Busy weekend:

I was invited to been invited to Andy B's wedding reception on Saturday evening, so I was looking forward to a leisurely day of farting around the flat and playing Killer7 before girding my loins for an evening of sober fun. (Because of the 10k, of course.)

Two unexpected things happened.

Firstly (and happily!), I was invited to the full wedding and so instead of wasting the day trying to get my head round a computer game written by lunatics, I spent an hour trying to find and buy a shirt that would make my spiv-like suit a bit more respectable.

Second, I managed to stick to my minimal boozing rule of the past week, and still enjoyed myself immensely. In a particularly amusing moment, while Michelle was trying to teach me how to jive on an empty dancefloor, it became apparent that I've passed into the realm of the embarrassing person at weddings. I'm the person you laughed at when you were dragged screaming to family weddings at the age of fifteen.

I woke up feeling terribly healthy and pleased with myself and got to the bus stop really, really early. As did a very chipper Dom, who torpedoed my beaming smugness by getting healthily plastered the night before, and yet turning up without a trace of a hangover.

We ended up at the start a full half hour before the race, and went for a wander along the route to make sure we were at the right place. On the way back we stumbled across Saughton Winter Gardens, a miniature Botanics-style Victorian throwback bordered by a football field for day-release criminals and Dalry Road. If I were to trot out a helpful cliché, I'd call it a hidden gem.

The 10k went reasonably well; I kept pace with Pat (the organiser, and a fearsomely dedicated runner but with a nagging back injury) and managed to finish a couple of seconds ahead of him at roughly 47:30. Not bad, compared to last year's time; fairly good considering I answered a phone call from my Dad at the start of the final kilometre, and even more surprising when I consider how many training runs were abandoned in lieu of a trip to the pub.

That evening we met up with Veronika, over from Brussels for a flying visit. We ate, drank, pontificated and went our separate ways. Rather a good weekend, I think, but I'm too shattered to really do it justice here...!