The title of today’s blog is not a plea for sympathy, it’s a veiled reference to one of my favourite Korean films, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, from an ultra-violent trilogy based on obsession and revenge. It has sod all to do with my current circumstances, but I am seriously considering calling my next chicken Lady Vengeance.

Anyhoo back to the job at hand. Lady Fate (not Vengeance) is a shrewd woman. She knows what she’s doing. Just when I was starting to get really fed up of cycling into the wind (literally and metaphorically, as I still haven’t learned to drive yet) and felt like my brave adventures in the Scottish undergrowth were turning into a farce, she stepped in and steered me in a new direction. I can only assume it was Lady Fate or some otherworldly force, because I’d all but given up.

I really love it here. I love the hills and the endless sky and the freakishly soft water that makes every day a good hair day. But sometimes living in the arse end of nowhere 350 miles away from home sucks a bit. As much as I love my volcanic view, I miss my girlfriends, I miss my family, I miss wasting money on shoes, I miss having a reliable income and I miss living within spitting distance of a shop that sells bog roll and butterscotch chocolate. Or even plain chocolate. A Dairy Milk would do. Alas a visit to the chocolate shop involves a 7-mile round trip on my bike; usually face first into the wind. Burning it off before you’ve even licked it bizarrely takes away the sinful pleasure of pigging out on chocolate. It’s just not as much fun if it’s not a bit naughty.

My bag of woes has probably been weighed down with the business of not running enough. As all you die-hard running fanatics will attest, once you’ve been inducted into the cult of running, injury is your greatest foe. Although it’s just a wee niggle, it’s enough to prevent me from properly hitting the trails, and subsequently I confess, when I read your Twitter updates about how great your running is going, I might secretly want to kill you all in a blaze of Lady Vengeance style kung fu. Sorry about that.

But after a couple of days of festering in self-pity, perhaps because I’ve stopped trying to control everything and resigned to roll with the punches, things in the land of haggis took an unexpected turn and have since started to improve. I answered an ad in the local paper and got a job copy-editing for a local business which I absolutely adore. In a merry trilogy of gainful employment, I also got a job tutoring, which is great fun and very rewarding. Then a last minute call came through to help out at the Hawick News. Check out the sexy floating head.

Hot off the press: The Hawick News

So I’ve been busy writing and teaching and peddling furiously into the wind. Although I haven’t been doing much running, my new friends The Runner Beans have been absolutely lovely. I promise to train more with them when the suspicious knee rights itself. I’ve been riding like a wild cat instead. Cycling 50+ miles a week in adverse weather conditions sucks a bit, but has resulted in some unexpectedly pleasing thigh tone-age. If only it were warm enough to show off these newly honed mountain-thighs in my trusty sequin hotpants…