Santa Dash Saturday

A recent, recurrent theme, seems to have been me mentioning that I don’t run much any more. After all, I have a dog to walk and she likes to play with other dogs etc. Well, that’s all fine in principle, except, well, I’ve been talked into doing the Brighton Santa Dash again. So, Saturday – that’s the 12th December – will find me queueing up with a collection of other Dashing Santas and running 5k along the seafront.

There are a collection of other Madgex Santas running, and Alex has kindly set up a Just Giving donation page to collect our generous friends contributions. So, go on, head on over, pop a couple of quid into the coffers.

Last year I managed a time of 33:03, this time as I’ve done a lot less training I expect to be slower. On the plus side, the weather forecast is looking more favourable 🙂

Hmm, this beard could get annoying

Skitters in action

On Saturday afternoon Skitters and I headed down to the walled garden (more properly known as the Rest Garden) to meet up with Alex and Dave. Dave had an idea for a short film for which he needed a dog. After a long discussion about her rider, Skitters agreed.

The finished film can be seen here and is described as

Unfortunate sausage-based arm condition siezed upon by an opportunistic dog

He sent us through a version when he had just cut Skitters out but hadn’t removed her blue rubber ball, which I have to say I love 🙂

Skitters Runs
Skitters Runs

The LOGO board game

We were in The Entertainer the other day, looking for a travel based board game (which we didn’t find), when I spotted this:

The game is called LOGO and it seems to be a great way to make sure that children aged 12 years and upwards are indoctrinated as consumers. Oh, and should you be interested, it is retailing for £24.99. So, you get to pay to be marketed to. Nice.

Dog friendly rest stops between Hull and Brighton

Last weekend we visited my parents in Hull.  Rather than breaking the journey up at Motorway Services we planned in stops at places which had dog-walking potential. So, armed with a road atlas, and an idea that we wanted to stop between Cambridge and Peterborough, we identified and tried a couple of spots which were only just off the route we travel.

Graftham Water

We stopped at Graftham Water on our way up to Hull on Friday afternoon.  From wikipedia:

Grafham Water (TL 150 680) is a reservoir with a circumference of about 10 miles (16 km). It is located between the villages of Grafham and Perry in the English county of Cambridgeshire (Huntingdonshire District).

We parked in the car park near Perry, paid our £2, made use of the amenities (toilets, cafe etc) and managed a reasonable walk

Monks Wood

On the return trip we stopped at Monks Wood. From Natural England:

Monks Wood NNR is one of the best examples of ancient ash-oak woodland in the East Midlands.

There is no car park as such, but there is parking in a layby off the B1090. There are also no amenities. But, there are a couple of marked walks – we followed Butterfly amongst all the trees, stopping for a spot of dog distraction training (lots of interesting smells that a certain young dog was fixated by).

B1090

So, 2 very different walks, both much better places to stop than at a Service station. The amenities at Graftham Water were really good but cost us £2 for parking whilst the walk was better at Monks Wood, we got free parking but had to stop at a Little Chef for toilets and cafe.

Game Night

A few weeks ago we went to a Halloween party at the home of some dog-club friends of ours – their dog, Pebbles, and our dog, Skitters, play nicely together much of the time. Whilst we were there we discovered that one of them is a published author. In fact, he kindly lent me a copy of Game Night which I’m part way through and enjoying a lot.

Game Night tells the story of six roleplaying gods, playing a very bad roleplaying game with the mortal world below

I met him this morning whilst we were walking our respective hounds, and we were chatting about his day off today (he normally commutes into London so I only see him on his days off or at weekends). He told me he was planning to spend a lot of it publicising the release of his novel in episodic format on EN World and I asked him to send me the details, and I’d mention it in a blog post. So, here it is, the link to chapter one, a chapter where

The story starts as our heroes reach an ancient structure that guards an equally ancient secret. What is the Gate? Who is the Gatekeeper? Will the adventurers ever stop killing him long enough for him to finish speaking his introductory text?

And if after reading the first chapter you’re hungry for more and can’t wait for 25 more weeks, then you can always buy the paperback, or the PDF version. Any chance of an ePub version Jonny?

Update: There is now a kindle version. Read more at Game Night on Kindle: It’s Here!

