School Trip

Photos: Digging at 'Dig' and sat on the corner of York's shortest street with the longest name.

I'm just back from the first of 2 visits to York with the school. Just like last year we did a tour of almost every museum there is, all of which sell the same crappy pens, fudge, bouncy balls, slinky's and mock Roman coins. Castle Howard is the posh stately home where they filmed Brideshead Revisited, but the kids were more interested in also being the location for Garfield 2. Jorvik is a bit 1980's despite it being all about Vikings. My favourite is 'Dig'. Here you get to pretend to be an archaeologist and dig up some sites. You also get to handle a 1000 year old pooh. The Minster is interesting and whilst I hate the idea of the 'religiousness' of it all, it is a huge building and built on the site of one of the UK's first churches, permitted under Roman rule. The 275 step up its tower are tough, especially after doing a 16 mile run the day before. One of our tour guides on the open top bus turns out to be the brother of one of the women at running club. Small world! We also encountered an old friend, Dave Asbury. Sarah & Rob came over to the bowling and we had another visit from the Viking re-enactment bloke 'Danelaw Dave'. My cloth hat was too small and so was the tunic, and I looked more like a garden gnome than a Viking. But it was a good week in all.

Watch out there's a thief about!

Dunbar soaring crime stats got a boost last week when some opportunist thieves visited our street. They 'broke in' to several cars and garages. I say 'broke in', but in fact they 'opened the doors' as most people don't normally bother locking their cars unless the fair is in town. A few sat navs got lifted, but mostly they nicked cd's. It was a week before we noticed Emma's 'Take That' cd and 'Lady GaGa had walked, but there may well be a chance of recovering them, as the crooks dumped all the stuff they didn't like in the woods. However, you won't find me down the nick asking if they have got any Take That.

Amongst the other items stolen from our neigbours, were a crate of Irn Bru, some ice lollies and a box of choc ices! Imagine how uncool that would be if they got sent down for it. Muppets!

Matchstick Men

Photo: @Mike Hall photo's

Just back from Manchester where we spent a week shopping and catching up with people. Whilst there I took the opportunity to enter a local race as I always think the joy of running is you can do it anywhere. The Salford 10km took my fancy as I thought a change of landscape to all this green stuff we get around here might be good. I turned up early to check out the course and see who is in the running community of Greater Manchester. It was nice to see 'Running Mike' there, who was from the Holmes Place gym and the first person to give me and Emma some advice on running when we first started it back in Manchester almost 4 years ago. The rest of the field looked pretty fired up, and huge numbers from clubs turned out. I think I was the only Scottish Club runner there. The pre race conversations are the same though, PB times, injuries, races, diet, etc. These runners did look like they were up for it. Perhaps the artist Lowry had been to the Salford 10km and got his inspiration to draw matchstick men as these runners were very scrawny looking, but determined.

The course was 2 laps of a 5km loop. It was hardly picturesque, taking in a soap factory, some of those indistinct modern factory units, some terrace housing (I am sure I saw Jim Royale looking through the curtains), and a cemetery. Hardly picturesque, but this was Salford which has a landscape all of its own. I had a slow first lap of 19m 20 seconds, so I tried to speed up a bit for the second lap, and scraped through with a 39m 9 seconds. A seasonal best but not that good. Ahead of me were 116 other runners, which was an indication of how strong the field was. Results It's one of those races worth doing if you are in the area, but I wouldn't go too far out of my way to do it again.

Holy Ghost Walk

The Holy Week celebrations got off to a good start on Palm Sunday with the 'Holy Ghost Walk' in the village of Spott. If anyone has ever been on a ghost or witch tour in places like York and Edinburgh, you will know that story telling is made more fun by the appearance of some second rate actors who jump out on the route. With that in mind I thought it might be a good laugh to tell bible stories in the same way. Also, I know how families like a Sunday afternoon stroll, but I also know that they sometimes need a reason to do it. Spott is a little village near Dunbar, and there are some woods (Brock Woods) there that hardly anyone seems to use, so the perfect location for the walk as there is a village hall to return to for hot cross buns and drinks.

