Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Back to Fleming Park
Sunday, May 1st, 2011Royal watching
Saturday, April 30th, 2011
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Maze-O
Friday, April 29th, 2011Easter Weekend
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
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Forest of Half
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011We were at Christine’s parents for a running themed weekend. On Saturday we watched her Mum complete a fell race at Llanthony Priory. Emma and Duncan thoroughly enjoyed playing around the ruins with some of the other children and then splashing in a small stream crossed by the course. On Sunday, her Dad and I ran in the Forest of Dean Trails Half Marathon. I had originally embarked on a training schedule for this race (a first for me) but was probably too ambitious and soon succumbed to a knee injury.
Southern Champion
Monday, March 14th, 2011On Sunday, I left the rest of the family to go to Manor Farm Country Park whilst I got a lift to the Southern Champs, taking place on the Hambleden Estate near Henley-on-Thames. It made a pleasant change having time to prepare before the start of the race although I still had to go back for the Emit brick I left behind. I enjoyed my run as Hambleden is a delightfully runnable area (if you discount the hills) and I had no pain from my dodgy knee. I only messed up two controls: two minutes at number 10 (see RouteGadget for the near miss) and half a minute at the penultimate control. On the long (~3km) leg, after taking time to examine the map on the previous leg, I ended up going pretty straight. It will be interesting to see whether anyone ran faster taking the long flatt(er) route going south and then coming in from the east.
I was 1st out of 5 when I finished but results were delayed and we headed off before the prize giving. Still no results when I went to bed so it was a pleasant surprise to have an email in the morning from a club-mate indicating that they had picked up my M35L trophy. So, growing older has its benefits. The only fly in the ointment? Richard Barrett took nearly 5 minutes less on the same course as an M40. Looks like I still have some work to do over the next 5 years!
Febrile seizure
Thursday, March 10th, 2011Duncan’s nursery phoned on Monday morning to say that he was running a temperature. I agreed that they could give him Calpol and phoned again later, by which time his temperature had subsided, he’d slept, and had eaten his lunch. The next call I had was from Christine who had gone to pick up Duncan at the end of the day and discovered an ambulance car parked outside. Duncan had experienced a short seizure (1-2 minutes) and they we’re going to transfer him (along with Christine and Emma) by ambulance to Winchester Hospital. I pedalled over to the nursery, picked up the car and followed them in. They had given him more Calpol and followed this up with Ibuprofen in A&E which brough his temperature back down again from 39 degrees. After several hours of the usual NHS procrastination he was finally transferred to the children’s ward where Christine spent the night with him. Emma and I returned the following morning to bring them home (after a good play with the toys on the ward). The verdict? A febrile seizure. As the NHS site states “frightening but harmless”. He may be susceptible and we need to watch his temperature more closely in future but, either way, he will grow out of it by five. What surprised me most is that, although between three and five percent of children suffer one of these seizures, this was a first for the nusery. In many ways though, we’re glad it happened there rather than at home as they undoubtedly dealt with the situation much more calmly than we would have done.
London sightseeing
Saturday, March 5th, 2011Emma was keen to see the dinosaurs after a previous encounter at the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. We then went on to look at the mammals (including the life size blue whale) and the creepy crawlies. Duncan also seemed to love the museum although that may just have been the chance to run freely from one brightly lit case to the next. There was bright sunshine when we emerged but we dived down in to the underground (all part of the experience) back to Westminster and then walked back to Waterloo, just about beating the commuter rush back home.
There are a few photos on Flickr. I would have taken more but the auto-focus on my kit lens seems to have packed in. Thankfully it’s still under warranty.