I thought I'd wait to add my two penn'orth until the ladies had said all they had to say about Dexy5's wardrobe malfunctions 
and how nice it was to see everybody again ….. which means I can also complete the story of our tourist weekend, which following the RSC, parkrun and cakes continued to include a VRB eatup on Saturday evening at a pub 400 yards from our B&B (first chance to properly get to know Shake-and-run and OH), Armistice Sunday commemorations at Stratford's Holy Trinity church and Garden of Remembrance (featuring Katnap's elder kitten sounding the Last Post and Reveille on the solo bugle ✅ - and I believe the younger kitten did the same job at the Warwick service - what a talented lot), a stroll round the Christmas market and finally a brief visit to a spectacular National Trust property, Upton House near Banbury, en route to joining the inevitable queues on the A34 past Oxford on our way home. So a great weekend was had by both of us ….
For those who pretend they are interested in my descriptions of the actual runs, Stratford's is in a beautiful, if on this occasion rather soggy, setting and comprises 3 laps of a recreation ground bordered on one side by a full-to-nearly-overflowing River Avon. It's a flat course run mostly on a narrow (2.5 person abreast max, but with grassy soft shoulders) tarmac path, with one trip on each lap across a football field to bring the distance down to 5k. Quite what the footballers make of the path worn across their pitch every weekend I don't know …. The run by the river features dozens of swans, and I noticed with interest that one of 3 defibrillators in the vicinity was on the wall of the Bowls Club - bowls is obviously a viciously contested high-stress sport in Stratford 
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I got a good starting position, more by accident than design, so started my watch on the O of the GO for once. Bit bunchy at the start 🏃🏽♀🏃♂ but ran wide on the first cut across the soccer pitch and had a clear run subsequently, just taking care not to slip on wet leaves round some of the quite tight corners. All very well and enthusiastically marshalled and briefed. My run was pretty steady, the first 4 ks at an average pace of exactly 5'00"/k and a bit of a push over the closing stages seeing me home in 24'45" (watch and official time in agreement!) - and sub-25 on a tourist run always makes me very happy 🥂 .
I really must run Southsea again one day ….