Flickr activity

As part of the rearrangement of this site, I’ve spent most of today uploading 2991 items to flickr from the old galleries – apologies if you’re a flickr contact as you may have been notified of a whole heap of (very old) activity.

The flickr uploader crashed on me lots of times this afternoon – it was fine this morning whilst I uploaded a whole heap of travel photos but this afternoon it just stopped responding, on at least 4 occasions and on at least 2 occasions managed to eat (or delete) some photos from my hard drive. After a quick check I updated to the latest flickr uploadr and started again, but I was a bit more careful this time and only uploaded one set at a time. I still managed to get it to tell me that 31 of 31 was 87% though!

uploading 31 of 31 (87% complete)

Another newspaper clipping – this time from the Goole and Marshland Times – 10th December 1875

Another family related newspaper clipping, this one relates to the death of my Great-Great-Grandfather (I think) in 1875. Again, preserved by a family member, and transcribed by me.

Goole and Marshland Times – 10th December 1875
Shocking fatal accident at Cliffe

A shocking accident occurred at Cliffe, on Wednesday morning to a railway porter named William Varley employed at the Hemingbrough station, whereby he lost his life by being run over by a pick-up goods train from Selby to Hull at 7.43 am. The poor fellow had been to to the distance signal towards Selby, and in returning with the lamps when near to the Hemingbrough station, he attempted to cross the line in front of the train which was drawing up slowly, but was not quick enough in taking his second step, and was consequently knocked down by the buffer-plank of the engine, the wheels of which ran over him, completely severing the head and right arms from his body. The deceased was much respected, and had been in the employment of the company between six and seven years, being the greater part of that time stationed at Selby. An inquest was held in the afternoon at the house of Mr. Pratt, before Mr. Coroner Taylor, Wakefield, and a responsible jury of which Mr. Keighley Barton was foreman. The body having been viewed by the jury, the following evidence was adduced :- Mr. Wm,. Varley, father, Wistow Lordship, swore to the body being that of his son, which he has last seen in good health at Wistow three weeks ago. Witness said deceased had been used to the railway business for the past six or seven years, and appeared to be perfectly comfortable with his family. Deceased was 27 years of age. John E. Smith, signalman at Hemingbrough station, said he saw the deceased in the morning about 7 o’clock in the porters’ room. Deceased did not appear to be at all depressed in mind, but as cheerful as usual, and was perfectly sober. Witness then went to his cabin, and did not see any more of deceased until he saw him go to the distance signal lamps, &c. He saw deceased attempt to cross the line in front of the “pick-up” goods train from Selby to Hull, which was due at Hemingbrough at 7.43 am, but as he was taking his second step he was caught by the buffer-plank of the engine and knocked down. Deceased, witness believed, was caught on the shoulder. He saw deceased fall, and afterwards saw his body or the wheels roll over and over. The train was going very slowly, having not quite reached its regular place, as in the ordinary course of things it would have gone 50 yards further. Deceased was coming from the north to the south side of the line near the station with four lamps in his hands and arms. It was quite light at the time. As soon as witness saw the deceased knocked down he immediately informed the station-master. By the foreman : I have never known deceased to have too much drink. By the coroner : Deceased, just before attempting to cross, took a side look at the train, but was not quite quick enough in crossing. Thomas Sweeting, an under-porter at the railway station, said he saw deceased in the morning at half-past six o’clock, he was then in his usual health. The further evidence of this witness was in corroboration of the last witness, and the jury, considering other evidence being unnecessary, returned a unanimous verdict of “Accidentally killed”. The jury very kindly gave their fees, adding something more to it to the widow of the deceased, who also leaves three children. Mr. G. Brown, solicitor, of York, watched the enquiry on behalf of the company, but no blame appeared to be attached to any person.

Newspaper clipping

At some point in the past, a clipping of my Grandparents’ wedding had been sent to Grandma’s cousin in the US. A few years ago, they sent me a copy of it. I transcribed it and so here it is.

Hull Wedding
Mr J.W.Duffield and Miss S. Garnett

The wedding took place at All Saints’ Church, Margaret-street, Hull, on Saturday of Mr John William Duffield, second son of the late Mr and Mrs John Duffield, of Hull, and Miss Sallie Garnett, daughter of Mr and Mrs Robert Garnett, of Northumberland-avenue, Hull. The Rev J. Jiles officiated and Mr Dove was at the organ.

