Observations of an occasional runner
You may struggle to see what I did today, since this photo was taken after I’d spent yesterday working on it, but the tea-house is slowly progressing. And no, Cliff, I didn’t shun my run in favour of sitting around doing nought, despite the glorious weather!
Whilst an intention existed, it was not exercised, so Sunday has passed sans run.
The weekend began, most unusually, after I got back from my Sunday run.
Cliff and Nessie threw a delightfully civilised garden party where the average age was closer to Cliff’s than to my tender years. They had invited the senior Fosters too so we collected them en-route.
Many people still remember the last time my Mum was at Cliff & Nessie’s, dancing and twirling in a gravity-defying, slightly alchohol-fuelled manner, down the random-sized steps that link the different levels. At night.
The daylight presumably brought the danger into clearer focus as she instead decided to descend using the small retaining walls as large steps, and the large plant-pots as hand rails.
Food was typically in (over-)abundance and mouthwateringly delicious, whilst Nessie’s Dad Peter had mixed a bottomless jug of Pimms (with a vague hint of lemonade) that was not for the faint of heart.
The choice of weather was inspired and the sun shone down on the righteous… and on the rest of us too!
The senior Fosters overnighted with us and were surprisingly reluctant to wake up in the morning. I knocked on the door, took in cups of tea, shook them gently, all with a running commentary designed to lessen the shock of waking up to see me. All to no avail. I returned to the door and knocked louder. Still nothing. In desperation I resorted to shaking them more firmly, at which point a pair of sleepy smiles finally spread across the faces in the bed.
We breakfasted and set out into the lightest Monday morning traffic that I can ever remember. I know it’s the school holidays, but the absence of a few teachers surely cannot explain why the roads weren’t clogged and heaving.
The grand occasion was the wedding of my sister Deborah to my now Brother-in-law John and a fine affair it was too. The forecast had been for thundery showers and instead we had the most perfectly glorious day since… well, since the day before.
Photos on the lawn were the usual confusing logistical conundrum, but none of that mattered as the prevailing mood was light and fun. The ensemble retired to the hidden paradise which is their garden, this having been transformed by their close friends into a flowing series of tables in chairs that managed the impossible trick of augmenting (rather than detracting from) the riot of colour and texture around us.
With room for everyone to sit and chat and eat and drink, the aforementioned close friends swept effortlessly around like silver service staff on a customer satisfaction bonus. Debbie had, in fact, prepared much of the food herself and this was typically mouthwateringly delicious (I sense deja vu here) and in uncharacteristic over-abundance… partially as a result of, for example, the fishmonger having supplied 36 salmon steaks of eight, rather than four, ounces.
The afternoon merged gently into the evening, (with the help of a much-admired Foster powernap) as conversation, wine and still more food flowed freely.
We finally managed to drag the senior Fosters away from their wine glasses at late-o’clock, which did at least give us a really clear run home.
A wedding to remember and a weekend to cherish and, oh, I almost forgot the caption competition. On account of the tireless work that had gone into preparing the garden for the big day, including a pond that had been enlarged and considerably improved, or some such spurious excuse, the Groom had managed to strain his, er, groin. Do I say too much? Be this as it may, I understand that John was inviting suggestions for gallant stories as to how this might have come to pass!
I still have some old posts to catch up on, but I thought that I’d get some new ones down while they are fresh in my ailing memory! Yesterday was a red letter day, as, after threatening for some time, we finally made it down to the Run Shop. It was a great choice of day to go as both Kurt and Fred were in there.
I spend a lot of time talking to my clients about good strategy and I’m going to write a short piece on my other site about this place, as it’s such a great example.
Suffice to say that the range, though not vast, is carefully selected from the perspective of runners and the guys engage with each customer to find out what they really need… and quite simply help them buy it. No pressure sales here, just good old fashioned, quality service!
Kim’s shoes, though not high mileage, were getting on a bit, having seen life before the Berlin marathon in 2004. My runners, though only bought last October, have been used extensively right through the winter mud, have probably clocked up over 600 miles and have not been kept in pristine condition (especially in comparison to the Bok’s shoes) and have thus deteriorated… that’s my finger sticking through the webbing above and the other shoe has the same damage.
So, after five short runs around the block in different pairs of shoes we came away with some lovely Run shopping bags.
