Author Archive

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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Trailing along

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Another run from Canadian War Memorial on Tuesday night. I wasn’t on top form which I put down to my cold/ear infection. Not even sure whether I should have been running but it was a nice evening with a warm sun offsetting a cool breeze. Decided not to go to the pub as a) I had lots of work to do and b) I’m not sure alcohol would mix well with the paracetamol and anti-biotics!

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Hard of hearing at Harvester

Monday, May 10th, 2010

854Having failed to respond to a call for runners from SOC for the Harvester night relays due to it being my Dad’s 80th birthday on Saturday, I rather guiltily agreed to step-in and complete a team for JOK. The (unwritten) rules state that JOK members should run for their first claim clubs in preference if needed and consequently Jon Cross moved up to the FVO team at the last minute. Fortunately John Embrey was then able to locate a replacement ex-Oxonian at the last minute and the team was once again complete. That is, until Saturday, when Helen Gardener fell foul of an illness. With Jon Marsden prepared to run two consecutive night legs, we were able to complete all seven legs but sadly that would make us non-competitive.

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Good turnout for underpasses

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

With the change of month we moved to a new venue for Tuesday night’s run: Canadian War Memorial near Bolderwood. There was a good turnout which befit the sunny skies. The route was the (eastern) two underpasses clockwise. I declined to run any of the optional extras, partly through tiredness from the weekend and partly due to the onset of a cold.

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Two seconds at the British

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

851After a bit of indecision, Christine finally decided that she wouldn’t run on the Saturday of the British Orienteering Champs due to a calf injury but we would all go up to Cannock Chase for the weekend and she would still run in the relay. This meant I could move my individual start to a late time and we could drive up to Rugeley on the Saturday morning rather than having to stay up on the Friday night. This probably meant we missed the worst of the bank holiday traffic and we actually had a very smooth journey arriving in pleny of time.

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Fairwell to Fritham

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Tuesday was our last run of the month and, as is tradition, we ran the route that almost everyone can do with their eyes closed: the Six Ponds. It was a lovely evening and a shame that we didn’t have a bigger turnout. In particular, we were treated to a fantastic moon on exiting the pub. It was slightly odd to be joined by someone who we used to coach orienteering to as a junior, haven’t seen for about 4 years, and is now a student at Southampton. Needless to stay his young legs fared him well!

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