Tag: photos

Preston Park 3.8K run

A few weeks ago I blogged about my intention to run the Brighton Phoenix Preston Park 3.8k to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Society. Well, that was today, and I’m still in one piece. I had some excellent supporters, both family and friends, cheering me around the park and have a collection of photos taken by my Father In Law and by Richard. So, here’s the story:

We arrived at Preston Park in time to watch the Men’s race start at 2pm and my first job was to go and collect my number.

225

We lined up at 3pm, and were ready to go and I was amongst a lot of club runners — I’d say at least 75% of the participants were associated to some club or other. This was somewhat intimidating.

On your marks

The race was twice around the park. The majority of the runners had gone off at a speed far quicker than I could keep up with so I let them go, but I think I was still running a bit faster than my usual pace. About three quarters of the way around the circuit, Richard took the following photo.

Smile for the camera!

A futher circuit and I managed to overtake someone just before the final stretch and finished as strongly as I possibly could doing the race in 21 minutes and 50 seconds according to my GPS trace. This was a couple of minutes quicker than my practice run a few weeks ago, so I was delighted with myself.

The final stretch

Only the top 32 times were listed today, but apparently the rest of the results will be available on the website during the week. I’ll post my final time when I know it. I enjoyed the race, well I enjoyed the race being over, and having a good excuse to eat cake :-). The race marshalls around the course were great, and always had a word of encouragement, as did the other supporters around the park, all of which made a big difference.

Page 1 of the results

Finally a big, big thank you to everyone who sponsored me to do this run: you really helped me to keep getting up and out there for a run when the mornings have got colder. As I write this I’ve raised £575. According to the fundraiser’s pack that the Alzheimer’s society sent me this helps as follows:

  • £100 pays for eight calls to be answered by our helpline and for a pack of essential information to be sent to people in need of advice
  • £500 pays for 65 hours of a support worker’s time, to help people with dementia understand their diagnosis and help them take part in activities they enjoy

Thanks!

Brighton Earthship


Bottle wall
Originally uploaded by Jane Dallaway

I attended a talk several years ago about the Earthship concept, and have been meaning to join one of the regular tours to the Brighton Earthship but just never got around to it. When I spotted the tour as part of the eco Open Houses it just seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

I found it hard to justify driving to Stanmer Park to go and visit an eco property, so we got the bikes out and pedalled off to Stanmer House where the group assembled. There were probably around 80 people so we split into two groups and walked off through the Stanmer Organics plots towards the Earthship.

As John, the tour guide, was telling us all about the building process, and how the earthship works, I got to wondering if there were any you could stay in anywhere. My question was answered inside as there was a leaflet – “Eco Home Holiday Rental – the house that runs itself” – in Ger, Normandy, France. Sounds like a great way to experience “off the grid” living without committing to it for the long-term.


Isle of Wight


Stile
Originally uploaded by Jane Dallaway

Last weekend Richard and I headed over to the Isle of Wight for the weekend. I’d never been before, and Richard doesn’t think he has been either.

We based ourselves at the Godshill Park Farm B&B, a lovely, relaxing place a short (10 minutes or so) walk from the pretty village of Godshill and its many eateries.

We spent Saturday mainly along the South Coast – concentrating on the New and Old Batteries at the Needles, as well as various bays along the way. We spent Sunday around the West Coast up to Cowes, ending up at Sandown, and then spent Monday on the East Coast up to Ryde and ending up on the ferry.

A really lovely weekend, and a feeling of England in the 1970s. We’re hoping to head off over again, maybe without the car next time, as the Island line train service combined with a plentiful bus service and the myriad of public footpaths make the island very accessible.

There are plenty more photos

Wakehurst Place and Nymans Gardens

Its a sign

Last weekend we headed off to Wakehurst Place, a botanic garden and conservation area managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Wakehurst Place was added to my to-visit list earlier this year when it was mentioned at a Cafe Scientifique talk about The Flower Hunters. It wasn’t the sunniest day, but it was warm and dry and we spent a good few hours walking around the gardens. We didn’t manage to get around all of it, and in fact missed almost all of the Woodland zone – a good reason to return.

Walkway

I really enjoyed the Conservation zone and walking along the raised walkway above the water. At the end of the day, and after reading a few leaflets, and finding out that we’d get our admission fee back, we decided to join the National Trust for the year – we have a weekend in the Isle of Wight and a week in Cornwall later in the year and so hope we will be able to make a lot of use of it.

House and gardens

This weekend we took advantage of our new National Trust membership and visited Nyman’s – the closest National Trust property to our house (I think!) and had a very pleasant afternoon. Nymans has gardens, woodland and amazing views over Sussex and it seems to be a really great space – people were picnicking, playing hide and seek, sitting on the plentiful benches reading the Sunday paper – a really, really welcoming area. We had a short walk around and I’m looking forward to an opportunity to return and do some of the woodland walks and possibly even a visit to the house to take a look at the family rooms.

lensbaby pink

More photos here and here.

