Red Eye on Me

Good run this morning. I planned to go on a 6.5 km route, and advised mrs tsuken I would be about 40-45 minutes. This particular run (though I hesitate to say this, with the fell runners on blip) has some unpleasant hills between Springwood and Faulconbridge. I am pleased that I ran up them better than I ever have before - in fact my pace graph in Runmeter showed hardly a dip. So I was rather happy about that. The odd thing is that I was consciously trying to keep the pace down a bit, in service of running longer. At that, I failed. As I noted yesterday on my Tumblr, I clearly have no idea how fast or slow I'm running.

Edit, because I forgot some detail: I did run for 40-45 minutes, as I advised mrs tsuken, but because I had been feeling good, I didn't cross the tracks at my normal spot, not e next, but went right through to the Springwood statin and under the tracks there. Then I didn't even turn home, but went to the far end of Macquarie Rd before turning around and going back, I ended up a little over 8km, in the time I had expected I might do 6.5. I was well-chuffed. 8)

After lunch, I retired to our empty-of-electronics library/reading room and read some more of The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula LeGuin. Then I decided that I should get on to fixing my ooooooold acoustic guitar. I've had the poor thing since I was 11; in the 7 years since I've had children I've already made two major repairs. The first time was after my daughter knocked it over and the neck came off the body. The second was after she decided to "play it" like a cello - using a plastic broom as the bow ... and hitting instead of bowing. That time the whole fretboard, with headstock attached, peeled away from the neck. On this occasion, the fretboard split away from the neck, and the headstock came completely out. So, lots of PVA glue, stuck underneath the leg of the unused footstool/ottoman thingy, with all the books on top, and wait many days.

I was going to blip one of those pics, but then a bird hit the window. I rushed outside - but it obviously hadn't hit hard enough to be stunned, and it had flown off. However, I did spy some tiny little birds in the trees on the border with our neighbours. After trying to get some photographs (I got some butt-shots, but they were flitting about so quickly I didn't get anything good) I wandered around the house with camera in hand. Wen I got back round the front I heard the loud fluttering flight of some Eastern Spinebills - one of which actually zoomed a couple of feet in front of me and sat in the fern (out of sight, and not for very long, which was a pity, as it was suuuuuuper-close) before flitting off again, with another in pursuit (challenging or courting I don't know). This one however, was sitting relatively still - enough so that I managed to get this (perhaps worth a closer look), and another couple of good shots.

Movie night tonight: the kids are uproaring over Cars 2. It is an excellent movie - hilarious and extremely well done.