Day 31 - 'Stick Police!'

Every time Max picks up a stick on a walk, Daisy (aka The Stick Police) likes to take it off him and then just drops it on the ground. How he managed to keep hold of this one quite so long I dont know but he must have liked it as every time she took it off him, he waited a bit then picked it up again. In the end she got bored and left him alone to take our ankles out with it!

Day 30 - Mark Newton

On the way back from Poole parkrun this morning we happened to go past this chap, Mark Newton, on his mobility scooter.
He had a Help the Heroes fund raising sign on the back so we stopped him and donated what change we had, (sadly I didn't even think to take his picture myself so borrowed this one off the tinterweb) Turns out he previously served with the Queens Dragoon Guards and after being injured while on duty in Cyprus, he started on a mammoth task of driving a mobility scooter around Britain to raise money for Help the Heroes in 2013, while pulling a little caravan behind him where he sleeps with his 2 cats.
Having gone all round the edge he then decided not to stop but to travel all over the middle too!
He's travelling round Dorset at the moment, see if you can spot him.
If you want to read more about Mark or contact him or donate, there is a write up on the Help the Heroes site http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/news/?tag=Britain
He's on facebook https://www.facebook.com/aroundbritain1/timeline
and twitter https://twitter.com/aroundbritain
and here's his fundraising page http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/aroundbritain
What a top chap.

Day 29 - A very british dilemma?

not my picture

So, stopping off on the way home to get 'essential supplies' for the weekend (bottle of wine...) I notice a homeless chap near the shop. I think I will give him my spare change when i come back out, but I always go through this terrible dilemma when it comes to doing this, Is it the right thing to do, am I making things worse, am i making things better, what if they are not really homeless? (yes i know i think too much sometimes). Anyway i realise i have less than a quid in change so as I walk round the shop I decide I will pick him up a sandwich and also select a pack of 4 snickers.
On the way out I say "I haven't got much change but you can have what I've got", then sort of make out like i didn't buy the food specifically for him but just happened to give him what i had in my bag. Why did i do this? why couldn't i just say "here, i got you this, hope its OK"?
Even then I am not happy when i walk away, what if he didnt need a sandwich but needed somethng like toothpaste? Should I have got him something hot? Should I have just done nothing? It appears I am not comfortable dealing with homeless people, but not through any fault of theirs, more a sort of awareness about my own faults.
Clearly I have issues to work on.

Day 28 - The Spirit of Exploration

30 years ago today the crew of the Challenger Spacecraft left Earth in the spirit of exploration and science, and never made it back home. In fact they didn't made it into space. 

Its very sad but however dangerous, we shouldnt stop trying to explore space, our own planet or even our own backyard. 

As T S Eliot said, "We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time". 

I think the human race has a lot more to do yet.

Day 27 - Shoah

January 27th is Holocaust Memorial Day, held to remember 6 million Jews killed in world war 2. The genocide is also known as Shoah in Hebrew.

This date was chosen because Jan 27th 1945 is the day the Auschwitz concentration camp, where over 1 million people were killed, was finally liberated.

Each year the day has a theme, such as 'one person can make a difference'

The 2016 theme is 'Don't Stand By' - meaning everyone should take responsibility for the world we live in.

Day 26 - It's Raining again..

Yes, more rain. Pretty much chucked it down all day. Very nearly called off tonights run, but it eased off very slightly and so me and Jenny decided to just man up and get on with it. 30 mins soggy but feeling pretty pleased with ourselves.

Day 25 - Burns Night

January 25th is Burns Night. A celebration of the life and poetry of Robert (Rabbie) Burns. I quite like this 'doctored' portrait of him wearing shades.

I feel he is particularly suitable for this blog due to his coining the phrase 'The best laid schemes of mice and men'. I thought an image a day was going to be simple and easy to produce, how wrong I was, it has been more and more difficult thinking of an image of the day that is different from the others!

