Camping Capers

September 4th, 2019

On the Bank Holiday Monday we continued on to Gower where we were booked in to camp at Pitton Cross. Admittedly it was not our first choice but, at least in the camping field away from the electric hookups, it was a pleasant enough site. On arrival, we wasted no time in checking out the footpaths that led down to the nearest rocky cove, less than a mile away.

The next morning, we made the slightly longer trek to Mewslade Bay. It was pretty quiet when we arrived but filled up as the day went on. As is my want, I didn’t make it in over my knees but the water must have been fairly warm as the others spurned their wetsuits when bodyboarding. As high tide approached, the sand almost disappears completely and we were almost the last ones off the beach. The day was rounded off with a lovely meal with friends over in Oxwhich.

Wednesday was forecast to be wet and it didn’t disappoint. I did quite a lot of reading whilst Christine and the children dodged the showers with a walk to Rhossili. The sun re-emerged in the evening when we went over to Port Eynon, picking up fish and chips on our way back to the tent. We then copied our neighbours as they tried out their frisbee and then kite.

The sun was out again on Thursday although the blustery wind made us think twice about our planned trip over the causeway to Worm’s Head. It was fine though and the lush green grass on the island contrasted beautifully against the blue skies and water. As I set off for a run over Rhossili Down, Emma was heading down to the beach for more bodyboarding. Duncan was less keen. Perhaps not surprising when we later discovered that we’ve mistakenly given his younger cousin the wetsuit he wore earlier in the summer and were trying to shoehorn him into the smaller version. He also caught a glancing blow from a bodyboard flapping about in the wind which didn’t improve matters! Nothing that couldn’t be resolved with tea and cake though.

With the wind set to continue through the night, for the second time this summer we decided to pack up our tent that evening and head home. For myself and the children, it wasn’t an end to our camping though. We joined friends for our annual ‘Dad’s camping’ night on Saturday. This year we spurned the New Forest and stayed at Holden Farm on the South Downs. The site facilities were flawless although the grass was a little long where we were in the overflow field.

We made the short walk to the Flower Pots Inn in Cheriton, only to find it closed for the afternoon. As the heavens opened, they took pity on us and supplied beer as we (and others) sheltered in the marquee. When the sun came back, we returned to the campsite for the traditional BBQ. The Dads didn’t manage to stay up much longer than the kids as, having failed to book a firepit, the temperature plummetted as darkness fell. It was also only in the dark that you became acutely aware of how loud the traffic on the A272 was. It’s still a lovely location though and I’m sure we shall be back.

More photos from Gower over on Flickr.

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Sunny Severn Half

September 3rd, 2019

In marked contrast to last year’s event, this August Bank Holiday the Severn Bridge Half Marathon was blessed with blue rather than grey skies (perhaps because they removed the sun from the medal?!). I was, once again, rather unsure of how I would fare as I stood on the start line. This time it was the discussion I’d had with a physio three days earlier about starting a run-walk programme to relieve my right knee pain that was praying on my mind.

As it transpired, I need not have worried. Whether it was something the physio had done, the adrenaline from the race, or the large ibuprofen I’d taken that morning, my knee hardly bothered me at all during the race. If anything, the exercises that I’ve been doing over the past couple of months meant my legs felt stronger than usual. As we came back over the bridge, I was able to haul in a few runners and finished 12th in 1:23:52, knocking a full minute off my time from last year. Apparently I’m due a prize as 2nd MV40 although it has to be said that the first placed vet was over seven minutes ahead of me!

Given the sunshine, rather than racing off back to the car as last year, I had fun with the children handing out bananas to finishers and, towards the end, anyone who would take a bag or two off our hands!

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Peak District Camping

August 11th, 2019

We had our first trip away of the school holidays last week. We were due to camp in Edale in the Peak District and, with the news full of the reservoir full to bursting-point at nearby Whaley Bridge, we were somewhat concerned about the potential weather conditions. As we arrived at Upper Booth Farm there was, thankfully, no sign of the forecast downpours.

