Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

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Staying dry

Monday, October 27th, 2008

In common with my in-laws, I was grateful not to be in the Lake District this weekend at the Original Mountain Marathon. As featured all over the BBC news, the event was a bit of a wash out (to put it mildly). In my case, I was asked to run the long score a couple of months back when someone’s partner looked like they might have to drop out. Given that they would have been looking to win, I dread to think how little kit I might have been carrying in a bid to keep up! Instead, I enjoyed a dry Saturday with my family back in Hertfordshire.

If you want to read a less sensationalist report of the weekend’s events than those provided by the mainstream media then I’d recommend those on SleepMonsters and planetFear.

Posted in Family, Running | 5 Comments »

Cornish delight

Monday, October 20th, 2008

679We spent a long weekend visiting Christine’s brother and his wife down in Falmouth. We headed down on Friday, stopping at Bridport for a lunchtime break. It was like a dream come true for Emma – more pebbles than she knew what to do with! On Saturday we headed over to the massive stretch of beach that is Hale Sands. Lots to see with kite surfing, land yachting, and land kiting (apologies to devotees if I’ve incorrectly labelled their favourite sport!). Emma enjoyed drawing in the sand but was a bit bemused by the rest of the party building a large fort and then proceeding to watch the sea take it over.
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Autumnal sunshine

Monday, October 13th, 2008

676As the Sunday morning mist burnt off to reveal a beautiful sunny day we decided to make the most of our Hillier Gardens membership that Christine renewed a few weeks back. We certainly weren’t the only ones to think so as the car park was heaving. Fortunately the gardens are big enough to absorb the numbers. Once again Emma went to sleep on the way there which meant we could just sit and read for 45 minutes until she woke. We then just wound our way around the garden taking in the autumnal colours and inspecting the sculptures that make up the annual Art in the Park exhibition. Emma sadly still has to learn the maxim “look but don’t touch”. Let’s hope no lasting damage was done!

Posted in Arts, Family | 1 Comment »

XC season kicks off

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

673The Hampshire Cross-Country League kicked off on Saturday at Farley Mount. I had a nice pre-race snooze with Emma as she’d fallen asleep in the car on the way there. She did wake up in time for us to go and see Christine put on a good show for her second lap.
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999 calling

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

Out of the blue, we received a phone call from Hampshire Constabulary this morning. Well, to be fair, it wasn’t quite out of the blue. They were returning a 999 call made from my mobile. It probably doesn’t take too much imagination to work out who made the call… It goes without saying that Emma is going to have to make do with her toy phone from now on!

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Stair gate saga

Friday, September 26th, 2008

We bought a Lindam safety gate from Argos way back before we went to Norway. Shortly afterwards I ordered the free (except for P&P) gate extension from their website so that it would fit across our stairway. At the time though Emma was showing no sign of being a danger on the stairs and when we moved to Norway we were in an apartment.
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Beale Park amusement

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

667We were visiting friends near Reading on Saturday and, at their suggestion, we all headed over to Beale Park for the day. Described as a “Wildlife Park and Gardens” it was soon clear that, in reality, the park contains almost anything that might be described as an amusement: from paddling pool to piggery, from gardens to goats and from trains to lemurs (sorry – the alliteration broke down on the third attempt!). As with many places of this size, you worry a bit about the welfare of the animals and, with some cages not labelled at all, you even wonder about the educational benefit. However, all in all, both adults and child enjoyed the day out.

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Return to the wilderness

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

664We were glad to find our house still standing when we made it back home – particularly as we never quite got round to sorting out the insurance whilst we were away. It was a little obscured by the grass meadow growing in the front garden though. I could just about tackle this with the Flymo but the back garden was another matter. Time to purchase a strimmer!

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