Marathon Day

One of the things my damaged shoulder has prevented me from doing is taking pictures with my proper camera so I wasn’t able to get any of the runners on the prom in the half marathon and marathon as I have done in previous years. Instead I got the bus up town for Soc Cafe. Buses were running late because of the races and at Meadowbank where the race route crosses the main road on its way to the coast there was the usual rolling closure. To be fair it was very efficient. There were two crossing points and to start the one nearer the city centre was closed to traffic and the runners crossed there and ran down the north side of the road. After a bit the runners were diverted onto the south side of the road, the crossing point nearer town was opened, letting traffic move towards the city centre and the further crossing was then closed, ready for the runners coming down the pavement to cross over. And then repeat, diverting the runners down either side of the road and closing and opening the road to traffic accordingly. The runners never stopped and traffic moved relatively quickly.
Soc Cafe was interesting when I finally got there - we talked about the causes of the housing crisis, whether we should be grateful for things and if so who we are grateful to, and how long we should keep socks for (!)