Category: November 2016

Exploring Coral bay

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22 November 2016

What a change from yesterday morning, waking to sun and the sound of waves gently caressing the shore. Commando was off for a Social run with Mike, Yolanda and Sue, so I had a leisurely shower and sat on the balcony looking out over the bay and trying to work out where the lights I saw last night had come from. The possibilities seemed to be the small building about half way along the outer curve of the bay, or behind it and slightly westward a white block of some kind with a fluttering flag close by. Continue reading Exploring Coral bay

Gosport, Gatwick, Pafos

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21 November 2016

From the cold windy coastline at Gosport yesterday we dashed back home to get warm with coffee and showers. There was just time to download all the race photos from my camera to my Mac and from there blue tooth them to my iPad before were were off again. This time we were Gatwick bound.  Continue reading Gosport, Gatwick, Pafos

Gosport

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20 November 2016

Commando has run the Gosport Half Marathon several times, in wind, rain, sun and even combinations of all three at once. The route along the coast can be problematic, especially when it’s windy and with storm Angus Sweeping across the country bringing a night of torrential rain and high wind, there was some doubt it would even go ahead today. In fact, a message on Facebook told us the organisers would make a final decision at 8:30. Of course, we had to leave home before then, not really knowing if we would have a fruitless drive or a race ahead of us.

Continue reading Gosport

Lakeside, a progress report

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17 November 2016

With the Gosport Half Marathon at the weekend and a four day running event in Cyprus hot on its heels, plus bucketsfulls of rain, this  week was mostly spent running about making preparations. There was little time for interesting walks but, as the sun was shining today, I thought I’d better make the most of it and check out the progress on the new visitor centre at Lakeside.  Continue reading Lakeside, a progress report

Running and running

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November 13 & 16 2016

As if standing around in the freezing rain on Saturday marshalling parkrun because there weren’t enough volunteers wasn’t madness enough, I was up and out early on Sunday for another running event too. This time it was junior parkrun at Riverside Park. Obviously, I wasn’t taking part. It has been more years than I care to remember since I qualified for a 4-14 year old’s event and even back then I didn’t do running. My main reason for going, other than to see what it was all about, was to keep Kylie company.  Continue reading Running and running

Remembering heroes

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11 November 2016

My original plan for Armistice day was to walk to Netley and stand at the War Memorial in the military cemetery to mark the silence. This seemed to be the week for plans not working out though. CJ had an appointment in town and there was no way he would make it from there to Netley in time even if I drove him and waited. Of course, I could have walked to Netley on my own but, as he was so keen to mark the silence with me, this didn’t seem very fair. So I found myself hanging around outside Holyrood waiting to meet up with him.  Continue reading Remembering heroes

Apples in the graveyard, not walking the Cobbett Trail

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10 November 2016

This week most of my walks had been errands with nothing much of note happening apart from distance being covered. Today I had big plans to get some interesting miles under my belt. By now I should know making plans is not a good thing because something always scuppers them. This time it was CJ oversleeping. To be fair, he didn’t know I was planning to go out super early for an extra long walk to show him something I thought he’d like. Maybe I should warn him next time. In the end we settled on a pared down version of the walk I had in mind, minus most of the interesting bits. Even so, there was plenty to see. Continue reading Apples in the graveyard, not walking the Cobbett Trail

whoever seeks abroad may find

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3 November 2016

Following in the footsteps of John Keats, we’d walked from the centre of  Winchester with its Christmas decorations, across the water meadows to St Cross. At the kissing gate beside the old sluice we stopped. Back in Keats’ day these sluices would still have been used to drown the meadows and encourage new grass for the grazing cows. These days the sluice stands idle but the cows still graze and the grass is lush and green. Continue reading whoever seeks abroad may find

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

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3 November 2016

Poetry is something I’ve always been fond of so having to learn poems by heart at school was never a hardship. Long before I met Commando and acquired a poetic surname, one of my favourites was John Keats, To autumn. The fact that it was written as he walked a trail through the water meadows in Winchester makes it all the more special and I’ve long been meaning to follow in his footsteps. Today, with the words of the poem running through my head, CJ and I did just that.  Continue reading Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Stones, horses and angel wings

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1 November 2016

With our coffee finished and bearings confirmed, we left the church behind and set off through an old iron gate into the lane where I thought the ancient boundary stone should be. Research told me there was no boundary stone marked on the map here but the cryptic message and some Google Street View searching had turned up something that looked very much like one. Now all we had to do was find it. Continue reading Stones, horses and angel wings