Day of Rest

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. Well it is a rest from the normal weekly activities but busier than most days...but not in a bad way. The day revolves around either church or a race. Church is at 11.30am which is great because both of us can get a good run in before the service and a hearty breakfast. It is usually only 1 hour or so, which means the rest of the day is free too. Don't get me wrong, church is not a bad place to be and I do enjoy being part of it, catching up with people etc.
The run was good. My marathon guide encourages distance running but also exercise of other muscles. That combined can be achieved in a big hill run, so off I set up the Brunt, through Woodhall Dean and up to some ancient farm land called Halls. About 12-14 miles in total and I really enjoyed the wilderness of it all, seeing lots of wild things on a fine Sunday morning. That set us up nicely for church. After church we had a bite to eat, watched the golf and then out again. Andrew is now a member of the golf club so he went for a round with Emma caddying. I took the dog down to the shore under the cliffs. There was loads of flowers lying on the beach. 2 weeks ago a young woman fell to her death. The tide has spread the flowers all along the coast which was a bit eerie. I got the fright of my life as I worked my way along these rugged rocks, trying to avoid an early bath. Hiding in one of the coves was a heron that flew out at me. Big birds and I think he was more shocked than I was. Back home I ended up fiddling with Stuart's gears that had broken. It was one of those fiddly jobs that drive you nuts. Then i had to make a few repairs to the rodents cage. The roof was leaking so now it has a new tarpaulin canopy. Then it was more watching the open. It all looked exciting with Watson looking favourite, and Westwood nearly getting a win...but in the end it was just some other indistinct American who won it. The rest of the night was spent trying to sort out a place to stay in the Dales, which is where we head next week some time. I think I have found a good rustic camp site, but hope they have more than nettles for loo roll!

Heading down to the coast

We had an early start of 6.30am to get the team bus to Northumberland to do the Northumberland Coastal Run. This is a race I have planned to do but have always missed because of holidays. It's 14 miles of beach, cliff paths and a little bit of road taking in some of the best scenery found on a race. It starts at the village of Beadnell and ends up in Alnmouth. Around 800+ runners took part and the starting line is the width of the beach, with everyone trying to head to the shoreline which is the shortest route. The length of the race varies from year to year, depending on the tides, so you see markers saying 'around half way' or 'around 2 miles to go'. There were a couple of sights that impressed me. I had spent the first half mile running at the front of the race which gave me the spectacular view back of all 800+ runners heading up the beach (See photo courtesy of Stuart Hay). The second was more birds! There was a flock of seagulls by the dunes making a lot of noise. It turned out to be a colony of terns, including little terns and Artic terns. These birds are also very rare and their main threat is the sea and disturbance. I hope the runners didn't put them off too much!

Anyway the race was hard work because of the wet sand and a fairly strong head wind, plus my legs are still recovering from the athletics event the other week. I knew I wasn't going to get a really fast time so rather than injure myself again I took it easy and got 1:41.42 and in 104th place. Strangely enough there was another Richard Taylor running too. He only got 2;00 so I was pleased with that, although if he had beaten me i would have taken his credit. It's a race to do again and any runners out there should do it, but be warned the places go very quickly.

Nice Birds

Photo: The kids are alright...and so are the leaders!

We are just back from Scripture Union camp in Comrie in Perthshire. I was there working and Emma decided to come and cook for us all. Isabelle went off to Arran for a week whilst the boys stayed with us. It's a great base for a camp as it's a hostel on a shared campsite. What I liked was that the public are milling about amongst the stuff we are doing, especially the 'God Slots'. I like the fact that they can see and hear what we are doing as sometimes there is a danger we keep all that behind closed doors, and so attracting unfair criticism. This lot was there for all to see so no dark secrets.

The other thing I liked about the location was the scenery. I managed to get up early and run 3 times, each time covering 7-8 miles and getting to some high ground to see the massive views of the many mountains and lochs. The highlight had to be the discovery of an osprey nest, fully loaded with mum, dad and 3 fledglings. I know these are rare birds and hoped I would see one sometime, but to get 5 was beyond belief. I borrowed a pair of binoculars and spent many geeky hour watching them, as I could get within 200 meters without causing too much disturbance.

The camp was good too. SU have a lot of women volunteers and this camp was no different. However, the blokes who were there offered suitable laddish role models to the kids, and we did stuff like building a huge fire which involved tying a rope to the minibus and a pile of logs left by the forestry commission. You can't beat a good camp fire! We played cricket and footy and stuff like that. An old favourite was hunt the leader, where we dress up and go into the town of Crieff and the kids have to find you. Some disguises were good, like the girl who was a chav sat drinking Irn Bru at the bus stop. I dug out the Roman Centurion outfits from the Holy Ghost Walk and stood guard outside the public loos. It was funny watching the faces of elderly people on coach tours nipping for a pee, wondering how to get past us. I told them the emperor had granted permission for them to pee. The American tourists loved it too, seeing some genuine 'Scotlanders'. The dork in Subway was confused. I was with Lachlan who was dressed as a hippy, and the dork thought he was Bob Marley and I was a Viking. I don't recall Bob being a ginger white man with red arms from too much sun. The food was good and there was a lot of tray bake. In fact I think I ate my own body weight in tray bake last week thanks to the ladies of SU.