Duncan’s Two
October 9th, 2011Fun running
September 25th, 2011The 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!
Veteran Relay
September 10th, 2011Having failed to put together an SOC team for today’s Test Way Relay, it was nice to get a call asking me to run for Southampton AC. It did, however, turn out to be in the vets team! After a trip to the supermarket I left in rather a hurry to make it to Wherwell for the allotted time. As it turned out, I arrived in plenty of time but that did mean I was in place in time to shelter when the rain came through. When a Southampton vest appeared on the horizon in first place I was all set to go however, another Southampton runner appeared from nowhere to take the handover for this, the A team. I didn’t have to wait long for my man though and he had an Eastleigh runner just in front so there would be a race to be had.
The next Eastleigh runner sped off but, to be honest, didn’t look like he was going to keep it up. I overtook him as we entered West Down which was a mistake as I didn’t know which was the right path and ended up climbing further than necessary (it’s a few years since I last ran this leg). When we dropped back to the old railway line I didn’t look back. The distance to Stockbridge appeared to be longer than I had measured in the car on the way there but that probably meant I kept up the pace better than I might have done otherwise. There were plenty of womens and mixed teams to pick off on the way and I also managed to overtake our A team runner (who looked distinctly more veteran than me!).
I enjoyed the run which probably means I should have been faster although the jog back to Chilbolton Common to retrieve the car seemed like particularly work! The A team apparently finished in second place, just 15 seconds down on Overton, with the vets team in 4th place behind Stubbington Green. A respectable position for a bunch of old men!
First day at school
September 10th, 2011Thursday 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!
Dorset Coast
September 3rd, 2011We 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.
The Tower
September 3rd, 2011We 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!).
Brockenhurst Urban Score
August 20th, 2011I’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.
Pseudo-science
August 20th, 2011I think it’s fair to say that Emma enjoyed herself – we certainly had to make sure that we visited all of the exhibits before we were allowed to leave! There was a board by each one which made a good attempt to explain the science behind what was going on but that was all pretty much lost on Emma – they were just some good toys to here.
We had booked in to see ‘Moles’ at the planetarium in which a mole called Plato, along with three earthworms called Alpha, Beta and Gamma, learnt various bits of pseudo-science. To my mind, the science was rather lost in amongst the American accents, special effects on the dome, and the singing and dancing but, once again, Emma seemed to enjoy it. All in all it was a fun day but I think we’ll leave it a couple of years before we come back.
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