Day 24 - Long Run prep

Sorry, another food related pic. Busy morning at junior parkrun and due out for a 10 mile run this afternoon; what better way to fuel up than a stack of scotch pancakes (or drop scones) and syrup!

Day 23 - Pie Day

As it's National Pie day and we were expecting people over for dinner, what better thing to make than a lovely chicken pie.
That is all..:-)

Day 22 - A Taxing day off

The moment when your quiet day off is disrupted by the realisation that the Tax Return deadline is imminent and you have left it to the last minute again.....

Yeah, that moment.

Best get sorting receipts.

D'oh!

Day 21 - National Hug day

Apparently it is/was National Hug Day today...

I did not know this until this evening. So being stumped for todays photo I thought instead of taking one I would trawl through all my photos and find the best hug picture. The best hug I found was this one of Kevin and my daughter Hazel at Hazel's wedding nearly 2 years ago.

Did you know that the best length of time to hug someone you love is 20 seconds? This, apparently is enough time to release the hormone Oxytocin which is an important 'bonding hormone' and is linked to reducing blood pressure and the risk of heart disease. Who knew? so hug away folks.....

Day 20 - Liable to Icing

Have you seen those road signs that that say 'Road Liable to Icing'? They always make me chuckle a bit as I imagine someone with a giant piping bag and a bowl of cake frosting decorating the road (as you can tell I'm easily amused...). It looked a bit like that this morning. If yesterday looked like someone had thrown glitter everywhere, today looked like someone else had come along with a truck full of icing sugar and chucked it on top. Its a shame I couldn't stop and take a picture from the Wimborne bridge on my way to work as it was quite spectacular frost, but I did manage to capture just a small bit of it before it had all melted at lunchtime.

Day 19 - What a hoot

NOT TAKEN BY ME!

Todays picture is not taken by me but is representative of something heard rather than seen.
A freezing cold trail run was not something i was really looking forward to, but in the end proved quite lovely. Not only did the heath look like someone had chucked a bucket of glitter over it, and the icy puddles were erm, interesting to say the least, but we had the privilage to hear the distinctive hoot of a Tawny Owl for some of the run.

Day 18 - Unidentified Flashing objects?

If anyone sees mysterious fast moving flashing lights on the dark heath of a nighttime it's probably not UFOs but could be these 2 horrors dashing about. Thank goodness we have light up collars for Max & Daisy or we would lose them in the dark. We recently bought some re-chargable ones that you can plug in a USB port, so far so good, although the charge doesn't seem to last as long as we had hoped before having to plug em in. Hopefully its just the cold weather (batteries hate it).

Day 17 - At the back of the pack

I was marshalling at Poole Junior parkrun this morning. After yesterdays ice, we were worried it might have to be cancelled but thankfully the temperature was not quite as low today. Because the enormous puddle is still in residence we were using the 'B' course (the wet one, not the wet wet one) and actually I think it is the nicer course. I was back runner which is always fun to do. Despite a bit of drizzle, still 113 youngsters took part, and its only the third week of running it! Time to place bets on how many we will get if its sunny...

Day 16 - Ice Ice baby...

Today was the first time, I think, this winter that we have seen ice on the ground. Unfortunately it meant that Poole parkrun was cancelled this morning for safety reasons, although that wasn't going to stop a couple of 100 people jogging the course anyway, "seeing as how they were up, and in running gear, and in the park" (such is the mentality of most parkrunners!)
However, the icy conditions didn't spoil a sunny cold heath walk afterwards. Daisy certainly was enjoying this strange phenomenon, and had to pick up a piece from nearly every puddle we passed, inbetween skidding around on them.

Day 15 - Diet, what Diet?

It's Friday, no shopping in the house, had to be done. The great British Takeaway. It's not too early to be carb loading for April is it?
Nom Nom Nom :-)

Day 14 - A vista of twinkling lights

I meant to capture this view several times but kept forgetting. Tonight I managed to both remember to take my phone, and also to stop and take the shot. The picture does not do it justice but this is the view of the lights of Poole from the top of the Canford Heath. One of the joys of trail running is the views, and nighttime trail running has its own special version, a vista of twinkling lights, with the moon above. (It was freezing as well by the way...)