Final Festival update


Udder fail
Originally uploaded by d6y

So, the final week of the Brighton Festival saw us at four events:

  • Double Header: Hattie Hayridge & Norman Lovett at a very chilly Udder Belly. This was the first night on their tour, and it was an entertaining hour or so
  • The death and life of Sherlock Holmes at the Nightingale Theatre. This only starred Roger Llewellyn and he worked immensely hard for both 45 minute halves – especially given the heat in the theatre. It was a great play – with Roger playing Sherlock, Watson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Moriarty and a number of smaller, lesser characters. Excellent and real good entertainment
  • Brain Drain – a locally produced play at the Sanctuary Cafe. We missed the first half as we were still travelling back from the Hull City game at Wembley so despite Jeremy and Kirsty’s best efforts I never did quite work out what was going on
  • The return of the Ornate Johnsons at the Udder place – the most noisy venue I may have ever been to – with the traffic on the roundabout, the generator to keep the structure inflated and general people noise from both the Udderbelly and people milling around. It was quite memorable, however, first of all one of the microphones wasn’t working so quite a few scenes were played out with one of the cast shouting whilst the others were conversing normally – it broke things up a bit, but the level of professionalism was immensely high and they incorporated this handicap into the sketches. The background noise quietened down, and then the roof started coming down, until it was so low we had to be evacuated. After 5 or 10 minutes they got it sorted out (apparently a carrier bag blew into the fan – which was why it suddenly went quiet) and we started again. This was probably one of the best shows I’ve seen during the fringe – the level of professionalism that the cast showed throughout a troubled performance was incredible. I’ll look out for them again.


Hull City promoted to the Premiership

On 6th February 1999 Hull City were at the bottom of the football league, with little to shout about – the club was going nowhere, the owner wasn’t contributing and it looked like Hull City didn’t have much of a future. We were living in Ealing at the time, and when I spotted the Brentford v Hull match I decided that we should go and offer my team some of the support it needed. That started my adult attendance of Hull City games and we won 2 – 0 starting what became known as the Great Escape led by Warren Joyce. Over the next few seasons we attended quite a few of the Southern games including trips to Southend, Cheltenham, Leyton Orient (including for the play offs in 2001), Barnet, Hayes (for an FA cup match), Brighton (at Gillingham) and at the Withdean, as well as some games at Boothferry Park (vs Barnet Feb 2001) and later in the KC Stadium (vs Bournemouth Easter 2003).

I hadn’t managed any games this season – when we were in Hull, the Tigers weren’t, and when they were down here, we weren’t – but both Richard and I had been carefully checking the scores, and were keeping a very close eye on the end of the season.

When Hull made it through the playoff semi-finals and into the final at Wembley I knew that I had to do whatever I could to go (along with every other Hull fan). I was up checking the website at 8am last Monday morning, when the remaining 3800 tickets went on sale (to non-season ticket holders) but failed to get any – I kept selecting them and getting to an error on the website. Aagghh!!

I found some (very expensive) tickets via 1st4FootballTickets and decided that I really wanted to be at the match – the first trip to Wembley for Hull City after 104 years, I couldn’t afford to wait another 104 for an opportunity to see my team on what might be the biggest stage in Europe. I bought the tickets, they turned up without problem and got me access to the ground. Hurrah!

On Saturday we arrived at Wembley at around midday, leaving ourselves plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the experience. I have been to Wembley for a football match only once before, a rather poor 0 – 0 friendly between England and Norway in 1994, and so was keen to experience the “new Wembley”. The walk down Wembley Way towards the stadium was impressive, looking towards the stadium and the arc and seeing the familiar colours of black and amber lining the street along with the red and white of Bristol City.

We made our way into the ground, found our seats and then took a wander around to find a beer. I’ve never seen a Champagne and Seafood bar at a football ground before, but we were in the Club Wembley section which I guess explains it.

The atmosphere was great, and the noise was fantastic – the sounds of the supporters singing just echoed around the ground. We watched some of the warm up, the pre-match fireworks and presentation of the teams before the match started.

I’ve nothing to add about the quality of the football that hasn’t been said elsewhere – Dean Windass’s wonder goal – lots and lots and lots of attempts by Bristol City, but nothing really of power. Boaz Myhill and the defence did a great job and kept another clean sheet.

The final whistle blew, and the Hull supporters (and team) celebrated for all we were worth (I know I had little voice left yesterday). And so, Hull City are in the Premiership and Plymouth get the title of “Biggest town in Britain never to have seen top flight football” – Hull City still holds the title of “Only football club in Britain that has no letters you can colour in” though 🙂

Richard is keen to point out that we’re still on track to meet his prediction of being winners of the Premiership in 2017.

Vegetables growing


Vegetables
Originally uploaded by Jane Dallaway

I’ve done much more planting than usual this year. Here are the majority of my pots/containers growing wonderfully. The potatoes have been a bit mad.

Vegetables

The bottom right hand corner are my potatoes 9 days before this photo – the potatoes here are again the bottom right hand of the photo. I’m really not sure at what point they prevent me being able to see out of the kitchen window. I’ve marked up this photo with notes explaining what all of the vegetables are.

Mr Ouch

I took this photo in the grounds of the Morning Star Lodge near the Silver Mountain Gondola station in Kellogg, Idaho with the sole intention of posting it to the Stick Figures in Peril group. This I duly did and someone added a tag of Mr Ouch. I was curious about this and so looked at all photos tagged with Mr Ouch and discovered that they are all the same peril picture but with different text, instructions and warnings – a sub domain of stick figures in peril.

I will now be on the lookout for other Mr Ouch warning signs to add to the collection.

Happy Christmas


Gifts
Originally uploaded by Jane Dallaway

Richard and I have spent the last couple of days with his folks in Margate. We’ve taken a couple of walks with the dog, watched 2 excited great-nephews open their own body weight in presents and munched our way through turkey, sausages, bacon, roast potatoes and plenty of vegetables. Lovely!