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Half Term-O

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

971It being half-term, we decided to head along to the Wednesday orienteering taking place at nearby Micheldever Forest. My ankle still hasn’t recovered from the trip up to the Peak District so I went round the shortest course (the 3k Yellow) with Emma and Duncan whilst Christine ran the Blue. Duncan was already asleep by the time we had completed the 1k route march to the start which was a bit of a shame as it wasn’t the smoothest of courses. In the background of this photo you can see the ‘ride’ that we had just come along – a mixture of foot high grass/brambles, foot deep water-filled trenches, and branches! I certainly got a good upper body workout hefting Duncan over all of that and needless to say Duncan was awake when we finally arrived at this control. We didn’t complete the course but did have fun and also enjoyed the Junior Squad cakes that were on sale!

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Playful Puppy

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

965Emma brought the class pet home with her last Friday – a beanie dog that goes by the name of Playful Puppy! For the weekend that followed, every sentence started with ‘Playful Puppy this’ or ‘Playful Puppy that’. He comes with a diary so we had to make sure to get some good pictures of him when he accompanied us on a trip out to Farley Mount. He enjoyed the ride on Emma’s bike, climbing on the play equipment, building a den etc.. In some ways it’s a shame that Emma was only the second recipient of Playful Puppy this year as I’m sure the diary must offer a wonderful insight in to the out-of-school activities of each of the families. Thankfully Emma’s attachment to Playful Puppy waned as the week drew on and, needless to say, we left him at home the day we were supposed to return him. Thankfully I’d cycled in with Emma on the tag-along that morning so I could nip back and retrieve the errant dog.

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Duncan’s Two

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

962Duncan had his second birthday this week. Leading up to the event Duncan’s stock response to any reference to the event was “No Birthday”, accompanied by a shake of the head. When the big day arrived he seemed to warm to it though. In a slightly unfair twist of fate Emma was off school with an INSET day but Duncan must have enjoyed his time an nursery as, most unusually, he was keen to go again the following day! As was to be expected, Emma was very excited and did a good job of feeding Duncan with presents for him to open. Several presents were playing catch-up with big sister: an umbrella and a big towel with a digger on for example. By far the most popular present had to be the model tractor which is now never far from his side. And the terrible twos? Perhaps not terrible but he certainly knows how to be naughty…

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Fun running

Sunday, September 25th, 2011

959It was the Hursley 10K today and, being an odd year, it was my turn to run. Christine offered to cycle down after breakfast to pick up my number which meant we could arrive at the last minute for the start! The course had dried out a bit from when my recce earlier in the week but, if anything, that was probably to my disadvantage. I spent the first half of the race battling for 5th place. Unfortunately, when we hit the long track section the Hardley runner pulled away and even when back in the woods I couldn’t reel him in again. So, I had to settle for 6th place and a time of 38:52 (the winner was two minutes faster) – my slowest yet but then the course has been different every time I’ve run it.

The most nervous competitor in our house this morning was not, however, me. Emma was entered in the 750 fun run (year 2 and under) and seemed a little bit anxious. It was all very well done though with the same musical warm-up routine that the adults were treated to. Christine ran round with Emma (well, I don’t think they ran all the way). Emma looked very serious as she sprinted towards the finish line (Duncan was slightly distracted by the air ambulance taking off at this point) but was full of smiles when she received her medal. She even asked when the next one was!

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First day at school

Saturday, September 10th, 2011

956Thursday was Emma’s first proper day at school (well, afternoon). After a couple of visits to the school in the past few months, we had a visit from her teachers (they job share) and teaching assistant on Wednesday where Emma got to show off the scrapbook she has been putting together over the summer (she’ll show it anyone who shows the slightest interest!). We’re still not quite sure what the purpose of this visit was: whether it’s to meet the child in the comfort of their own home, have a chance to have a quiet word with the parents, or just have a good nose at where they live!

Thursday morning was set aside for the older half of the year and so it was that, after lunch, Christine got Emma in her new uniform and walked her to school (about 3/4 of a mile). There was apparently a bit of wobbling when they parted but I’m not sure on which side this was! Anyway, when I went to pick her up she seemed to be very happy. She’d enjoyed the tracing, painting, story time, outside play… In particular, she is delighted that she gets to bring TWO new books home EVERY DAY! She was certainly happy enough to go back in again on Friday afternoon.

We now have another week of afternoons and then a week and a half or mornings that eventually stretch in to lunchtimes before we can finally settle in to some sort of routine again. In the meantime, Duncan has moved up from babies to toddlers at nursery which seems to have unsettled him a bit. Hopefully he just needs a little while to get used to a new set of faces. It does mean that he gets better toys to play with though!

