A gap year
I’m coming back. The race that first sucked me in in 1995 has provided every emotion to me in the intervening years. Continue reading “2014 Peaks Prepped.”
I’m coming back. The race that first sucked me in in 1995 has provided every emotion to me in the intervening years. Continue reading “2014 Peaks Prepped.”
So… I’d had a season off ‘cross and was enjoying a bit of gentle riding, when there was this strange calling to get racing again… Continue reading “Cross Comes Calling”
After a few years of overseas holidays in summer and winter, we spent our first summer at home for 5 years. We headed up to Scotland – lured in part by the Commonwealth Games, and part by the year’s big purchase of a touring caravan, we had a two-point holiday over a fortnight. Continue reading “Summer Holidays 2014 in Scotland”
A family milestone reached in seemingly no time. In September 2007 the little girl (pictured right) started at Broadway Primary School. Just about to turn five, Lily was definitely ready to start school, but it still seemed soon, and she seemed so little. Continue reading “Lily’s final day at Primary School”
I’m writing this very early on a Monday morning after what I have to assume was just a fantasy – a dream lived out in immense detail. I woke up ealy feeling still adreniline-pumped from a dream so intense that it felt like it had actually happened to me. Continue reading “Was it a dream? Did the Tour de France come to Yorkshire?”
I rode my bike a long way. And with a lot of climbing. That’s all. Continue reading “A Midsummer Bike’s Dream”
We chatted about it for three years, then eventually it happened. It was bound to – I nagged.
We got ourselves a caravan in the early part of the year with the aim of getting away a bit more often and a bit more easily whilst the children are still young enough. Lily’s 12 this year and has four years of family holidays left in her, going on what seems to be the average of friends about us. It was time to act.
Our first trip was on Elsie’s Birthday – 24th May. Frank had just reached the age where he could go out and meet other dogs, so we were free to go. We hit Lytham, for some beach fun. A couple of weeks later we went to the Dales to stay in Howgill in Wharfedale. THey’re just break – mini, simple breaks, but we’re really enjoying the ability to do this. The proof is in the pudding: we have a large tent, we have the ability to book B&Bs, but did neither. This is already happening – it’s working!
Some photos of our first two trips here
We took the opportunity to have what may be the last chance for a big round-a-table tea party for Elsie’s 6th Birthday. They grow up quickly and the pass-the-parcel stuff doesn’t go on indefinitely. Elsie had a lovely time – as did we all. Parents dropped off, ten classmates went nuts for two hours, ate loads, played lots, then it all subsides so quickly. A really lovely load of compacted fun.
The party was hurriedly tidied away as we rushed off to make the most of the long weekend with our first ‘test’ family caravanning trip about 2 hours later… so birthday tea was a treat of Fish n Chips by the sea in Lytham, followed by a bit of a stay-up!
Photos here on Flickr
28th April 2004, and Dave, perhaps a little distracted at work, decides to start a blog.
“Minnellium” is a word I’d started to use for a music project back in 1999, as I’d worked on a Millennium Commission-funded project and numerous times people had got tongue-twisted and it made me smile, for some reason.
Initially, this was on Google’s Blogger platform, but I got interested in WordPress (an interest that 3 years later would lead me to a career-change) and I wanted the ‘ownership’ of something on my domain, so moved it from its old “blogspot” address to minnellium.com in 2005.
I’m definitely an uncomfortable and inconsistent blogger. Not an avid writer, just someone who enjoys writing when the mood takes me. In recent years it has definitely become more a diary than a source of opinion or reportage. If anything, the ebbing and flowing of what minnellium.com is / was / will be is its constant. If I was being grandiose about it, I could imply some tie-in with my ebbing and flowing life since April 2004. It’s been a busy ten years.
… but I think the ebbing and flowing of minnellium.com is not necessarily tied in with an ebbing and flowing life.. it’s just that sometimes I can be bothered to write, sometimes I can make the time to write, and other times, I just can’t.
