened in London or anywhere else in the UK, by them seeing (I hope) 80,000 football fans singing the Marseillaise tonight, and by mentioning that parts of the debate on the prevention of terrorism in the British parliament yesterday were conducted in French, it would be nice to think a few more of them will realise that "we're not that different".

That's not to defend the EU or suggest that we should have closer political ties; I haven't made my mind up on all that referendum-related stuff yet. It is, however, to make clear that there's far more that unites us than divides us - and that unity may prove quite useful against a common foe in the next year or two, especially if it filters through to our political and intelligence communities.

More despatches from the front in the War on Bad English

Ok, so I'm not claiming that everything I write is either grammatically accurate (or indeed interesting), but I do get to see a lot of written stuff at work and on social media. Here are some latest horrors. Most are regular mistakes, a couple are one-off hilarities that I had to include:

1. Apologises - a regular one, this. Used where the writer actually means 'apologies', as in "my apologises for not being able to help you".
2. Decent - much abused in the world of online cycling blogs, as in "I had a great decent down the mountain pass". Don't forget the 's' fellas. (Fellas in a non-gender specific sense, obvs.)
3. Where/were - seems to have originated in Liverpool, because in Scouse these two words sound exactly the same, but neither are pronounced in a way the rest of us recognise. Anyway, because they sound the same, they use them interchangeably in written form. "Where you there?" "Yes, somewere" is a not-uncommon exchange. This contagion seems to be spreading to non-Scouse types now, more's the pity
4. Defiantly - used erroneously when the writer means definitely. Another riser in this year's Top 40. Note - defiantly means "in a rebellious way", whereas definitely means absolutely, for sure
5. "It's a mute point" - oft heard in work situations. It's not a mute point my friend, it's a moot point; when you've heard other people saying it, they've been enunciating properly, not affecting an American accent.  Talking of which....
6. Affect/effect. I'm not even bothering to explain this one
7. Dependent/dependant - I'm dependent on breathing to stay alive; my children are mt dependants. Again, often used interchangeably. Stop it!
8. "I think we're going to have to change tact" - another work horror show. TACK, not tact, you odious little man
9. Talking of which, my current work's Mr. Malaprop declared yesterday that one of the tasks on his to-do list was 'odorous'. I think he meant onerous, as working in HR I'm pretty sure he wasn't on his way to muck out a pigsty
10. Your/you're - I think I and my legion of fellow pedants are going to have to run up the white flag on this one, on the basis more people now seem to get it wrong than right. "Your great" now doesn't get much more of a reaction that a resigned sigh; it's only "did you receive you're present?" that gets the hackles rising
11. To/too - how hard, pray tell, is it to understand that you need to use "too" when something has an excessive amount of a quantity of something, and that an event is also happening?  Too hard, apparently
12. A lovely one-off - the Shropshire Star website wrote last week in one of its court reports, that an individual had been described in court as "repungent". Reading a little further, it became clear that said individual was not a very nice person at all - repugnant was the word the professionally-trained journalist was groping for, but unfortunately, failing to grasp.

There. I'm sure there are others, but that should be enough to get me classified as an old-fashioned, got-no-life, sad snob. Tssk, whatever. Standards, Jeeves, standards.

Permission to nag

It's more than a month since I last blogged, partly because I've not really had anything interesting to say (the unkind might say I never do), and partly because I've been so darned busy.

However, I'm in France at the moment for a few days, and I have a little time and energy to be a keyboard. So it's like this loyal reader....I need a collective conscience, and indeed I need to be nagged. Not now, next year. Round about end of March, start of April in fact. But you have my permission in advance.

Here's why. Right now I'm three months into what will be a six month, and could be a nine month assignment. It's one of the best I've had since I became self-employed; a nice firm, a strong leader, remarkably few politics, and a management team that actually wants me there. So far, so good. But it's damned hard work - 4.30am starts on a Monday, often not back till late on a Friday courtesy of the paved hells otherwise known as the A46, M4, M5 and M6, and all manner of stuff in between - one minute I'm talking IT, the next HR, then Finance, oh, and then I need to know how you go about setting maintenance budgets for an HGV. Now, I'm not asking you to get out your miniature violins - the work's well-paid and interesting. But to use an over-used word, it's not sustainable. For example, the 10 days I like to have in France at this time of year to bring my bike contracted to a week, then to three days - because of work demands. Thank God for grass, for if the half-acre's worth here hadn't have needed mowing I might not have come at all.

Which brings me to next year. I'm 50 next year - just about a year from now in fact. I have Plans, partly designed to celebrate that fact, and partly because I'm determined not to work till I'm 60 and then regret the fact I didn't spend my 50s running and riding whilst all my bits worked properly. Or at least the bits that need to for running and riding. Anyway, those plans involve many things, but not being at work in May, June and July is central to them. And frankly, if I work from now till the end of next March, you can chuck April in too.