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Dorset Coast

Saturday, September 3rd, 2011

953At the end of the Bank Holiday week we were due to run in the SOC team for the Dorset Coast Path Relay. As the weather forecast looked set to stay dry we decide to camp the preceding two night’s on a (randomly selected) campsite on the outskirts of Charmouth. Whilst well placed for the start of the relay, it was rather too close to the A35 and we had to drive to the beach. Rather more annoying was that, despite being quite expensive (£27 per night), you were expected to also fork out for a session at the indoor pool. To be fair though, the money seemed to be well spent and there was a life-guard at the pool and the site generally appeared to be very well kept.

We had a great day at the beach in Charmouth on the Friday and met up with Christine’s brother and family that evening for dinner. (It was our anniversary and, after 11 years, I couldn’t wear my wedding ring as it has developed a split!)

In keeping with the tent’s previous outings this year – it was wet on the morning of our last night. However, by the time I’d been to Lyme Regis to do my short leg at the start of the relay and returned, the wind had done a reasonably job of drying it out. Having got everything back in the car we headed over to Abbotsbury where we were running the legs either side of the hill fort. We then weren’t on again until after Lulworth but sadly spent most of that time in traffic around Dorchester for the Dorset County Show. We had lunch on a windswept Povington Hill, watching the dark clouds form over the hills adjacent to the sea.

Christine ran the section from Flower’s Barrow to Kimmeridge. A hill team then brought the baton up to meet at Clavell Tower and I set off for Chapman’s Pool. With the restart at Lulworth there was, for a change, other runners around. I was fairly confident that I should be able to stay ahead of Jack Benham but as we approached Chapman’s Pool and I passed the fourth changeover for the Junior Squad team, I wasn’t sure I’d manage to hold them at bay for much longer. Thankfully the hill team weren’t quite as late as arriving as they had apparently been at some earlier handovers and I wasn’t forced to climb all the way back out of Chapman’s Pool.

We then set of for Studland where the children had a chance to play on the beach. The other members of the SOC team slowly assembled (three are required to run the beach leg to Sandbanks together) and we were greeted to the sight of Paul Whipple splashing through the water round the headland just as the Kerno team came down the hill. The blue and yellow tops therefore inter-mingled as we set off along the shoreline (where thankfully the sea was leaving some relatively firm wet sand) in the race to be third team across the line. I reached the ferry terminus ahead of the first Kerno runner but who were those next two runners? It turned out that Iain McNally (who hadn’t been there when I started) had arrived late but had caught us up which thankfully meant we had three runners home before the next Kerno runner appeared.

In the final reckoning we were fourth over the complete course and second in the handicap with a new fastest time for SOC of 8 hours 34 minutes. In addition Iain was crowned King of the Coast. And most importantly (given that I had told Christine to leave the waterproofs at home) the forecast rain didn’t return until the evening.

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The Tower

Saturday, September 3rd, 2011

950I took the Bank Holiday week off work and, having not booked to go away anywhere, we spent an extended weekend at my parents’. On the Monday, we took advantage of the increased proximity to London and had a family trip (my brother included) to visit the Tower of London as known to Emma through “Katie in London” and “Paddington at the Tower”. The highlight of the trip was probably not the Crown Jewels (for which there was a mercifully short queue). I’m not easily impressed – from a distance, it could easily all be cubic zirconia! The battle between knights that took place in the grounds shortly after we arrived seemed to be Emma’s favourite.

We didn’t take a guided tour from one of the Beefeaters. Whilst I was minding a sleeping Duncan in the pushchair, I did follow one tour to get a look in the chapel. After being regaled with gruesome tales for 5 minutes (the guide also does Jack the Ripper on Wednesday evenings!) I was rather glad that I didn’t have Emma with me. Having visited almost every corner of the castle, there was only time for a fleeting trip to Tower Bridge before it was time to return home (leaving Michael to enjoy his evening Prom in peace!).

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Brockenhurst Urban Score

Saturday, August 20th, 2011

I’ve got rather used to going along to the orienteering club’s summer series events and getting round the longest course in around half an hour. It was therefore a bit of a shock to the system to get to today’s event and realise that it was going to be a one hour score event. Oh well – that’s only a maximum of one hour I thought to myself. I should, however, have realised that with Jane planning I wasn’t going to be back in much under 60 minutes. As it turned out, I failed to get three controls despite covering over 8 miles in 59:07. It was certainly a good workout though with my heart rate averaging at 172.

The others had done a yellow course whilst I was out. Unfortunately it started to tip it down shortly after Christine set off. We repaired to the car where Duncan proceeded to insert coins in to the CD player (anyone have a set of removal keys so I can turn it upside-down and shake them out?!). By Christine’s return there was blue sky everywhere – just a shame that more people hadn’t hung on a bit for the Summer Series prize giving and club BBQ.

20110820 Brockenhurst Urban Score GPX

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