Imagine my surprise however, when I looked at what I had bought.
Okay, so I bought two pairs… and the other pair has an orange right shoe, before you start to worry.
The white ones are the updated version of the Saucony shoe I’ve been wearing since October (in fact, my last three pairs have been Saucony) and they are very light and yet sufficiently splodgy for the off-road terrain I favour.
The orange ones are going to sit and wait for the return of the autumn mud and a quick glance at the soles will explain why!
If you recall, yesterday was a beautiful day and I wondered idly how long it would take me to take the shine off the new purchases. I guess that I needn’t have worried.
Kim, Cliff and I squeezed into the car and hotfooted it down to Southampton last night for Nicky’s 40th celebration (well, one of them, anyway). We quickly realised that Andy had omitted to tell us it was a hat party, but that was probably a good thing!
Clive and Nat, on the other hand, arrived in their excellent hats to a dark & empty house, A&N having moved from it some five or six years ago! That may not have been such an issue had they not walked there from the hotel at the bottom of the road that the party was in… Nat was in an evil mood, as you can clearly see.
Kim & Nat sat under the patio heater all night as the party goers ebbed and flowed to them, while the boys took up residence in the kitchen doing much the same, albeit much nearer to the pavlova, strawberry cheesecake and chocolate tart.
An excellent evening had by all, rounded off by a post-midnight drive back along the coast… with Cliff trumping that by driving onwards from our place at about 2am!
Thanks Andy & Nicky!
On account of my fencing yesterday (I had particularly tight shoulders and, er, butt-cheeks for some reason!), I didn’t feel like running this morning. So despite the thunderstorms, we took a drive out to visit the Sculpture Estate at Goodwood.
This is a 26 acre wood, filled with over 70 outdoor sculptures that have been commissioned by the Foundation. It’s a beautiful, peaceful place to wander around is the perfect place to showcase the pieces, more magical today with the wood steaming from the last rain shower. As well as a slightly soft layer of mud, so I felt right at home.
The sculptures are all for sale, but with prices up to £290,000 (although there were a couple of £POA’s, from which you can draw your own conclusions!) it’s fun to just look! The one pictured above (Sunday Sport by Paul Day) is a cool £45,000, but it is amazing!
We decided to go back to the little visitor centre at the end and timed it perfectly with a really heavy downpour.
Entry to the Estate costs £10 per person but that’s a very small price to pay for the tranquility and the magnificent views north across Sussex.
We did think it was a shame that they did not have a small cafe to get a cup of tea though… until we followed their suggestion and drove down to the Goodwood Park Hotel. This is a four star hotel with real manners and though we only wanted tea and cake, they treated us like royalty.
Even to the extent that someone went to the other side of the hotel to find some cake, which a chef then iced especially for us! It was the most delicious coffee cake I’ve tasted in a long time. They then found us some newspapers so we could sit in the supremely comfortable leather chairs and read. I braced myself for the price of our simple afternoon tea… £6.90, all in.
We’ll be back!
Yesterday morning was beautiful and as we sat outside eating breakfast I wondered exactly how I would spend the day relaxing.
Last year I removed the fence between us and our neighbours on one side, with the intention of replacing it with something more sightly. With the fence gone though, all agreed that it not being there was a marked improvement and it had stayed that way ever since, allowing the afternoon sun to filter gently through the leaves.
One downside however, was that as the honeysuckle and roses died back in the winter, so it became a little too open for my taste, so some time ago I conceptualised a cunning modesty panel. I use the word conceptualised quite deliberately, as I had no idea how I was going to do it. The panel would abut the wall and sit gracefully across the end of a gazebo, but this was too wide for a stock item. So, as an insight into how my mind works, I approached the problem thus:
First, I worked out where the post would go and drove a steel post holder into the ground… back in November! It was in a tricky place to swing the sledgehammer and there are some tenuous roots at that point, so inevitably it went in slightly skewed… and that’s how it stayed.
Next, early in April, I bought a stack of wood. And last weekend, a roll of bamboo screening.
So, yesterday morning, because it was sunny and I couldn’t think of the best way to relax… and because our neighbours went out (I hate an audience when I think I’m going to make a fool of myself!) I put on my shorts and worked out how I could fix a post neatly around the back corner of the garage. And then, having cut, drilled the pieces and assembled them, fixed it in place.
