I went past the Strangeways brewery on the way into Manchester the other day on the bus and it just felt strange to see that this
… has now turned into this
Lily’s 5th Birthday
Today our little girl reached the grand old age of five. It’s been a busy week for her with starting school and we just decided to have a small party for family and a couple of local friends.
Her new school friends sang her Happy Birthday which I’m sure will have made her feel very special, and we did all the great party things on a lovely warm September day – very memorable.
The best bit (for me) was putting her to bed last night and her asking me how tall she’d be in the morning. Great thinking, Lils. “Just the same size” I told her in a killjoy, tired dad kind of a way. I missed the opportunity this morning to tell her she’d grown… I’ll do it tomorrow.
Piccies here.
First day at school!
The little entertainer is off to Broadway at last. Had she been born a week earlier, Lily would have been at school for a year now, but the oldest girl in the class starts today, and we’re all very excited for her (and a bit choked up at times… pathetic!)
Rubik’s robot
I remember being chuffed to bits when I solved the Rubik’s cube (with help from lots of friends and their varying techniques). It was the nearest thing to being a geek in my day without sitting at a BBC ‘Micro’ [sic] computer and spending all day getting it to print swear words.
Boy, would I have loved one of these.
Lily’s bike fever
We got a trailer bike the other day – a necessity for the school run which starts this week (exciting !! – school starting – not the school run) and have had a great weekend getting used to it. Cycling-dad obviously was trying his best not to pile on the pressure, but in the end, we had to reel her in… she just loves it.
After a six mile eco shopping foray into Ramsbottom yesterday, we expected to go to Gisburn forest today for a great family picnic and bike ride on the gentle trails there. Alas, what the weatherman described as a “band of rain passing over” gripped us from 9am until 8pm, so Lily and I got our aggression out with a brilliant off road rode up onto Holcombe moor. We got filthy and soaked, but it all seemed to make her smile more and more. Bring it on, cycling-daughter.
Modern Telephony
Those blogs where people rant about things getting on their nerves get on my nerves… so I won’t put any unnecessary interpretation on this photo. Suffice to say that I glanced down at my desk a few minutes ago aghast at what phoning people has become…
The bike ride as an object d’art
Okay, so Richard Long was very clever all those years ago by making art from walks… but I’ve now made a …. by accident! see Google Map below…. .. or view it in Google Earth here.
Bank Holiday: Visit from Andrew and Denise & fam
Lovely time with old mates Denise and Andrew this weekend. After a dreadful journey up to our place, they soon settled in. Lily and Will getting straight into some serious playing and we all had a great time catching up (and also meeting the eight month old Kitty for the first time – a gorgeous little smiler).
Got going early on Sunday to visit the seaside at Lytham. Great day for it (burnt my forehead – d’oh!) and managed to cram in lots. Will and Lily took their bikes – great move on the prom with no traffic and no gradient – very good practice that led Lily to take her first stabiliser-free ride on Monday – one very proud Dad here!
Golf Ball Fell Race 2007
It’s not unusual for Fell Races to have odd names… ‘The Trunce’, ‘The Trog’, ‘Old County Tops’, etc. The Golf Ball race is so names because of the strange huge golf ball like communications tower new Loveclough on the northern tip of Rossendale. It has noting to do with golf, but as with most fell races, it takes a bit of balls at times.
The route itself looks uninspiring when you think of the topography round here; it’s not the Lake District of the Peaks, and to be honest, there’s no massive summits, but it’s a classic Pennine short fell race, with 1228 feet of climbing over the 5.5 miles.
This is the third time I’ve run the Golf Ball race; last time was in 2005 when I was 8th. I finished 13th last night, 45 seconds slower in 41:23. Very slightly disappointed but not too much – it’s reminded me that no matter how much I run I need to race more to be good at racing.
What amazed me though was it’s the first running race I’ve done since I got my new Garmin 305 GPS and Heart Rate Monitor. Just glancing down at my heart rate throughout the race made me ralise how I seem to run bang on the limit all the time. The result is that accelleration, or indeed any kind of pacing strategy is unachievable… I’m literally recovering and just getting by all the way through. (see image left – the Heart Rate is red on the graph – the green is the terrain (Heart rate hardly drops at all whether climb or descent).
The Google Earth KMZ file front he Garmin is here for anyone who wants to look at the course.
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!
Anderson Patrick
A good friend from my late teens was killed in very tragic circumstances on Saturday. Anderson Patrick was just known as ‘Plug’ to us back in my sixth form – one of those names people get given at school when they have sticky-out ears.
Plug was one of those people who were good to party with. Katie remembers his dancing in a dodgy but very enthusiastic fashion; arms flailing and just going for it. We had some great times – particularly in the summer of 1988 when we left school – but onwards for the next couple of years, too.
People started dancing on the tables at the first ever Little Boogie Machine gig in the Brown Cow, Lancaster; Plug and his close friend Jamie Kineer were the first up there.
I haven’t been in contact with Plug for a long time now – we went off doing our own things as you do, but he’s one of the people I’d have loved to see again. The fact that I won’t do is not of any consequence to me. What I can’t think about for more than a few seconds is how his wife and three children won’t see him again.
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.