It’s tempting to pick highlights. That’s going to be tough… and there are too many risks of missing some bits, so here’s a few random posts…. picked to show the diversity, I guess. A few words as to why I picked them
There’s more … there’s always more. Have a look
We’d been planning a lovely family get together for a few months now – taking advantage of a trip north by my southerly-settled cousin Adrian and wife Dee, coinciding with both their 50th birthdays. Heading up there today to catch up with our joint expended families meant 17 of us in one place at the same time – a source of great mutual excitement.
Indeed it was – great to take our new puppy Frank up too, and we swelled with pride and excitement.
But it seems the odds are stacked against us. Last time Adrian, Phil and I were together, things were cut short by a nasty bike crash for Phil and a trip to Lancaster Royal Infirmary. One year ago almost to the day, I dislocated my shoulder for the second time – leading to a series of further dislocations and eventually a ‘that’ll hopefully sort it’ surgical procedure late Autumn.
So today, passing a rugby ball in a leisurely and unaggressive way to my nephew Matt, a loud click and immediate realisation of that had happened to my hapless left shoulder made me cold – almost numb with a nasty, dark grip of sadness.
Day ruined, agony, trip to Lancaster Royal Infirmary, and some inconvenience – mental and physical – that I really thought I had put behind me.
We managed to salvage some of the early evening and it was genuine lovely in every sense to catch up with Mum, Phil, Ann, Matt, Helen, Angus, Alice, Adrian, Dee, Sophie, Isobel, Tyler, Katie, Jenny and Shay. Rough taken with smooth. Somehow a happy day, but definitely a memorable one.
After a few months of waiting, searching, and deliberation, we picked up our puppy, Frank, last Saturday. With the girls the ages they are (5 and 11) it’s such a precious moment and one perfectly timed with the Easter Holidays. I’d forgotten how having a puppy is like having a little baby about the place. Yes, they can stand on their own feet and generally are about 150 times more grown up (and more fun!) than a new born manchild, but there’s an awful lot of life adjustment that needs to go on. It’s all fun and special days, but we’ve already had to can a trip we were getting very excited about (in the new caravan – just to Phil & Anne’s overnight) and social plans for Easter are incredibly modest, but there will be no wishing the days away… not from me.
Some basics:
Our now elderly Labrador, Elvis, has a little less enthusiasm for our new friend than the rest of us. He’s always been a bit grumpy with puppies and sometimes with other dogs per se. It’s only been five days though and each day the snarling and lip curling reduces a tiny bit. I’m a great believer in letting jobs do the pack thing by themselves, but the parental reflex to defend the defenceless is hard to overcome. We’ll get there… I do hope so quickly, for Elvis’ sake, because the tables will turn in a few months as the aggressor becomes the underdog, inevitably. That’s how they do it. They’re dogs… we’re humans. Anyway… here’s an ever-growing live list of my Flickr photos tagged ‘Frank’ and below is a video of his first few days, and some select pics… as well as a reminder what Elvis looked like when he was a few weeks older than this, but camera film was pricey!
Took Lily and Elsie to do their first fell race this evening at the traditional ‘clocks just changed’ Liver Hill race in Rossendale. Run by our home club, it’s great to just be there, but with it being Elsie’s first running race, it was a special evening for a proud mum and dad.
It was almost fairy-tale, in that sporting stoicism shone deeply in my littlest girl (the type we’re just used to now in her big sister). Almost… but for a crumbling into tears on the start line. All the under 14s went off together, but ELsie’s age group, the under 8s, were to turn round a little sooner up the muddy course than the others, running about a kilometer. However, with all the Rossendale Harriers girls looking at her and saying “she’s so cute”, as they tend to, Elsie suddenly awoke to the fact she was the youngest and smallest under 8 (at just 5). She freaked and decided she would sit it out. By the time the 4 or 5 minutes of cajoling her for a jog (coincidentally on the course) had happened, she restarted the race (with me at her side) and went about it with quite scary levels of vigour. Job done.
She came in to claim her Cream Egg, belted it down her mouth, and that first running race experience was a historical event. Then she carried on running about with boundless energy, until Lily’s longer, steeper course was over. All of it makes me gleam with pride, as you can probably tell.
Photos here https://www.flickr.com/photos/minnellium/sets/72157643278578593