Author Archive

Expensive shoes

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

As part of the drive to use up all of my remaining vacation by the end of the financial year I had Friday off work. After we’d been to Emma’s swimming lesson at Twyford School, we all headed in to Eastleigh for a bit of shopping. This involved taking back Emma’s new shoes which she’d managed to wreck on the slide on the way home from buying them. Shoes for a two year old can hardly be called fit for purpose if the soles can’t cope with a slide! I then went to the running shop to get some new road and off-road shoes whilst Christine went to Sainsburys where we’d parked.
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ASDA calls

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Every so often we get bored of running around the streets of Southampton on a Tuesday night and we decide to head north to the delights of Chandler’s Ford. This does, unfortunately, mean a long slog up the Avenue and Bournemouth Road to ASDA but you then get to follow the cycle route to Flemming Park and then cut back through Lakeside Country Park and the University Playing Fields. This time we also took the footpath around the back of the Ford plant which follows Monks Brook which was a new diversion. Not long until the clocks change now…
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Snow, mud and brambles

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Last weekend we were over in the Forest of Dean for the Southern Championships weekend. The Saturday was a middle distance race on Mallards Pike. Somehow, I’d managed to remember our start block as being from 3:30, not 13:30 and it was only when we were sat having lunch at about half 12 that Christine’s Mum spotted my mistake (her Dad was meant to have already started). Although we weren’t actually all that late once we got there it had been a bit of a rush and I wasn’t really thinking straight when I started off on the Black course in to an area full of ditches. Thankfully (and this was actually part of my plan), I ended up at control three and just had to back-track the short distance to the first control.

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Local orienteering

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

827We went to SOC’s local event at Anderwood in the New Forest today. No string course this time so I took Emma and Duncan round the Yellow course whilst Christine nipped round the Green. Duncan nodded off half way round and Emma spent most of the time in the running buggy. Christine passed us on our way from the last control and came back to meet us. This meant I could head back to the car with dozing Duncan whilst Emma climbed about on a conveniently placed ring of tree stumps. They had only just made it back to download (Emma with a big stick in each hand) as I set off for the start to do the Blue.

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Damp Sainsburys

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

First Tuesday of the month so it must be a run to Sainsburys. Obviously the runners prefer damp over cold as there was a bumper turnout despite today’s rain.

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First orienteering of 2010

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

We went to the BKO Concorde Chase event at Upper Start Posts today. It was our first event of 2010 (just squeezed in to January) and the first time we’d done split starts with two children. It didn’t look like a promising start with sub-zero temperatures as we left home but thankfully the parking/assembly area was in a sunny clearing. Emma walked all the way round the string course whilst Christine was out on her course and I had Duncan in the BabyBjörn.

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Staunton Country Park

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

824We finally concluded that the best way for transporting two small children on walks from home (e.g. to the shops) is a double buggy. It’s just a bit too far for Emma to ride on the buggy board and she’s still a little reluctant to give up her seat to Duncan. This really wasn’t enough of an incentive to spend a couple of hundred pounds on what would be our 5th buggy so we bought one second-hand on eBay. Anyway, the point of the story is that this took us over to Portsmouth to collect it and we decided to try out our Culture-all Passport at another venue: Staunton Country Park.

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New Year at Hilliers

Friday, January 1st, 2010

821We decided to make the most of the sunshine today and spent a large part of it at Hillier Gardens. Despite no longer being members, entry is still free with our Culture-all Passport. In some ways, the passport is better as, in my absence, Christine can take any guest along with her for free. I’ve put a small selection of photos up on Flickr. (I’ve decided to make a concerted effort to download photos in a more timely manner, sort them more ruthlessly and get more of them up on the web.) Unfortunately a large number of people had obviously had the same idea and, although they are easily lost in the gardens, there was a long queue to get something to eat.