It’s already January 2nd!

Yep Christmas and new year have been and gone and it’s the 2nd January when life starts cranking back to some vague form of normality, roads have collapsed, train fares are up and it’s cold and raining. These are the sort of things that awake you from the festive zombie like state many of us enter and bring you back to reality with a slap round the face, a kick up the backside and a knee where it hurts!
For myself the festive period was nice and quiet and I enjoyed because it was. Nothing spectacular happened, I didn’t win big money on the lottery and buy a dream home in the middle of the Calder Valley, but I spent time with good friends and had fun.
Yesterday on the first day of a new year I did what most people did which wasn’t much. I got up late, went to watch a local fell race and then popped to the club and had a few new year beers with friends. This of course meant that one of my resolutions to stop drinking in January was already broken so it’s Plan B and drink less.
This is working so far although it has only been 2 days but we all have to start somewhere. It might have been one less dram of whisky last night had I not miscalculated how long IT the original film was on for. It’s 4 hours long not 2 like I thought!
Today I thought I’d go for a long run over the moors above Haworth, one of my favourite places and an area I know well.
I had in mind a route around 11 miles long, one I had run many times before and despite the cold rain I was looking forward to it. This good feeling didn’t last long.
The first mile and a half was fine and then I looked at my watch. I’ve just got a new watch, a Garmin Vivoactive 3 and it’s a touchscreen watch. It’s been fine previously with no problems and this included a run in the snow.
Today it went mad, screens changing all the time and deciding to stop recording my run when it felt like it. For me being a keen runner and ever so slightly obsessed with running and health stats this was a nightmare made even worse because there wasn’t a lot I could do about it being ankle deep in mud and soaking wet.
And this led to my next, far more serious problem, I was cold and getting colder. This was despite wearing a merino wool base layer and a fully seam taped jacket. The cold was getting in and my chest and stomach were getting the worse of it. I wasn’t shivering yet but I knew I would be soon and having experienced hypothermia before I recognised the symptoms and knew how quickly it could set in.
At this point I did the sensible thing and turned round and headed back to the warmth and safety of my car. This was the right thing to do as on a day like today you are very exposed on the open moors and the weather looked even worse where I intended to go. In addition there was no one else around and you are not guaranteed to get a phone signal either so anything could happen and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
On the way back to the car I picked up speed and started to warm up and soon enough was back at my car. I had lost some of my run due to my phone going mad but I was safe, warm and alive.
Back home I got a hot bath to get the circulation going in my body again and then my first, but not last trip to my local Tesco’s of 2018.
And then home with the intention of doing some uni work but instead emailing Garmin about the problems with my watch, eating, washing and generally doing anything to avoid uni work.
And getting anxious about doing / not doing uni work and wanting to be around people but not having to talk to them. Such is the autistic life.
So with the time fast approaching 8pm it’s blindingly obvious I’m not going to et any uni work done today which means I either go into uni tomorrow or to the library to do some as working from home just isn’t happening and I need the right environment away from distractions in which to study and study I must.
But apart from my phone still not working it’s not been a bad day and I’m still here o tell the tale.