Around 80 people turned up and did the 2 mile walk. There was no way the acting could be done as a serious performance, so it was all a bit panto, and better for it. Our 2 Roman centurions led the crowd around the tour on a quest to find out more about Jesus who was arriving in Jerusalem that day. On the way they met the woman at the well (it was actually the old dam), Zachaeus up a tree who demanded people pay some taxes (£7 was raised), Lasarus and Mary and Martha, and finally John the Baptist. One of our actors dropped out at the last minute, so I ended up being John. Wearing a ridiculous wig and beard I looked more like a member of the Taliban than a biblical character. The Brock Burn became the River Jordan, and I stood in the ford baptising people. I had quite a long wait before the crowd arrived, so I sat at the road side for ages waiting. Some boy racers were out for their Sunday afternoon spin, with a couple of girls in the back and got the fright of their life when they saw me. The car actually swerved off the road nearly hitting a tree, which would have been a very funny accident claim for return.

The sun was out and everyone who survived the walk seemed to have enjoyed it, and there are calls for more. It was a good start to Holy Week and put Palm Sunday back on the map for those who missed who had forgotten it.

Victory, meeting Jesus, fire and a run all in a week

As weeks go, this was a busy and odd one. I am close to melt down it has been so busy, and tomorrow it ends with our Palm Sunday event,'Holy Ghost Walk'. For this event I needed some biblical costumes, so I got in touch with a woman who does the costumes for the Edinburgh Passion Plays (these are plays about Easter and not any other kind of passion). She offered me some of her wardrobe, but it meant going to the church where her cast were rehearsing. On arrival I entered the wrong door and found myself in alcoholics anonymous, but eventually I found myself in amongst the cast of biblical characters....including Jesus (or should I say Duncan!) Strangely enough, Duncan is not a Christian at all, but plays him with real conviction. After a good route through the costumes, I left with an Ikea bag full of them. I was half hoping I could have been mugged for them. How amusing would that be on a police report...items stolen 1 x Thomas the Doubter tunic, 1 x Mary's frock, 5 x pairs of Jesus sandals (and they would really have been Jesus' sandals!).

Wednesday was the inter school cross country finals. I've been training the school team since January and the pressure was on to get a win. Out of 20 kids, only 2 dropped out because they didn't actually enjoy it, and another broke his foot. We then whittled it down to the strongest team who faced tough opposition. In the girls race our rival school took the first 4 places. However, it was all about team work, so if the lads did well and the rivals didn't, we could win. Their lads looked like athletes, whereas ours looked like lads. However we were a team, they were just a bunch of individuals, and it was that which gave us a victory in the race, and ultimately the competition by 6 points. So that is 2 years in a row, which is just as well as the school have bought a trophy cabinet. Photo: Me, the winning team and Mrs Lyle


Thursday was a panic. I could smell smoke in the woods and thought some kids were having a fire. But I realised the smoke was actually coming from near our house, and as I got closer it was very near our house. 'Had I left the iron on again? Was Emma's hair straightners burning a hole in the carpet?' Fortunately not, it was our neighbours shed on fire, which was dangerously close to burning their bungalow down. In an emergency like that there is only one thing to do...get the camera! Everything was swiftly brought under control by our voluntary fire fighting team, and nobody was hurt.
Photo: The shed is on fire


Finally it was my own turn to race. The Dunbar 10km Boundry Race. I had a go faster hair cut done, and with little training behind me I was out only to get under 40 mins. Thankfully I got 39:26 which was slower than last year, but will do. I had to do a sprint finish for an exciting end to my week. I am in Manchester next week so I am hoping to do the Salford 10km on Good Friday. We will see!
Photo: The 'go faster' hair cut saved me valuable seconds