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Well, I’m sat here on a Saturday morning waiting for some folk in London to do a few things as part of a disaster recovery test for a client. Going well so far, and I’ve got a bit of spare time and thought I’d have a general ramble about ’stuff’ that’s going on.

As far as the house is going, we’ve finally chosen our new kitchen table, from ‘The Other Lumber Company’, on Bridge Street in Glasgow. We’d spotted it a while back, but as it was Oak we felt it might be a bit too similar to our oak floor. You can have too much of a good thing, and we were worried it’d be a bit of an oak-overload. Still, we dragged Frances’ parents along with us for a viewing, and a few other likely candidates (using darker wood, such as Walnut or dark birch), but ironically after a long chat with a saleswoman at another shop, left concluding the oak table was what we wanted. Just not hers.

Funny how sales people all have the “I have one of these myself” line. I heard her say it, and believed her at the time. Only when I walked out of the shop did I twig that I hear it far too often for it to be true. It’s a good patter, because it gives you the reassurance that your decision would be one they approve of, and you’re not doing something wacky by choosing that particular product. Distrustful stuff, and another reason to chalk up as reasons to dislike salespeople.

On the subject of salesmen, had a ring on the door the other day, to find a slick-suited salesman beaming at me. I immediately suspected jehovah witness, although midday on a week day struck me as a strange time to go preaching, much less to an atheist with a thirst for a doorstep argument and growing impatience at religious evangelism. Turns out he was a financial salesman. Which is perhaps even odder? Certainly that he seemed to represent a company based in Canary Wharf (says his card). Very strange, but as I have an IFA that I’m more than happy with, I said as much, but was told that ‘no stockbroker has a monopoly on good advice’ or somesuch nonesense. Of course they don’t, but I’m certainly not about to take the advice of a random person at the door you muppet. But I fear for that I’m not the sort of person he expected to get very far with, no matter how sharp the suit.

Went out for my run this morning. Dead chuffed by the distance. I even had Steve Redgrave come on to the iPod and congratulate me on my longest workout so far. Cheers Steve! Yup, I managed 4 miles in about 40 minutes, which is about my normal pace (take out the the 4 or 5 short walking breaks I have, I manage an average pace of 9 minute miles), but I finished feeling I could have gone further (always good, and important to make sure I don’t “push it” too far and wind up injured). I think the banana I munched before setting off helped towards the end. The Nike Plus website gives some useful, if rather vague, graphs, and shows my pace has gone from 11′56″ per mile, over 2.5 miles, to 10′16″ over 4 miles in the two whole weeks I’ve had this gear, which is pretty good I think.

It was a deliciously foggy morning, ideal for a run around Pollok Park. The Highland Cattle Show is on today, so I wanted to get around before the crowds arrived. Great autumnal weather for it (cool and crisp), although they seem to have some weird traffic redirection going over grass that will be far too sodden given the downpour yesterday. Expect mud related problems if you’re driving.

An “incident” with Police on Shawmoss Road, meant I had to take a bit of a detour at the start. But my querying of the nice policewoman at the end of the street didn’t elicit any information. Signs say “Police - Accident”, she says “incident”, and they are in a property that is at the corner of our street, so what kind of incident I don’t know. All very suspicious, and likely to mess about with the dash to Homebase later on, as we can’t get back into our street with the road closed off.

Spent a bit of money over at the iTunes Music Store today. Had been holding off doing so, as I’m having a bit of angst about the Apple DRM, but fell for the quick-fix purchase as I’ve come to realise my music tastes are far too depressing for running. So went out and bought the new Scissor Sisters album “Ta-Da!”, The Levellers “Truth and Lies”, and Bob Dylans latest, “Modern Times”. OK, so Mr Dylan doesn’t really do the sort of upbeat as the Scissor Sisters. Running to the mincing sounds of the Scissor Sisters made it all rather more fun.

Right, should be ready to get on with a few more bits for this test, and Frances is now in the land of the living after a much deserved lie-in (although my early start set that back somewhat, and put me somewhat in her bad books), so a trip to the DIY shop to pick up some bits and pieces for our ‘last push’ to get the kitchen finished before our table arrives. Busy busy busy.