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.
Continue reading “One child left: Lily’s 18th”
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.
Continue reading “Summer in Scotland – COVID calls for last minute panic holiday plans”
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.
Continue reading “A Lockdown story – Getting the band together for a party.”
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.
Continue reading “An Outstanding Friday”
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.
Continue reading “Ski holiday in Champagny en Vanoise Feb 2020”
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.
Continue reading “2019 3 Peaks cyclocross – coming of age”
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.
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”
Just a short blog… mainly photos, but an evening of reflection for us Haygarths. It’s that time of year when 16-year-olds have done with exams and are in that hinterland after a load of heads-down stuff.
As a parent of Lily, our first daughter to be going through this, it’s a time of intense reflection on what happened to us, as parents, at a similar time.
Continue reading “Parenthood and the coming of age for Lily”
You’ll take the high road and I’ll take the slow road
As with all these personal goals you set yourself, it’s generally easy to recall the seed that gradually germinates into some yearning, then, over time, into a plan. This one was fairly fast-growing. It started in February.
We went on what’s probably best described as an attempted Ski mini break to Glencoe in February half term. I say attempted because this February was pretty much the warmest on record. By coincidence, the little cottage we’d booked was in Tyndrum, and right on the path of the West Highland Way.
Continue reading “Riding the West Highland Way in a day”
Weird little anniversary that snuck up in my mind (a mind that’s good at remembering things it doesn’t need, but forgets the important stuff). 31 years ago today (6th December 1987) I, along with my friends Marcus Gaskell and Henry (now John) Kirkup, to an ace little recording studio, to make some music. Continue reading “Whatever happens, we were once THE DOOFERS”
As you may know, I’m a glass half full type. But we all have our limits. Yesterday was a tough day. The Three Peaks Cyclocross is always tough. If it wasn’t, we’d just ride / run / walk faster until it becomes tough. It’s a flipping race. But then, yesterday had its own special place in my memory for extra toughness, but, significantly, extra satisfaction. Continue reading “Three Peaks Cyclocross 2018 – The “twenty” edition”
