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

We are sailing....

but still not walking or cycling.

Unless you count Wednesday when I visited baby Maeve again and we all walked down to the shoreline with Bessie the dog. I'm glad we waited for the cows to move into the next field - especially when we spotted the bull in the midst of them!

I had mentioned to Chris that it would be good to get some sailing in this summer - so when he realised that he had the afternoon off on Thursday and that I had an early finish........we canoed out to the Wayfarer and tacked up and down the channel for an hour. There was practically no wind so I helmed for a bit - which was ok until we needed to go about. Chris demonstrated his training skills admirably. I like to think he gets his patience from me....!

On Saturday Anna and I drove to Chatham to the Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation day at Greenwich University. It was a brilliantly organised day with talks which ranged from interesting and educational (diet, nordic walking, tai chi) to intensely moving (the lady who had had islet cell transplants and is currently living injection-free) and frankly hilarious (Oliver Double, stand-up comedian and father of 2 diabetic sons). This is a national charity with its registered office on Hayling Island...!

http://www.drwf.org.uk/

Today I really was intending to walk with the Chichester Walkers. But I was so tired that I just joined them for lunch at the Greyfriars Pub in Chawton.

How the mighty have fallen...!

Today is Ben's birthday. Happy Birthday Ben!

Null Points

I'm trying to be kind to myself. Starting a new job is always somewhat stressful and if it's one where you're on your feet all day, then it's also going to be physically tiring. So the walker and the cyclist haven't budged this week - but my flapjacks are the BEST - according to Jake.

Instead of working in the middle of a traffic island in the centre of Portsmouth I now work on a converted Dutch Barge called Resolute

for an organisation called Christian Youth Enterprises. Check out the work they do on

http://www.cye.org.uk/

Jake works there too and the view from the galley where I bake the flapjacks looks like this:

After a week finding my sea-legs (actually the ship does move and it's a very odd sensation) Anna and I drove to Cardiff for the weekend to visit the RHS show in Bute Park. We had wonderful sunshine and enjoyed the planted wheelbarrows - and of course, the daffodils.

This was Rapunzel - who was actually a little scary

but cleverly provides a link to my niece Heloise... On Friday evening Anna and I arrived just in time for a gallery opening night at Slunks Hair Salon on Whitchurch Road in Cardiff. Heloise had put a huge amount of time and effort into curating the collection of artworks by young local artists and the evening was a great success.

Cheeeeese Grommit?

Another wall-painting, Maeve-sitting week punctuated by a lovely walk in Surrey with (cycling) Valerie and the wine and cheese event to celebrate my arrival in Cheddar. (Actually, that's a bit of a wild guess as without access to the internet I can't really be sure...) Now that the laptop is out of intensive care I can try the mapometer site again. Ed says I need more memory (if only......) and probably a new adaptor, but I can use the laptop for the time being on battery only.

Valerie and I walked up Leith Hill. We were going to cycle this time, but her own bike was only just back from the repair man, and her spare one still with him. I can't find a cycle rack that fits a 2004 Clio as the wretched Renault badge on the boot interferes with every rack I can find. A towbar is the answer of course - but that comes at a price.
The weather wasn't great but we ate well at the pub in Forest Green and I actually saw my first bluebell of the year.

Valerie and I always discuss projects, plans and holidays - spurring each other on to more and more adventurous ideas (which she then puts into practice!). Always an inspiration.

And so to Cheddar. I wasn't sure how to arrange the wine and cheese evening, as it's notoriously difficult to find a convenient date for everyone. Then I hit on the idea of hijacking the reading group evening that was already in the diary - albeit at Cathy's house. She kindly agreed to be 'used' and we discussed One Day (which most of us had thoroughly enjoyed reading) whilst quaffing wine and nibbling cheese and olives.

Those stuffed peppers are so good and Cathy thoroughly deserved that last one for being such a delightful hostess!

Sorry Cathy - it's not a very flattering photo and will be removed on request!

Sadly Martha and Lesley couldn't join us - but 8 out of 10 was pretty good for us - and was about the average score we gave the book as well!

My blood pressure is unaccountably higher this month and I'm trying to work out why. I've been busy, that's for sure, and I'm just about to start a new job (tomorrow). I've probably been drinking too much coffee as well - so I'm reigning it all in a bit this month and we'll see where we are at the end of April.

Crash!

Technology! - it'll never catch on...

My laptop wobbled and wobbled - and finally crashed this week. Enter Ed - technician extraordinaire and the 4th emergency service in our house, ever since Ben took to randomly deleting what we later discovered to be vital components of the family PC in order to make room for his latest game....! So here, at last, is the blog that should have appeared a couple of weeks ago.

It's been a varied week - painting the spare room in readiness for a lodger later in the year, babysitting 5-week old Maeve (arguably the cutest baby ever) and attending the commissioning of Resolute (more about that in a couple of weeks) - whilst also adding to Jogle and LeJog.

Helen was here visiting Chris and Rachel for a few days, so she joined me for a walk to Stansted on Monday and a ride to Idsworth on Tuesday. Here we are relaxing at St Huberts. The funny bit was setting the auto-timer - I'm sure you can imagine the antics.

 Then Jill and I squeezed in another ride - this time to Buriton. She showed me how to relax using a helmet and a glove -

and - surely not! - is that -

me wearing Lycra??!

Highlight of the week has to have been the walk to Chilgrove with Pam, Roy and Adrian to see the wild daffodils. The weather was lovely and we caught the daffodils while they were still at their best.

We finished with tea at my house - lemon meringue pie was my attempt at a daffodil coloured offering. I found out though that Roy's pet hate is cultivated daffs:

It's the end of the month, so the stats for March are:

walker     57 miles
cyclist      103 miles
BP           148/90