Marrakech – a bonus family holiday in 2007

Like waiting for a bus, we were lucky enough to have two hot summer holidays abroad this year. If anyone knows of any good carbon offsetting schemes for all those air miles, just let me know.

House guests of Katie’s family friend Tom Stoddart, we enjoyed the almost surreal luxury of being catered for all week in a beautiful and spacious home in Targa, on the northern suburbs of Marrakech. Tom, is well-off enough to have several domestic employees – all of whom were very friendly and helped us all to feel like we’d mixed with local people. Our French linguistics had to be dusted off a bit and with a strong regional accent, some words were hard to distinguish, but we got by.

The house was made even more child friendly by having a supply of dog and even eight 3-week old dachshund puppies. Olly and Lily made several daily visits to their little den each day.

Although it was lovely to have had a pool all to ourselves and enjoy the children (we went with Katie’s family: Sally, Simon, Olly, Lucy, Jean and Bill), we also had enough opportunities to nip into this amazing city a few times, too.

There’s some family photos here and less familyesque photos on Flickr here. The sunsets were particularly enjoyable – even without much immediate topography other than palm trees and olive groves. Simon and Sally’s flickr photos are here.

I also managed to keep the training going all holiday and ran each morning for a minimum of 35 minutes in some temperatures that would suggest a lot more lying in bed. The theory was to get up early and get out or get cooked. Daytime temperatures reached the mid 40s on some days but it was only in the high 20s in the mornings. I acclimatised well though, and running was a real joy in such a different environment. Google Earth tracks of the runs from my Garmin 305 are here, showing some nice zig-zagging through the shade of the olive groves and the dusty barren ‘fields’, complete with tumble weed.

Great fun – thanks Tom and we’ll come and see you again when you move to Agadir!

Oxford weekend with Dippy, Jane and family

Great stay with Dippy, Jane, Libby and Flo this weekend. It sadly seems only an annual event with everyone’s busy lives, but we had another great trip. We missed out on some pretty poor weather back home too, which is a great bonus.

On Saturday we had a great trip to the park and on to a noodle bar for lunch (Helmshore, for some reason, hasn’t got its own noodle bar yet). After that, it was an afternoon of romping on the lawn with hose pipe, paddling pool, croquet set and some willing and very playful young people.

On Sunday, Dips and I took the girls to the pool and had another water-based good laugh.

Big thanks from us all to you all for a lovely stay.

Phil and Anne’s house in Devon

Storms ravage the country, and once again we managed to keep Devon relatively dry for a long weekend. We should get paid for this.

A lovely time had by all – lots of Dartmoor running, plenty of drinking, not a disastrous amount of sleep loss, the Tour de France’s crucial stages on TV in the the background (and occasionally the foreground), excellent young-people-swimming trampolinic bouncing, a stone of cow rib to eat a youth bike ride, and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. And a bit of sneezing.

Oh, and some extreme retrieving by Elvis.

Weekend at home with Rachel and Jon

A lovely weekend at home with the Dow family – haven’t seen them since New Year and a lovely relaxing time to catch up, hang out, and hang over. Piccies (click on image) and video…

Dave and Jane’s house for the weekend

The last time Katie and I woke up in a bed at Dave and Jane Bancroft’s house, it was the morning after the millennium celebrations in the Millennium Dome. This time, when I looked at my watch on Saturday morning, it was 07:07 on 07 07 2007. How flipping wierd’s that ?

We went to stay (long overdue) with our lovely mates on the occasion of the Tour de France visiting London. The spectacle of it all just surpassed any superlatives I can come up with. Immense crowds, an incredibly friendly atmosphere, and brilliant weather.

The race itself went so well (we watched the prologue in Hyde Park), and it built to a great crescendo, with two of the British time trial specialists going off towards the end of the three hour event. In the end, it was great to see utter domination from woprld time trial champion Fabian Cancellara. It’s somehow right that a world champion should win the ‘world prologue championships’ (as Chris Boardman used to call the Tour de France prologue).

We had such a great time at Dave and Jane’s. My recent switch in jobs (to doing web development work at Reverse Delta) could have meant an erosion of my relationship with my Dave becoming my colleague and inevitably my boss, but it’s been a really positive move. Nice wine, lovely food, good weather; good times.