The campsite itself is fairly remote (the final instruction from the sat-nav was to turn right onto the Pennine Way!) but it was a pleasant walk over the fields to the pub in Edale for dinner where we were joined by Christine’s cousin. We started out again that way the next morning to pick up lunch supplies and then continued on up Grindsbrook and on to Kinder Downfall, returning via Jacob’s Ladder.

On Tuesday, we drove to the National Trust car park at Mam Tor and had a quick trip up to the top before walking down into Castleton. We visited the town’s main attraction (one of the many tea shops) and then, as we have English Heritage membership at the moment, Peveril Castle. Not much to see of the castle but, having ascended to the keep, there are good views to be had. We returned to the car via Cave Dale and headed for Blue John Cavern just as the heavens opened. The natural caverns are fairly impressive and the guide was both informative and entertaining.

Christine abandoned us to visit her aunt in hospital the next day. We drove round to Ashopton (most of which is now under Ladybower Reservoir) and walked up and along Derwent Edge. Christine had picked her day as this was the only occasion on which we had to don full waterproofs whilst out walking. Christine returned with her cousin (a different one) and two children and we checked out the other pub in Edale that evening.

The enlarged party went for a walk along Stanage Edge the next day. The rocks were crawling with climbers. We then decamped to Hathersage’s open air pool. The pool is heated but it was absolutely heaving which meant moving about sufficiently to actually stay warm was difficult. I was happy to warm up with a pot of tea afterwards whereas Emma went for the obligatory holiday ice cream.

With rain forecast for the Friday, we decided to pack up a dry tent and head home late Thursday evening.

More photos over on Flickr.

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Underground, overground

June 2nd, 2019

We were up in Monmouthshire for Emma’s birthday weekend (her joint party is still a couple of weeks away). The day itself looked decidedly grey so we picked a random nearby indoor tourist attraction to visit: Clearwell Caves. I had been caving there a long time ago as a scout. This time, there was no overalls and helmet, we just went around the show caves. As a natural cave system expanded by mining activity they were more extensive than I was expecting. Not on the scale of Dan-yr-Ogof but the snippets of local history made it interesting enough. Tickets can now be bought online at a small discount (which appeared to be news to the guy manning the entrance) and Emma was sufficiently taken to want to return and explore deeper.

The next day, Christine’s parents had paid for those of us with a May birthday (Emma and I) to canoe down the Wye. It was a fairly sedate affair, just covering the four or so miles from Monmouth down to Whitebrook with a stop off in Redbrook for ice cream on the way. With the current in your favour, paddling was really only required to stay on course with the main obstacles being fishermen and the bottom of the river! We managed to get stuck on top of a weir at one point but eventually freed ourselves. My highlight was seeing a kingfisher: a first for me.

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Florida Foray

June 1st, 2019

My employer seems to have decided that face-to-face meetings taking place in months beginning with ‘M’ should take place in beach resorts starting with the same latter. In March it was Marbella and in May it was Miami Beach. For the latter, a couple of colleagues suggested we extend our trip and drive up to Kennedy Space Center. Having never been to Florida before, I was keen to join them.

There was due to have been a SpaceX launch two days before our visit and when it was pushed back by 24 hours it seemed too good an opportunity to miss so we set off that evening. Sadly, half way there we got the news that the launch had been scrubbed again. As a consequence, we then stopped at a steakhouse for dinner which turned out to be even sadder!

Staying up near the Space Center did still have the advantage that we could be there from the moment the gates opened until chucking out time. As someone who had visited many years ago commented, it has been a bit Disneyfied in that there was no-end of 3D cinemas and rides but there are also lots of one-of-a-kind original artifacts. After taking a tour around the Rocket Park and then spending some time in the Atlantis space shuttle exhibition the party split in two based on the tours we were booked on.

I joined Steve on the Explore Tour which includes stops at the massive Vehicle Assembly Building and Launch Pad 39 where the Apollo and Shuttle Program’s launched from. Although launching from elsewhere, sadly the SpaceX rocket had already been moved back inside so we didn’t even get to see it on the ground.

The following day, we had a few hours to kill after dropping a colleague at the airport for an earlier flight. We decided to make a side trip to the Everglades. We did spot a couple of alligators on the airboat tour but, to be honest, the boat ride itself was probably more fun, particularly as there were plenty of gators lazing about in the sun when got back to the nature reserve. There was even the opportunity to hold a three-year old (captive) alligator as part of the educational show.