The bride, who was given away by her father, wore a gown of filmy white georgette with fitting corsage enhanced by the addition of an artistically designed yoke of angel skin lace. Her anke-length skirt fell into rich billowy folds and was edged with a deep flounce of angel skin lace. An underlining og stiff net emphasised the fullness of the skirt and her lace coatee had well-cut sleeves with soft folds of white georgette.

A handsomely embroidered veil of tulle was worn, and was fashioned into a head-dress effect, held in position by a coronet of orange blossom, and falling into a train down to the hem of the skirt. The bouquet was of pink roses.

The chief bridesmaids were Gracie Garnett (sister of the bride), and Edith McCowan (friend), and a tiny bridesmaid, Miss P. Garnett, also attended. The elder girls wore gowns of shell pink chiffon-velvet, designed on Empire period lines. They wore pink satin shoes and caps to tone and carried dainty muffs.

The tiny attendant had a Victorian gown of shell pink satin and carried a wee posie. Her head-dress consisted of bands of flowers.

Miss E.Garnett (sister of the bride) was gowned in russet ripple crepe, the bodice of which featured a V-neck line of parchment crepe with reveres of russet and grey. A decorative bucke clasped the belt, and the skirt was composed of godets. A hat of tonings to match was worn.

The bride’s mother was attired in a smart gown of black phantom crepe, tastefully trimmed with magenta-hued crepe. The corsage was drape and the figure and the skirt slightly flared at a low line. Her hat was of pedaline straw.

A reception was held at the bride’s home after the ceremony.

The bride’s ensemble and those of the bride’s mother and sister were supplied by Pixie Berks, 32, Prospect-street, Hull.

Tumbleweed?

So, there have been no blog posts here since July, and the main reason, actually no the only reason why neither of us have managed to cough out a single post is because we knew that if we did we would then have to update every one of the files produced to remove the script tags that blogger had so thoughtfully added (not such a big deal for html files, but back in 2001 when we started all of this we thought that XML was a much better idea and script tags and XML don’t get on that well).

Still, it kicked our butts and made us, well Richard, finally do the decent thing and move us on to wordpress. So, as we reorganise all of the content from the old site into pages and blog posts, don’t be surprised if that tumbleweed feeling turns into a short tornado.  

Anyways, here we are again.  Did you miss us?  Even a tiny bit?

111 miles walked in June

As I mentioned earlier my running has pretty much stopped other than the occasional sudden burst when taking Skitters out for a walk. And you know what, that’s fine. My motivation for running was down to two things:

  1. get regular exercise
  2. spend time out doors

Both of these are fulfilled just by giving Skitters the exercise she needs.

When I was still running I bought a Garmin Forerunner 205 to replace the Nokia SportsTracker application I was running on my phone. I take this watch out with me on almost every walk I do with Skitters, and record the majority of the route (sometimes, especially here in the built up part of Brighton, it takes a while to lock on to the location). I’m using the excellent application Ascent to read the tracks from the phone and create them into a usable format, and export them to kml format for use on our maps page. I’ve found this combination to work brilliantly, and have found Ascent to be a great tool allowing me to record what we’ve been up to.

It also provides a summary page, allowing me to summarise the month of june as

We’ve got ourselves into a bit of a routine. Generally, I do the morning walk, Richard does the evening walk and we both do weekend walks. In reality though, we often both go out with her. June started with Richard being away at Java One in San Francisco, so I was the only dog-walker, which obviously bumps up my numbers this month somewhat. On top of the daily walks along Brighton/Hove seafront, June has included walks in Stanmer Park [1][2][3], Lancing for low tides [1][2][3], Ashdown Forest [1], Devil’s Dyke [1][2][3], Nymans woods [1], Firle [1] ending up at the excelent Ram Inn at Firle (a dog-friendly pub selling lovely food), Barcombe [1] (involving a beer at the Anchor Inn) and a weekend in Margate with Richard’s folks [1][2][3]

A couple of my favourite Skitters related photos from June are:

Richard and Skitters at Lancing
and

Most of Skitters and the sea