Gromit Unleashed 2: The Greatest Dog Show on Earth (unfinished business)
Regular readers will know that my daughter and I (but mainly me!) got a lot of pleasure out of tracking down Gromit, Feathers and Wallace on the streets of Bristol over the summer. I was disappointed not to complete the Gromit Unleashed 2 trail and find them all, as we didn’t have quite enough time. But we found 57 out of 67, so we did pretty well. Before the sculptures were auctioned off to raise money for Bristol...
The mum taxi gets out of hand
Regular readers will know I spend an awful lot of time driving my kids round in the ‘mum taxi’. On a normal week, I do the school run for my younger son every day, including one late finish for rugby. I drive to four dance lessons over the course of three days, my husband drives my son to football, another parent takes my boys to Explorers and I walk my daughter to Scouts. In addition, there’s usually someone who...
Two half marathons in a month: Tapering to recovery and back
My training for the Stroud half marathon is a bit different to my training for the Cheltenham half or the Tewkesbury half. That’s because Stroud is just three weeks after Cheltenham and I have to build in recovery from Cheltenham. When you add in tapering, I basically have one week of ‘proper’ training between the two races. Normally in the two or three weeks before a half marathon I would be doing two six mile runs midweek, a parkrun...
My son, the driving test and the very good week
When he turned 17 at the end of June, my son told me he was going to pass his driving test first time – and he was going to do it within three months of his birthday. You’ve got to love the eternal optimism of the young. I’m not an optimist. On a good day I’m a realist, at times I’m a pessimist. I told him he should aim to pass his test by Christmas and that it didn’t matter if he passed first time....
Cheltenham half marathon 2018
It’s not many years ago that I was the only runner in our family, but, thanks to parkrun, the running bug has really spread. So for Cheltenham half marathon 2018 we had four of us running – my husband, my brother-in-law, myself and my son! 17 is the minimum age for running a half marathon and my son only turned 17 three months ago, so I was very proud to have him there. It’s illogical, but a race always makes me feel...
My husband’s 100th parkrun
My husband started parkrun two months after my daughter and I. At first, he could take it or leave it. For the first year or 18 months, he wasn’t that bothered about doing it. He missed quite a few due to weekend commitments and sometimes even just because it was raining and he didn’t feel like going! But over the last year or so, he’s become quite obsessive about it. I think he’s missed just two this year, due...
