Somewhere near bridgend...

There's at least one robin in Wales which has no fear.
Hence probably the best wildlife shot I've ever taken so far...

For-Ethiopia

A fund raising event for For-Ethiopia went ahead on Saturday and was a great success, combining Ethiopian food, information about the charity, 'Irish Bingo' and a charity auction. Also had the inaugural speech from the charity patron, Dr Alice Roberts who is sometimes seen on BBC TV.

I was somehow roped into giving a 5 minute presentation about what the charity is doing during the evening too. In actual fact, it took about 9 minutes... :-)

At the end of the day, the event raised nearly £4000. Partly helped by some great auction items - including a week's holiday in a holiday cottage just inside Dartmoor National Park, sleeping 8 people (to be taken anytime except July & August). And all the proceeds from the auction go directly to For-Ethiopia projects. There are some generous people out there. Even in a recession!

Bristol Half Marathon

Me at 9 miles...

Bristol Half Marathon

It's done! The training paid off and I did a Personal Best (PB) for a half marathon - 1hr 37mins and 9 secs.
Just for fun, I quickly did a spreadsheet to calculate my split times and so graphically, you can see how I did. Generally a poor start and slowed up at the finish (mainly because that's where the course went uphill and downhill and also where the cobbled sections started...


It's amazing how you can quickly make a blog boring by the addition of graphs!
OK, for some amusement here's some video footage of the morris dancers who morris danced 13.1 miles!

Training run

Went running today... Apparently there's an iPhone app which uses the phone GPS to track your movements. Just waiting for the iPhone app which actually burns the calories for you.
I plotted my route today manually. 2 laps of the Downs in Bristol is apparently about 9 miles.
I got passed by someone while running, but then tweaked my running style and passed him again. I think I run a better when I've got some competition...

Running (again)

Well, I'm running in the Bristol Half Marathon on 6th September.

Been training fairly solidly for the past couple of months.

Raising money for a charity that I'm a trustee of: For-Ethiopia

GROPOs

I've been doing a lot of GROund POunding these past few weeks as I train for the Bristol Half Marathon. I'm up to around 6-7 miles now and running a rather circuitous route home.

My flagging motivation levels were boosted this week by the arrival of a fresh pair of trainers and free socks. Apparently these socks are part of an 'Integrated Shoe and Sock System', with a Y-Heel construction to provide superior fit and 2x2 mesh ventilation provides added ventilation. Apart from the issue of using 'ventilation' in a sentence twice, I'm not sure whether I've got socks or the latest Sports Utility Vehicle. Well, if it doesn't make me run faster by 10% I'll demand my money back. Oh, wait a sec, they were free. Darn...

In between running, went to see Ice Age 3. I know a lot of people panned Simon Pegg's character, but me and the missus loved it. Not entirely sure what substances he'd been ingesting the night before doing the voice overs, but we thought it was worth watching just to see what would happen if you made a cartoon version of Jack Sparrow and crossed it with a raving rabbid and plonked right in the middle of Jurassic Park. We went to see it in 3-D too, which was the first time I'd donned 3D glasses in the cinema since going to see 'Starchaser, The Legend of Orion' when I was about 10. I found it particularly ironic given the Simon Pegg character has no depth perception. Yet can still pilot a But the music for the chase sequence was quite reminiscent of Star Wars...

It was our wedding anniversary last weekend. Feels kinda like it was only yesterday, yet at the same time feels a long time ago because of everything that's happened in-between. We even got cards. Which makes me feel bad, because I never remember to send out anniversary cards. It's bad enough trying to keep track of birthdays.


Anyway, as the photo shows, flowers were purchased, I remembered to buy an anniversary card AND remember to give it to the missus on the day. We then went off for a photo shoot (which we'd won a £99 discount off by filling in a form at their stand in Cabot Circus shopping centre). That was a laugh and a year on, Ally found herself having her hair done and wearing makeup. Unlike last year though, I got some makeup to cover my shiny nose and even out my skin tone. Well, we'll see if it was worth it when we get the pictures in 6-8 weeks time...

Avebury Henge

I've worked out how to post blogs from my phone now. So here's a picture from the stone circle at Avebury where we've also been today! Gutted the Lions lost though. Was a good first half.

2020 Cricket

Had an enjoyable if somewhat deafening experience at the cricket 2 wks ago, followed by another wknd in London last week! Currently watching the Lions in a pub in Devizes...

Ordering Pictures

550 pictures came in the post yesterday. We're going to do a scrapbook which will include snaps such as:And, imagine a weird parallel universe where everyone forgot to dress up for the wedding...

Sheffield

Visited mattandjules in Sheffield over the weekend.
Alongside seeing some of the sights of Sheffield, I got to see my wife play pool for the first time. I also got my best ever score in ten-pin bowling of over 150. It's a shame that the actual ten-pin bowling place was booked until 11pm (!) so we ended up playing on the Wii instead.

Statistics

I was rubbish at statistics at school. Ironic that my job involves trying to remember my A-Level statistics at the moment.

I'm actually trying to backup my blog. Just in case Google decide they want to make some money out of this service at start charging bloggers for their entries. Plus, sometimes you just can't beat having something to read where you don't have to turn a computer on to access.

So, in copying all my blogs to a word document, I've found that I've written approximately 13,000 words over the past 3 years. I'm sure that nearly amounts to a PhD thesis. But instead, I've wasted all that time writing a blog of inane ramblings.

I guess I've got to smile!

Is this my book? You know what they say, "everyone's got a book inside them". Now, I didn't say it would be a particularly good book!

Valentines Day

Was spent signing up to do the Bristol 10km, watching about half of a womens' hockey match, followed by a trip to Costa Coffee. Then off to Marks and Spencer to do the shopping.
It was then rounded off with burgers for dinner.

Best Valentines Day ever! ;-)

The 1st Valentines Day I've spent with my wife. I did at least cook the burgers (homemade too).

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

The Wii and Wii Fit arrived...
I can do over 300m on the ski jump. However my wife's got the quickest time on the slalom skiing. Which is quite ironic I suppose given that she's never skiied in her life whilst I once did 15 black runs in a day in Breckenridge...
Ok, admittedly, I probably couldn't do that again... ever...

For-Ethiopia

Celebrated the first Christmas of 2009 (Ethiopian Christmas is on the 7th January) as For-Ethiopia held a Christmas Party for al its supporters to update them on what the charity had done this year.

Didn't get home until 12:30am, since we had to clear up to leave the church hall fit for use the next day! But a lot of people came and were interested in what the charity had done, a lot of money was raised and the effort was well worth it.

The world's best dessert ever

It's made by my wife. It involves marshmallows!

It also looks pretty disgusting when it's scooped into bowls and handed out to people. Need to develop the individual ramekin option...

This one was made in Malaysia. We found marshmallows but they were pretty expensive!

Renamed and rebooted

Part of the reason I failed with keeping up with at least one blog a month was that it was increasingly difficult to find the time to think of 3 things to say in an vaguely intelligible form.

So, now that I'm 30, I guess I'll try a more mature, sensible, less sensationalist approach to blogging.

Without the pressure of having to split my thoughts into 3 discrete chunks, I might actually feel like blogging more.

So, here's to the blogs of 2009!

My lovely wife organised a cracking surprise birthday party for me this saturday just gone and it was great to see lots of people. A number of top comedy presents were given, but the Extreme Ironing calendar for 2009 was one of the standout presents!