Ups and Downs

The good news is - they're off again!
(Anna worries a little about me referring to myself in the 3rd person, but I'm ok with that.)
They haven't travelled far, but four consecutive days off work has revitalised me a bit and spurred me on to get walking and cycling again.
The disappointing news is that, despite having created an action plan worthy of the SAS, we failed to get tickets to walk through the Hindhead tunnel on 14 May. With 20,000 hopefuls having registered an interest in the 6,000 available tickets we (7 of us) knew that our chances were fairly slim - but it felt flat all the same when the website (which had been struggling all day to cope with the internet traffic in much the same way that Hindhead itself was constantly overwhelmed by real traffic) finally closed. Thanks to everyone for their perseverance and patience. At least we can soon look forward to flooring it through the tunnel on our way to the M25 rather than creeping through Hindhead in first gear.

The theme of the week has been, of course, the bluebells - so I drove to West Stoke on Easter Saturday (arguably the prettiest bluebell woods in the area) and then cycled on to Bosham for a picnic, with ice cream to follow. I waved to the Resolute across the channel (my day off - yay!) and decided that you can never take enough photos of Bosham Church.

I tried really hard to keep my eyes open for this photo - 

and took this one of the beautiful wisteria just outside West Ashling.

On Easter Sunday I made two more trips to the bluebell woods - once with Mum and once with Annie.  Annie and I walked and talked - and talked - and talked......how lovely it is to share experiences, ideas and opinions. She had just been to hear Rob Bell speak about his new book "Love Wins" at Cheltenham. Rob is pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan and I listen to his podcasts regularly. You can too - here:

http://marshill.org/teaching/podcast-info/

and finally - this

is RB1 - my first EVER runner bean plant.

Watch this space.

April stats:
walker (sigh) 24 miles
cyclist (sob) 15.5 miles
BP (that's better...) 131/79