Four years on, we finally got to catch up with old college friend Rachel and her daughter Bea this weekend. Great to see old mates and ponder how the hell the girls have grown up so quickly. Had a nice evening at the bonfire at the White Horse down the road, and some traditional sparkler fun.
A great half term day out
It’s Lily’s first ever half term – and yesterday we had the day together – and what a corker it was.
We dropped Katie off at work in the morning then went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to look at the Andy Goldsworthy retrospective – a really good choice. I’ve enjoyed Goldsworthy’s tactile simplicity in his art ever since I first came across his work in the late 80s, but it was lovely to see a five year old girl doing ‘wow’ and genuinely being taken aback by the semi-magical feel to some of the large scale installations. Very satisfying.
Lily was also interested in the other artworks dotted around the sculpture park, and made a point of rushing up to every male bronze figure and ‘touching their diddlers’, almost methodically.
We walked three miles during our trip so were a bit tired when we headed away.
The afternoon took us to the cinema to see Ratatouille – a fantastic film from the Pixarstudios.
Lily’s 5th Birthday
Today our little girl reached the grand old age of five. It’s been a busy week for her with starting school and we just decided to have a small party for family and a couple of local friends.
Her new school friends sang her Happy Birthday which I’m sure will have made her feel very special, and we did all the great party things on a lovely warm September day – very memorable.
The best bit (for me) was putting her to bed last night and her asking me how tall she’d be in the morning. Great thinking, Lils. “Just the same size” I told her in a killjoy, tired dad kind of a way. I missed the opportunity this morning to tell her she’d grown… I’ll do it tomorrow.
Piccies here.
First day at school!
The little entertainer is off to Broadway at last. Had she been born a week earlier, Lily would have been at school for a year now, but the oldest girl in the class starts today, and we’re all very excited for her (and a bit choked up at times… pathetic!)
Lily’s bike fever
We got a trailer bike the other day – a necessity for the school run which starts this week (exciting !! – school starting – not the school run) and have had a great weekend getting used to it. Cycling-dad obviously was trying his best not to pile on the pressure, but in the end, we had to reel her in… she just loves it.
After a six mile eco shopping foray into Ramsbottom yesterday, we expected to go to Gisburn forest today for a great family picnic and bike ride on the gentle trails there. Alas, what the weatherman described as a “band of rain passing over” gripped us from 9am until 8pm, so Lily and I got our aggression out with a brilliant off road rode up onto Holcombe moor. We got filthy and soaked, but it all seemed to make her smile more and more. Bring it on, cycling-daughter.
Bank Holiday: Visit from Andrew and Denise & fam
Lovely time with old mates Denise and Andrew this weekend. After a dreadful journey up to our place, they soon settled in. Lily and Will getting straight into some serious playing and we all had a great time catching up (and also meeting the eight month old Kitty for the first time – a gorgeous little smiler).
Got going early on Sunday to visit the seaside at Lytham. Great day for it (burnt my forehead – d’oh!) and managed to cram in lots. Will and Lily took their bikes – great move on the prom with no traffic and no gradient – very good practice that led Lily to take her first stabiliser-free ride on Monday – one very proud Dad here!
Marrakech – a bonus family holiday in 2007
Like waiting for a bus, we were lucky enough to have two hot summer holidays abroad this year. If anyone knows of any good carbon offsetting schemes for all those air miles, just let me know.
House guests of Katie’s family friend Tom Stoddart, we enjoyed the almost surreal luxury of being catered for all week in a beautiful and spacious home in Targa, on the northern suburbs of Marrakech. Tom, is well-off enough to have several domestic employees – all of whom were very friendly and helped us all to feel like we’d mixed with local people. Our French linguistics had to be dusted off a bit and with a strong regional accent, some words were hard to distinguish, but we got by.
The house was made even more child friendly by having a supply of dog and even eight 3-week old dachshund puppies. Olly and Lily made several daily visits to their little den each day.
Although it was lovely to have had a pool all to ourselves and enjoy the children (we went with Katie’s family: Sally, Simon, Olly, Lucy, Jean and Bill), we also had enough opportunities to nip into this amazing city a few times, too.
There’s some family photos here and less familyesque photos on Flickr here. The sunsets were particularly enjoyable – even without much immediate topography other than palm trees and olive groves. Simon and Sally’s flickr photos are here.
I also managed to keep the training going all holiday and ran each morning for a minimum of 35 minutes in some temperatures that would suggest a lot more lying in bed. The theory was to get up early and get out or get cooked. Daytime temperatures reached the mid 40s on some days but it was only in the high 20s in the mornings. I acclimatised well though, and running was a real joy in such a different environment. Google Earth tracks of the runs from my Garmin 305 are here, showing some nice zig-zagging through the shade of the olive groves and the dusty barren ‘fields’, complete with tumble weed.
Great fun – thanks Tom and we’ll come and see you again when you move to Agadir!
Oxford weekend with Dippy, Jane and family
Great stay with Dippy, Jane, Libby and Flo this weekend. It sadly seems only an annual event with everyone’s busy lives, but we had another great trip. We missed out on some pretty poor weather back home too, which is a great bonus.
On Saturday we had a great trip to the park and on to a noodle bar for lunch (Helmshore, for some reason, hasn’t got its own noodle bar yet). After that, it was an afternoon of romping on the lawn with hose pipe, paddling pool, croquet set and some willing and very playful young people.
On Sunday, Dips and I took the girls to the pool and had another water-based good laugh.
Big thanks from us all to you all for a lovely stay.
Phil and Anne’s house in Devon
Storms ravage the country, and once again we managed to keep Devon relatively dry for a long weekend. We should get paid for this.
A lovely time had by all – lots of Dartmoor running, plenty of drinking, not a disastrous amount of sleep loss, the Tour de France’s crucial stages on TV in the the background (and occasionally the foreground), excellent young-people-swimming trampolinic bouncing, a stone of cow rib to eat a youth bike ride, and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. And a bit of sneezing.
Oh, and some extreme retrieving by Elvis.
Weekend at home with Rachel and Jon
A lovely weekend at home with the Dow family – haven’t seen them since New Year and a lovely relaxing time to catch up, hang out, and hang over. Piccies (click on image) and video…
Dave and Jane’s house for the weekend
The last time Katie and I woke up in a bed at Dave and Jane Bancroft’s house, it was the morning after the millennium celebrations in the Millennium Dome. This time, when I looked at my watch on Saturday morning, it was 07:07 on 07 07 2007. How flipping wierd’s that ?
We went to stay (long overdue) with our lovely mates on the occasion of the Tour de France visiting London. The spectacle of it all just surpassed any superlatives I can come up with. Immense crowds, an incredibly friendly atmosphere, and brilliant weather.
The race itself went so well (we watched the prologue in Hyde Park), and it built to a great crescendo, with two of the British time trial specialists going off towards the end of the three hour event. In the end, it was great to see utter domination from woprld time trial champion Fabian Cancellara. It’s somehow right that a world champion should win the ‘world prologue championships’ (as Chris Boardman used to call the Tour de France prologue).
We had such a great time at Dave and Jane’s. My recent switch in jobs (to doing web development work at Reverse Delta) could have meant an erosion of my relationship with my Dave becoming my colleague and inevitably my boss, but it’s been a really positive move. Nice wine, lovely food, good weather; good times.
Young Angus
With some little boys, a life ahead full of Rock’n’Roll attitude seems inevitable. Like his namesake Angus Young, my nephew Angus seems destined for something like that. Recorded in Easter when we were playing with music on the computer together.