We returned to pick the children up from Monmouth the following weekend, stopping off at Dyrham Park on the way back. Quite apart from it being a convenient place just off the M4 to stop for lunch, the children had last been there when the roof was in the process of being replaced following a fire and were keen to see how it now looked. The scaffolding that they had previously ascended to look down on the roof was all gone and, at least externally, the property was once again looking in fine form.
On the Sunday Christine took Emma along to the Junior parkrun in Southampton. Emma must have enjoyed it as she was persuaded out their again the following weekend where, despite getting a lower place, she managed to beat her previous time. Duncan also decided that he would go round this time with Christine. Thankfully he managed to maintain a respectful distance behind is older sister! All of this now means that I’m the only one in the family never to have run a parkrun despite being the first to register for a barcode! 
I ran home whilst Christine and the children went to investigate what turned out to be an open day at Woodmill Outdoor Activities Centre. This gave them a chance to test out their climbing skills yet again.
Christine and I took it in turns to mind the children the following week. I took them down to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard on the train for one day. We went up the Spinnaker Tower first which, to be honest, was a bit of a let down. Other than a view out over the Solent to the Isle of Wight there really just isn’t much to see. There was quite some queue to get in to the dockyard itself but we can return on our ticket at any point during the next year and won’t have to suffer the queue again. After a stop for lunch we headed over to see the Mary Rose in her new dry state. 
It’s very well done with the skeletal remains of the one half of the ship on one side and the retrieved contents was laid out on the other in decks as it would have been found on the ship. Unfortunately I think the sheer age of the ship and the remarkableness of the fact that any of it actually remains today was lost on the children.
Emma had been to see HMS Victory before with school and Duncan will go this year so we then took a look around HMS Warrior. Despite the fact that pretty much only the shell is original, the children still got much more out of out this. Later in the week we took a trip out to Mottisfont to check out the Beatrix Potter trail. On what was a sunny day, it was absolutely heaving and I think the children may finally be starting to outgrow some of the activities (although not the ice cream at the end!).
Excitement for the following weekend consisted of a trip to the Ageas Bowl, this time to watch women’s Twenty20 cricket. It was every bit as exciting as the men’s game and the home side of the brightly clad Southern Vipers played a convincing victory over Loughborough Lightning. It was then back to work for Christine and I with the children attending summer camp at their school for the next week.
It’s been a weekend for running. On Saturday Christine ran at the first of this year’s Hampshire Cross-Country races at Farley Mount. I didn’t feel 100% when I woke up so decided to save myself for Sunday. Although I felt much better by the time the races came round it was probably still a wise decision (not least to reserve some energy for a barn dance in the evening!).
On Sunday it was Totton RC’s Stinger which meant a return to Ocknell. It had been raining heavily during the night and it was still going as we drove to the event. The sun had come out by the start so, although wet underfoot, it was actually quite warm.
I was slightly alarmed to be in the lead for the first couple of miles but around the three mile mark, three runners made a move (although I’m puzzled because the results that were posted suggest four). Most of the next four miles were spent racing around the gravel tracks in the Inclosure. The first two runners started to pull away and I had to work hard to stay in contact with the third placed runner (or was it fourth?!). I started to make some ground as we left the tracks and worked our way back along the edge of the Inclosure but didn’t have the energy left to haul him in on the final climb up towards the finish (the sting).
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