Author Archive

Long run with the locals

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

With two locals out for tonight’s run from Nomansland I had hoped that we might finish a bit closer to the hour. Ian lead us on a tour round Canada Common and we then returned via another closer encounter with the Bramble Hill Hotel. Sadly this turned out to be longer still than last week’s run both in terms of distance and time, and without the sunshine!

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Green Race

Friday, July 9th, 2010

I made it out for my second RR10 of the year on Wednesday. It was at Flemming Park where the race uses the old golf course. I can’t say that I particularly enjoyed it as there are far too many twists and turns for my liking. I was grateful for some support from a Winchester runner who urged me to join him in catching the competitor in front. Unfortunately when he caught the guy he then proceeded to take him with him through the field. It did at least spur me on for a bit. I can’t complain too much though as I did improve my position to 18th.

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Illusive hotel

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

I’d missed the last couple of runs at Beaulieu Road Station whilst on vacation and with the arrival of a new month, the venue had moved to Nomansland. Sadly, no-one who knows where they’re going turned up so we had to rely on Neil. 😉 Having poured scorn on Peter for being unable to find the Bramshaw Hill Hotel from Fritham, we then proceeded to miss it again on tonight’s run. All due credit to Neil, following a dash along the road through Bramshaw he recovered his sense of direction. All in all a good run if a little long at nearly 80 minutes elapsed time (if only about 60 minutes running).

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Welsh Holiday

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010

869I’m just coming to the end of two weeks of vacation of which we spent the first 10 days on a family holiday to Wales. We originally had had various plans for an overseas trip but, apart from anything else, we’d failed to get Duncan a passport! In the end, we spent a week in a ‘lodge’ at a place called Timber Hill near Broad Haven in Pembrokeshire and then, because the original plan had been to find some mountains, up to a cottage in Llanberis for 4 nights.

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Sprint weekend

Monday, June 14th, 2010

866We had a fun weekend of orienteering blessed by some good weather. On Saturday it was the Winchester Urban Race. This started and finished at the Rugby Club and the 1:5000 map stretched south to the Cathedral and Wolsey Castle. If you think city racing is all about tricky route choices influence by narrow cut-throughs, dead-ends, and control sites where the side of the feature is all important, then the event wouldn’t have disappointed you. (more…)

Emma turns three

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

863Emma’s birthday itself was a fairly quiet afair. Emma was up early but more due to sunlight than anything birthday related. Presents were opened over breakfast and then I went in to work.  The family then joined me there for lunch at the clubhouse where Emma’s early start was starting to show. Apparently she enjoyed visiting the fish after I’d gone back to my desk though. Then it was the first of many cakes in the evening. Emma’s attempts at blowing anything (and not just Rice Krispies out of her nose) are still pretty feeble so I was suitably impressed that she managed to extinguish the candles.

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First camp

Monday, May 24th, 2010

860Emma’s birthday week started well. SOC had one of it’s summer series events at Telegraph Woods (by the Rose Bowl) on Saturday. Christine had a run whilst the rest of us went round the yellow with Neil and his girls. About half way round we’d had to resort to bribes to keep the girls walking and eventually cut back without finishing the course. We were then joined by my brother for a picnic in a shady spot overlooking the construction work on the cricket ground (which was a plus point by the way).

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Where it went, nobody nose

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

857Last Wednesday Christine phoned me at work to say that Emma had put a Rice Krispie up her nose. Apparently Christine had come downstairs and Emma had said that this was what she had done. When asked to remove it, she’d pushed it up further with her finger. When asked to blow her nose, she’d then sniffed instead. Given the cold she had at the time I assumed it would just find its own way back out in the general flow of things! However, when Emma took 4 hours to go to sleep that night and was complaining of earache we decided to phone the surgery the following morning. They said they didn’t go poking around up noses but that we should go to casualty and so the saga began…

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