Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
833Interestingly, haivng just re-read a post from October ’98 when the Google Street View car came past and we’d just been to Manor Farm Country Park, we were back at Manor Farm on Sunday. This was another freebie courtesy of our Culture-all Passport. We’d been attracted by an ad in the county council magazine for a “Nature Navigation” day. This entailed the loan of a GPS to follow a short trail around the park with cardboard cut-out animals along the way. Something like a hi-tec orienteering string course but with the difference that the event was actually popular! Perhaps it was force of habit but the GPS seemed overkill and it would have been more fun with a map. The farm itself was a bigger hit with Emma with lots of young animals to see. She even enjoyed the story teller with his ghostly tales. (One of Emma’s favourite activities at the moment is to get us to make up a story for her which generally has to entail an animal biting their tongue!)
Posted in Family | Comments Off on Nature Navigation
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
Back in October ’98 I blogged about the arrival of the Google Street View car in our road. The data for our area has finally been made available and I’m glad to report that Emma (with short hair) and I can now claim our moment of fame. I’m disappointed that we don’t get to feature twice despite crossing the road whilst the car turned at the end of the cul-de-sac. Having moved house since you’re not likely to find us in the same spot again!
Posted in Family, Web | 2 Comments »
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
830Neil and Alice are off on the other side of the world for the next week or two and have kindly lent us their cycle chariot. Emma was certainly keen to give it a go as she was sat in the seat with the cover over whilst I finished assembling it! Unfortunately Saturday wasn’t really the best day for venturing out on a bicycle as it was drizzling from dawn ’til dusk. By mid-afternoon we had to get out of the house to maintain sanity and a bike ride round the local playgrounds seemed as good an idea as any. As you can see from the photo, Duncan was slightly less keen about the whole idea but then he did go off to sleep shortly after we set off! I certainly found it an easier ride towing two rather than having Emma in the rear seat although there’s not much in the way of hills around us to really provide a test. Given its size, it remains to be seen whether we take it away with us on holiday and, given the price (now about £800 for this model), even more so whether we decide to buy one for ourselves.
Posted in Cycling, Family | 3 Comments »
Monday, March 15th, 2010
On Saturday we went to the SOC local event at Dibden. The longest course on offer was a Green which included several legs from the Mens Open at the British Relays. The course started with a few track legs which weren’t particularly interesting but were a good chance to warmup. When we reached the legs from the relays they weren’t the same gaffles I had but I was pleased to find number six without too much trouble as this was the area I wasted time in at the British. In proceeded to waste a minute or more on the next leg although in my defence I still couldn’t see the distinct vegetation boundary even when I was stood at the control site. Total time was just under 27 minutes for the 5k course so a good burn-up.
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Posted in Family, Orienteering | Comments Off on Relays Revisited
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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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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Posted in Family, Orienteering | Comments Off on Local orienteering
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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Posted in Family | 11 Comments »
Friday, January 1st, 2010
815I’m behind on the blog so this post is a catch-all for our activities over the festive period. Having taken the weeks off before and after Christmas we’ve had plenty of time for visiting friends and family and also had a chance to spend a bit of time at home. On the Tuesday before Christmas we set off to visit Christine’s parents in Monmouth (it’s her Dad’s birthday on the 23rd). We failed to check the road conditions before starting out but were intending to stick to the M4 rather than going via Gloucester and through the Forest of Dean. However, we hadn’t been on the M4 for long before we were informed of the closure of the Severn Crossing. We mistakenly decided to continue on in the hope that the old Severn bridge (which we normally use) would still be open, or at least that it would have reopened by the time we got there.
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Posted in Family, Photography, Running | Comments Off on On the road at Christmas
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