Who was it who said ‘Life is what happens when you’re busy doing something else?’ Today was a prime example of that.
After work, I broke with traditional yet again by running in the afternoon. Cause I’m just crazy that way. I wanted to go to Kew Green to track down the blue plaque for pre-Raphaelite painter, Arthur Hughes, that I had wanted to see on my first run. I had seen another blue plaque and been distracted by taking a Blue Plaque Selfie with it. When I got home and looked in my book, I realised that the plaque I had seen was not the one I had been looking for. Dammit. Shoulda taken the book with me then I would have seen that I was at the wrong one. O well.
When I left work today in my unflattering stretchy running pants, I was determined to right this wrong that the sneaky blue plaque had played on me. I ran to Kew Green and started looking around for house no.23. Along the way, I saw this lovely little pond that I’ve never spotted before.
I stopped for a moment and thought about how pretty it will look in the summer. As I ran around looking at the houses around the pond, they were all even numbers. I was looking for number 23 so I couldn’t work out what was going on. I crossed the Green to one of the other sides and found the house…..
You see what my problem is? Where’s the blue plaque!? I looked and looked, up and down the street. Nothing!
Off I ran, a little confused and on the way, came across this fabulous plaque on a house, which is in a whole different category of awesome.
It’s like the bonus ball of the plaque world! Boom! Score!
When I got home, I decided to try and solve the Kew Green mystery so got my book out and looked up Arthur Hughes and…. he lived at NUMBER 22! 22… not 23…. Ah. Yes. Um. That thing I said earlier about taking the book out with me. I really need to listen to my own brain.
Life lessons the blue plaques taught me today =
1. take the bloody book out with you.
2. if you look around while you run, you might spot some cool stuff, even if you don’t find what you were aiming for.
STATS
TOTAL MILES RUN – 9.78
BLUE PLAQUE COUNT – 13
lazylauramaisey 
Posted by Maggie O'C on January 28, 2015 at 18:17
It was not a job listing I wanted you to see, it’s 100 Park Lane. It’s the most expensive house in England! So proud of you for being such a runner!
Posted by lazylauramaisey on January 28, 2015 at 18:55
Thaaaanks! I just googled 100 Park Lane and it looks amazing! The Wellington Arch, where I work, is at the bottom of Park Lane. I’ll have to go get a look at this place 🙂
Posted by Maggie O'C on January 28, 2015 at 20:13
There is an article about it in Vanity Fair this month. Crazy to think that people live there! Get a photo!!
Posted by lazylauramaisey on January 28, 2015 at 20:19
Ok. Will do. I’ll be in the area on Friday. I shall go on that mission for you and sent the pics 🙂
Posted by lazylauramaisey on February 10, 2015 at 18:54
Finally got there today on my lunch break after othet stuff getting in the way. Emailing you pics now.
Posted by The Blue Plaques Guy (@BluePlaquesGuy) on January 29, 2015 at 11:36
You already take your phone on your runs, so why not use that to store the addresses on? Type them up in a notepad app so you have all the addresses there for reference when you need them. (I use memopad as it’s great for this sort of thing, but I have an android phone. If you have an iPhone or a Windows phone you’ll have to find your own app 🙂 ) Type up the addresses for the run the day before. It shouldn’t take too long.
Or you could use this blog. Entries that say ‘itinerary for tomorrows run’ and just list names and addresses. As long as your phone has a web browser on it, it’ll all be there for your reference.
In either case, 10 minutes of typing can save you lots of wandering around and head scratching! And your phone has got to be more convenient to carry around than a 290 page book, right?
It is still worth looking around while you’re out though 🙂
Posted by lazylauramaisey on January 29, 2015 at 14:55
You. Are. A. Genius! All these ideas are good. Next adventure will be tomorrow, if I have time, so I’ll get note-making on my phone. Thanks! 🙂
Posted by sofagirl on January 29, 2015 at 12:19
Hah – what a fabulous adventure. Going to have to change your blogname!
Posted by lazylauramaisey on January 29, 2015 at 13:26
I’ll have to think up some running-related names! The Blue Plaque Challenge is kind of training for an even bigger running adventure I’m doing in June so I’ll have to try and incorporate that in too 🙂
Posted by Rambler on January 31, 2015 at 13:48
Name?
What about BPM? Meaning Blue Plaque Mission but with the added normal meaning of “beats per minute” which fits in with your heart rate when running. Sorted!
Posted by lazylauramaisey on February 2, 2015 at 19:57
Oo, I like! I’m trying to work out how to get a Wellington reference too in there as I’m doing a Wellington themed run in a few months.