Next, I consulted my craftsman friend Andrew regarding the twisted post holder and he suggested the judicious use of a five-foot iron bar (which I just happened to have laying about!) to twist it into the right place. With some ingenuity (using a bar-size drill-bit and a couple of 2×4 offcuts) I coaxed the holder into the right place and dropped the post neatly in.
Now the tricky bit. Who knows how to construct a fence panel? Not I, as I had been more than aware for several months! Helpfully, I still have a few fence panels around the garden so I had an excellent template… and I scribbled down how mine would work for good order.
I first measured the space between posts, then cut and laid out two simple frames sandwiching two layers of bamboo screen, pretty side out. And firmly screwed it all together… which actually wasn’t that difficult. With the help of my excellent assistant, who had been weeding, cutting edges and generally catching the sun, we lifted it snugly into place and I screwed it home.
Et voila, there was a modesty panel. Not exactly what I had in mind for the day, but at least the legs came out as promised!
Redirecting the garden lights created a pleasing tableau and I now can’t wait for the weather to be warm enough to sit out in the evening!
Would it surprise anyone if I said that I spent yesterday crawling around in the thick Chiltern mud? I don’t suppose so as any regular readers will know that I’m always up to my knees in the stuff.
But the main aim of yesterday was not to get too muddy, but rather bump and splosh around at an elegant ride height at least a couple of feet above the ground. Courtesy of the Land Rover Experience. The function of this truly excellent centre is to demonstrate to potential buyers the ability of this most English of Chelsea Tractor. In extremis.
I can tell you first hand that the streets of Kensington & Chelsea are cared for in a way that puts other councils to shame, with perfectly paved, level sidewalks, motorway standard tarmacking and regularly cleaned gutters. Outside of the garden squares and patio pots, mud does not feature widely.
This centre, by comparison, has an awful lot of the stuff. Deep, slippery ruts and complex cross-cuts, tracks submerged in watery mud, teflon-coated muddy grass, steep muddy inclines and dizzying drops, tree-lined forest tracks with mud mixed with roots… you name it, they have it!
I know from ice-driving in Sweden how much difference tyres make to safety so I was stunned to find out what kind they proposed to use to cope with this dictionary of muddiness: standard road tyres on all but one fairly old, green Defender. Moreover, all but the aforementioned were completely standard vehicles in every aspect.
During the day I got to drive the green Defender through the very worst of the mud and deep water, a Range Rover down through the forest trail (avoiding all but three of the myriad tennis balls suspended strategically from the trees), a new silver Defender round a typical time trial section with awkward gates, tricky changes in camber and surface and the very worst of the ruts and cross-cuts (Penny and Pete will know what I mean) and a Range Rover Sport out on the road.
To prove how truly amazing these vehicles are, we persuaded the team to let us drive the final vehicle, an £80k Range Rover Vogue TDSE, not out on the road as planned, but over some extreme bumps and at some fairly radical angles both sideways and endways. I’m pretty comfortable driving most anything, but we were at such an angle sideways at one point that I thought I was going to fall out of my seat!
I was so enthralled that I completely forgot to take any pictures, but late in the day I caught a short video. Watch the horizon very carefully to get a sense of what we were doing in a perfectly controlled way, in beautifully appointed comfort. the-drop.mp4
All-in-all a totally mud-tastic day!
Dai and I set the world to rights today with a bottle of Merlot over lunch and a relaxed stroll along Brighton seafront on a gloriously sunny day.
If anyone is wondering why the English have a reputation for talking about the weather, last week was gorgeous, there were floods on Saturday, two inches of snow on Sunday and we were back supping Earl Grey tea in a beach cafe today… go figure.
Readers of Daren’s blog will be familiar with the way that he taunts us with pictures of glamorous beaches and idyllic sunsets, so back at ya Daren!
After the snow and freezing temperatures on Sunday, I was back helping my friend John with the base for his new garden shed on Monday, pictured after the first load and again after the second – or should that be the 5th and 6th as Nick & I helped him in with the 3rd & 4th last week.
I’m sure he’ll call me a wimp, but I ACHED yesterday having pulled the float machine up and down a dozen times! There was great camaraderie amongst the friends helping though and it was fascinating to see how it all came together.
And I have actually enjoyed discovering some dormant muscles!