I know what I'm like though. I don't know whether it's the curse of the Victorian work ethic, a terror of wondering where the next contract is coming from, or old-fashioned avarice, but sometimes I find it hard to say No when a work opportunity comes up. So if I'm working any later than mid-April in 2016 I need to be asked what the hell I think I'm doing. For a few months, creating a fully-functioning veg plot and greenhouse, seeing a bit more of Brittany and Normandy with Mrs M (hopefully on bicycle), training, and then having 10 days in the Pyrenees riding the Etape du Tour 12 years after my first attempt and then watching the Tour de France (having also seen the start at Mont St Michel) matter more than money. You can quote me on that, and in fact, please do.

I know what I did this summer

One of the joys of childhood, teenagerdom, and even your early '20s is the neat delineations of time those years bring with them. School years, GCSE results (or O Levels in my case, being a Gentleman of Advancing years), A Levels and university years all mean that many of us can pinpoint what we were doing in - say - 1984, far more easily than we can in 2006 (change years to suit your actual age). At least, that's the case for me. I can normally just about work out what was going on in each of the last 10 years by either remembering which major cycling event I did, and/or where we went on holiday. But those years don't generally come snapping back to my mind like those of 30 years ago do.

This summer, I sense, is going to be different. It's been extraordinary one way and another, and will stick in my head for a long time, not so much for any single event, but more for what I/we have packed in. Since we took delivery of 11 Le Millet in April, adding it to 9 Le Millet, I have (and a good number of these have been shared or done with Mrs M; hopefully they're self-identifying):

- had 6 weeks off work in France, with the rest at work in Staines, Newbury and Trowbridge

- gone a long way to getting the new French place in order. I've documented much of what we've done in previous blogs, so I'll limit myself to saying that, though by no means finished, it's now quite a pleasant place to be - and we've got some heavy duty pumpkins and squashes in the veg patch that I'm very much looking forward to harvesting when I'm next back there in October

- had a huge variety of visitors, of both the friend and paying variety. They've been British, French, Italian, good, bad and indifferent, and not always in the combinations you might expect. We've both joined the sharing economy by sourcing some of our guests from Airbnb, and gone back to the barter economy by swapping our glut of blackcurrants for neighbours' salad and potato surpluses

- seen the Tour de France, if not literally in our back yard, then certainly within a couple of kilometres of it, and a good portion of that stage on the roads that are delightful and familiar riding territory to me, less so for the vast majority of other Brits

- commuted between the UK and France at weekends. Not every weekend, but since the end of June more weekends than not. The logistics have been very kind to me; on the way out, I've been within 60 miles of Portsmouth, been able to get down there for the 3pm ferry to Caen, drive past the fairytale castle that is the beautifully-lit Mont St. Michel at midnight, to arrive 'home' at 12.30am-ish. On the way back, I've taken the 11pm ferry from Caen on a Sunday night, and been driving into work in Trowbridge earlier on a Monday morning than if I was travelling down from Cheshire. There have been some squeaky-bum moments, like the Sunday night the French farmers chose to block the Caen Peripherique, but overall, it's worked well. And it's felt exotic, driving on to French soil and its invariably warm evening air after a week at work

- been to two music festivals, again as previously blogged. Even two months on, with the benefit of reflection, the FFS (Franz Ferdinand & Sparks) gig remains the most remarkable I've been to in many a year

- eaten a mountain of fantastic seafood at a lovely restaurant in a gorgeous coastal town on our wedding anniversary. Thank you again Mrs M; what a treat that was - you even managed to get the weather delivered to order..

- done work I've actually enjoyed! Praise be to Hitachi for not being as ridiculously political and bureaucratic as many of the other places I've had the misfortune to work in recent times

- managed to squeeze in the hillwalking weekend with my son that he and I do each year in Shropshire. Each year has a twist, this year's being that we did the course in a single day, rather then two. It was tough coming on the back of a much reduced training volume (we ran a very sweaty 10 of the 27 hilly miles), but we managed. And a combination of Indian meal and B&B sherry afterwards meant we slept the sweetest sleep that night...

- had the rare opportunity to get my kids all together for a trip to France, which occurred over last Bank Holiday weekend. The timing couldn't have been better either for a bit of celebration - since the start of the summer they have, respectively, become the youngest female project manager at her grade in Network Rail, graduated from Exeter with a 2:1 in Philosophy and got a 1st in an Accountancy summer school, and got straight A*s in her A Levels, and so be accepted into Magdalen College, Oxford to do Politics, Philosophy & Economics. Apologies for coming over all Nauseating Christmas Card-y, but I couldn't be prouder. The icing on the cake though? They're all funny, nice people who get on well together, and who it's a pleasure to be around.  Here we are on the Plymouth to Roscoff ferry 8 days ago, just before they got me tipsier than I should have been...

So that was my summer. It was a good 'un, and one I'll remember in another 30 years....