My Game of Thrones Passion and my EU vote

Saturday 18^th June

Distance: 3:50 miles Time: 50:41 Avg Speed: 4.15mph Avg Pace 14.27min/mile

Calories Burned 538                                      Calories Burned TOTAL: 2408.

Saturday 11th June

Distance: 2:14 miles Time: 31.31 Avg Speed: 4.08mph Avg Pace 14.58min/mile

Calories Burned 335                             Calories Burned TOTAL: 1870

Saturday 4^th June

Distance: 1:09 miles Time: 14.58 Avg Speed: 4.25mph Avg Pace 14.23min/mile

Calories Burned 159                             Calories Burned TOTAL: 1535

Well dear blogosphere today you are getting 3 for the price of 1 due mainly to the fact that over the last 3 weeks my Saturdays have been very hectic and I have had to get out, run, get home, shower and go straight out again. Week one; go to help build a bug hotel in the church yard; week two to go organise a coffee morning at the exhibition and flower display for the Queen’s birthday, both very pleasant and most successful mornings. So today finds me with slightly more time to catch up although later this morning will find me swinging from a ladder polishing Jesus’ head! No that is not a euphemism for something dark and deviant but is yet another job day at church where a team of co-opted/volunteer (hear, read ‘pressganged’) regulars will don their gardening togs and get out there and do the practical things that need doing. For those of you who know my church there is a quite spectacular reredos with carved statues of the Northern Saints including folk like Cuthbert, Aiden and Hilda and sitting atop in the central position is the figure of Christ, who it has to be said is currently sporting a very dusty barnet. So today he and all the men and women of The North, Ok so I know that is a tenuous Game of Thrones reference more of that later, will get a good old dust.

As I have not written for three weeks I have a few things to catch up with today first off this week has seen the most horrendous events in Florida USA where a right wing nutter murdered 49 people just out enjoying themselves and in my own Northern town the MP for Batley and Spen Jo Cox was murdered by what looks to have been another right wing nutter, whilst just out doing her job.

Now call me cynic here but I am just a tad tired of all the right wing crap and bullshit that is permeating our press and media. We are not better for having guns in our world they are a hideous invention and are responsible for millions of deaths. We are not better for standing alone to fight. We can only grow stronger and safer with a unified and concerted effort towards deep and lasting peace. We do not grow stronger by pulling apart we grow stronger together, working together, sharing together. For those of you who know me well you know that I am wholeheartedly committed to remaining in the EU. The UK is an island in the geographical sense and I fear that if we vote out we will then become an island in the literal sense, alone, isolated, without neighbour, without community. For me that is not an option and my ‘REMAIN’ vote has never been in question I have been for ‘IN’ right from the start. The UK is a nation of immigrants; Romans, Vikings, Normans, Jews, Christians, Muslims…. I myself have Peruvian ancestry. We are an immigrant nation let us never forget that. The only true remaining ‘Britons’ are the Red Headed Brethren north of the border in Scotland, the poetic and mystical brethren to the west in Wales and a few Cornish and Northern Irish folk. So don’t spout to me your poisonous rhetoric of immigration and Britain First or Britain for the British because if you send home all those who were not true Brits or had a fleck of immigrant blood in them you’d be left with no one. My colours nailed firmly to the mast to quote Dale Winton; “You have to be in it to win it” I am IN no question, no qualms, no doubts. The EU may not be perfect and we must work to change it, from within, but it is a dammed sight better than isolation and seclusion outside a lone voice shouting to a wall.

So I mentioned Game of Thrones, as I so often do, earlier in this epistle. Now this is an obsession that borders on compulsive, nay it is compulsive. It consumes my life. I have never loved a show before with so much passion and commitment. Never have I cared so much about what happened to characters or willed so much that those deserving will get their dues, both good and evil. This latest season (S6) has had me stopping up until 2am on a Monday morning, just to watch the next episode. Then going to school on just 3 hours sleep only to come home at tea time and watch the same episode again just in case I missed anything!! For the last 3 weeks though, having found this continued sleep deprivation was taking its toll I now get up at 5am and watch it first thing in the morning and all because I cannot bear the thought that I may accidentally hear a spoiler before the regular viewing at 9pm on a Monday night. In fact the ‘Hold the Door’ episode I did not stay up nor get up to watch only for someone at work (JH you know who you are!) to have watched it and let just too much slip. The pain was unbearable so I now ensure I do either the 2am or 5am slot.

I know that amongst my friends there are two camps those in and those out. The staff room at school can often be a wash with excited chatter about Starks, Lanisters, Riverrun, Bravos, Tyrion, Cersei, dragons and battles, whilst the rest look on as if we were speaking Russian. Nowadays I find myself starting most conversations to friends, colleagues, new acquaintances or random strangers in the street, with the opening salver of ‘Do you watch Game of Thrones?’ This weekend will see the much awaited ‘Battle of the Bastards’ and for those of us who are awaiting our weekly fix of our opiate, this will be the episode where our dreams and hopes for a brighter GOT future may well see fruition or come crashing down in a pile of bitter sobs and tears. We wait for 2am Monday with a sense of ‘this is it’ that will see us as gibbering wrecks by the time we hear the strains of that fabulous sound track. I know that the anticipation, the hype, the buzz will be worth it. I know that the producers will deliver because they always do. I can hold my hand to my heart and say without fear of contradiction that this is the greatest TV programme ever devised that I have been hooked on. I have had a passion for many over the years from MASH to Friends, via SITC, Cheers, ER, Will and Grace, Downton and many more but none has held my heart, my soul or my commitment to characters like GOT does. I long for each episode and sit in bated anticipation watching it. Whilst watching I awe and gasp and wince at the machinations, the plots and sub-plots, the gore and bloodletting, the lust and the passion.  I never miss an episode and will organise my life around it. So yes I am addicted and this weekend the anticipation is all consuming, I simply cannot wait. So if you meet me I will ask do you watch GOT and if you say ‘Yes!’ we will then have an ongoing discussion about just whom we think will eventually sit on the Iron Throne and how the White walkers can be defeated. If you say ‘No!’ then we will talk about the weather and maybe the footy or the EU.

I do get consumed by passions and GOT has me. I have also this week felt my running passion a little stronger. Today I turned left at the top of the street (I went left for the first time last week) and ran up to Lawnswood School then home again. I accidentally paused the tracker and ended up going round the block and round and round the circle in my street just to ensure that the tracker registered 3.5 miles, yet did it I did. I am now getting into my swing and I am working on building the miles into my legs as September is only a few weeks away. A huge thank you to all those who have sponsored me so far and for now I will close as always by saying thank you for your support and if you could please sponsor me  at https://www.justgiving.com/Janet-Lewis3 for however much you can spare I and www.musculardystrophyuk.org would be most grateful.

Thank you