Dave Haygarth, family and friends…

Cross at cyclo-cross – I’m on my knees

Not sure what to make of my cyclo-cross at the moment. On the one hand, I have great times and love the company, scene, people and racing. It’s pure, it’s serious, but it’s fun and friendly. But I’m fighting some proper demons at the moment with injury. I’ve had injuries before and worked out a way through or round them. But the latest thing (knee, totally out of the blue) really feels like a proper blocker.

26 Sep ’2229 Sep ’22

3 Ups and 3 downs

I shouldn’t let the 3 Peaks Cyclo-cross get to me like this. I should know better. I’ve had my day in many ways and know that I’m never going to have another belter of a result in this beautiful race after 22 times around those hills. But this is what the race does to you. It gets inside you and niggles away.

10 Jul ’2216 Mar ’23

Wasdale.

A big day out. A big and hard day out. But its done with now. I knew the day would come when i was satisfied to just ”finish” something. I guess this comes with age.

1 Oct ’2122 Oct ’21

The second summer of COVID-complication holidays

The 2020 stuff seemed tame. We somehow managed last year to get to Anglsey and Scotland amidst what we then thought was chaos. Surely 2021 would be easier as restrictions eased.

7 Sep ’203 Nov ’20

One child left: Lily’s 18th

Never really sure what the trend is with ‘coming of age’ these days. It’s all academic in one sense – 18 has it, really – there’s not much left in statute that you need to be aged 21 to do. But 18 seems so young… especially when it’s your own ‘child’ that becomes 18.

2 Aug ’202 Nov ’20

Summer in Scotland – COVID calls for last minute panic holiday plans

In the strangest of years, the simplest of lovely holidays. When we’d originally planned to go to Portugal for the summer hols and meet up there for a spell with Sally and Simon & family, the idea of a COVID compromise of a trip to Scotland seemed a bit of a poor cousin. And in the run-up to that trip, it seemed like even that might be a stretch, too.

17 Apr ’2020 Apr ’20

A Lockdown story – Getting the band together for a party.

Strange times. We all agree. And like everybody, Coronavirus-compromises have been made, and good times put on hold.

Amongst the irritations for me this spring was the 50th birthday party I had planned for 100 or so friends on Easter Saturday.

Part of the evening’s fun was to get some music friends together to play some of my favourite songs. People who had never played in the same band or together, but all of whom had played music with me at some time in my 50 years.

10 Mar ’2011 Mar ’20

An Outstanding Friday

The North West Cyclocross awards evening is always a good evening out. Seeing people who you almost always see in dirty lycra / helmets / bobble hats / waterproofs etc. Eeeh they do scrub up well.

9 Mar ’209 Mar ’20

Ski holiday in Champagny en Vanoise Feb 2020

I always saw ‘winter sun’ holidays as being something involving the Canary Islands or such like. But with the winter we’ve had, I came to realise that even plonking your weary winter body 6000 feet up in the snowy mountains provided more than enough vitamin D to cheer up the winter blues. Our holiday certainly did the trick of topping up the cheer.

16 Sep ’1917 Sep ’19

2019 3 Peaks cyclocross – coming of age

21 today.

I turned a corner last year in the 3 Peaks cyclocross. Getting my hand smashed in by a car door less than a couple of weeks prior to the 2018 race forced me to make peace with the race, and get round it at a much more manageable pace. It was the first time that I allowed people to ride past me and just allowed myself to absorb the race and the atmosphere that bit more that I had done in the previous 19 editions I’d finished.

13 Aug ’1916 Aug ’19

Croatia holiday 2019 – Istria

Another new country ticked off for Katie and me, and for the first time, us four Haygarths all did a new country at the same time. I’m not sure what my expectations of Croatia were beforehand, to be honest, but they were surpassed. A lovely country.

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19 Jul ’1919 Jul ’19

Elsie’s last day in primary school – the end of three long roads

Just one to record for the “family blog”. (It gets lost on Facebook otherwise forever, and people will have stopped using Facebook in 5 years anyway!) … a momentus time in growing up, just like Lily’s prom and 5 years ago Lily’s own leaving Broadway Primary School.

Continue reading “Elsie’s last day in primary school – the end of three long roads”