Day 13 - More weather than I bargained for

So, i noticed on my way to work that the river in Wimborne is pretty flooded so I thought I would take a walk at lunchtime and take a picture for this blog.
Well here it is, right about 3 seconds before I was pelted with extreme stingy hailstones and had to run back and got soaked. Well they say you have to suffer for Art....

Day 12 - Time for new shoes?

I wondered why my feet were getting muddy quicker than usual on my heath run tonight...
turns out theres a hole in both trail shoes on the inside, just here..(thats my finger by the way, I'm not a contortionist..)
Time for a new pair perhaps?.....Whoops!

Day 11 - Love is....

...Cleaning the mud off your other halfs bike even though it was their job and they forgot to do it yesterday.
As I don't have a David Bowie album to photograph on this sad day, I needed to find something else. Bowie sang 'we could be heroes', well I've got my own, thanks Kev for cleaning my bike. True Love for sure! 
(Apologies for the quality of the photo, it was taken on my phone)

Day 10 - nice weather for ducks

Helped out at Poole Junior parkrun this morning. This was part of the course which was so flooded the ducks were swimming on it. Yes there is a tarmac path under there somewhere.
It was even more flooded than last week, and must have been a logistical nightmare for the core team who had to find yet another alternative route to enable the event to go ahead.
It would have been easy to cancel but they persevered. The kids loved it just the same!

Day 9 - Happy 80th Birthday

Not everyone makes it to their 80th birthday (sadly my own mum didnt get that far). But today was my mother in law's 80th birthday party.
Happy birthday Shirley. x

Day 8 - Back in the saddle again

Feeling like I've been a bit lazy recently so, thought I'd better get back on the bike. S'pose its not a bad commute really....

Day 7 - a little bit of belated Christmas

There were a couple of family members living some way away that we didnt manage to visit over Christmas and New Year, hence the presents would have to be sent instead.
Due to my incredible 'organisational skills', I have only just got round to posting them today.
If you get them, you will know it was you. sorry they were late :-)

Day 6 - Swan Lake

Had trouble finding something for todays image, but luckily just remembered in time I had taken a pic of some swans by the river at lunchtime. Lucky to work somewhere where this sort of thing is not far away!

Day 5 - Back in Black

After 4 days off  following the running every day in December (yes I know only 4 days off, but it feels like 2 weeks!) this is the first headtorch trail run of 2016 with my friend Jenny and the doggies.
30 mins of mud, puddles and laughs. If we werent wearing black shoes you could see how muddy we are!

Day 4 - a wall of maps

It may not look like much but this will eventually be our finished office wall. We have collected a bunch of OS maps and have trimmed them and pinned them up to check positioning before ironing flat and then pasting to the wall. A tiny tad more trimming may be required too!
Ready for race and walk planning!

Day 3 - what is that in the sky?

Isn't the British weather amazing?
just a few hours after torrential rain we get this.
yes the rain has been horrendous over the last few weeks/months and I really feel for those people who have had to evacuate their homes because of flooding, theres been some awful footage on the news, but for the main part we do live in a comparatively temperate climate (compared to hurricanes, tornadoes, severe drought etc etc)
The Americans wonder why we talk about the weather all the time, and its because we can get snow in April, or a day of bright mild sunshine in December and its worth commenting on.
As per the Crowded House song, 4 seasons in one day is perfectly possible.

Day 2 - A very wet parkrun

All hail the parkrun volunteers. Parkrun is great isnt it?
I should volunteer more often. Even getting soaked today didnt spoil it. These are all the people who turned out in the rain today - over 400 runners and volunteers.

Day 1 - These Boots are made for walking

New Year, New Boots. Just remembered I was supposed to be starting this blog and took the picture late on New Years Day!

just bought these yesterday and tried em out for the first time today