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Romsey Relay Marathon

May 31st, 2019

One of the Scout leaders had submitted a team for the Romsey Relay Marathon (10 legs of 2.6 miles) and persuaded Christine and me to run. Given the event has been running for seven years and its proximity, I’d never heard of it before but it was big enough to reduce traffic through Romsey to a crawl on the way into the Broadlands estate!

There had been a few dropouts in the run-up to the event, including Christine. This meant I ended up running both the fourth and ninth legs. I was pleased with the consistency of my timing: 14:46 on the first and 14:42 on the second. Emma was standing in for Christine and really impressed us with her determination to keep going given the heat of the day. She put in a very respectable time of 22:49 (far from the slowest in the team). The team as a whole finished in a time of 3 hours 34 minutes, well within the top half of the finishers and fifth charity team.

A lovely way to spend a sunny Sunday even if perhaps not the best thing for my knee recovery!

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Knative Intro @ Devoxx UK

May 30th, 2019

I presented an introduction to Knative at Devoxx UK, the recording for which can be found below. I’m afraid I deviated somewhat from the abstract given the changes to the project in the five months since I submitted it. With only half an hour, I probably shouldn’t have tried to cover Tekton as well but I wanted to have an excuse to at least touch on Jenkins X, however briefly! The demo gods largely favoured me except when hey failed to return (not the part of the demo I was expecting to fail!). The script and source for the demo are on GitHub although I’m afraid I haven’t attempted to abstract them away from the Docker Hub/GCP accounts.

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OMM Lite Alone

May 29th, 2019

After last year’s success, we had signed up for our third Long Score at the OMM Lite, this year taking place on Cannock Chase over the May Bank Holiday weekend. Unfortunately, a week and a half beforehand, Christine decided to kick a hotel bed sufficiently hard that she suspected she had broken a toe. I failed to find a replacement partner but, for better or worse, this year they were allowing individual participants…

I set off on Saturday morning with a certain amount of trepidation. At the forefront of my mind was the 53km that we had run on Saturday in the Forest of Dean and the expectation that in similar terrain, on my own, I should be going further than that. Having taken a few minutes to pick an initial direction and set off for the first checkpoint, I started to do the mental math about the pace I was doing. Given the size of the map, I fairly rapidly worked out that it was not a question of which controls was I going to do, but which I should leave out.

I panicked a little when I couldn’t find the second checkpoint but it was an early lesson in how important it was to read the descriptions containing the detailed location of the SI box. After that, I settled into a steady pace and, in hindsight, it was remarkable that it was only after about 4.5 hours, as I was wading through bracken along a path that didn’t really exist, that I was starting to struggle. The only problem was that still left over two hours to go!

I slowed the pace and managed to keep moving. I even managed to force myself to do a dogleg to pick up some extra points towards the end. At the finish, I’d covered over 66km collecting 800 out of 900 points and was placed first. I had, however, been overtaken by another individual runner travelling at speed and he duly finished 40 points ahead of me.

The next morning, I was very stiff and started at a much slower pace. It was quite refreshing to be able to just focus on what controls it made to sense to visit rather than having to go to every far-flung corner of the map. I made a couple of route-choice errors though. The first, trying to persuade myself that a purple cross on a junction didn’t apply to the direction I wanted to go and then having to retrace my steps when faced with a ‘Private’ sign. Later, I then managed to get tangled up in some housing where the exit into the forest wasn’t clear on the map.

I made a calculated decision to return late and collect a 50 point control near the finish although another dogleg down a hill and back up again was soul destroying! I wasn’t surprised to be 100 points behind the winner but, having covered just under 70 miles over the two days, I still managed to hold onto second place.

The rest of the family hadn’t just been resting on their laurels. Christine went out on the Bike Score but didn’t fare too well after a major blowout on the first day. The children did some helping, a bit of biking, and also ran the trail race. A fun if tiring weekend was had by all although, writing this three weeks later, I am still enduring some enforced rest from a dodgy knee.

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