Half term Catch up

After all the drama of the previous week what Toby and I needed was a week or so convalescence in warm and cosseting surroundings, Hawaii, The Maldives, a small cosy log cabin somewhere. What we got was 4 nights in a caravan on the East Coast.... Actually the static caravan 2 miles from the lovely Bamburgh with its beautiful beaches was perfect in every which way. We could and did cycle to Bamburgh along the little lanes and wyndings and then on to Seahouses. The only glitch was when Rosie's bike firstly shed derailer bracket on the beach at Bamburgh just before the photo of beach cycling (Toby was delighted to be shunted onto Garret’s bike for her to take his…I shall draw a veil) and then a pedal crank at the furthest point from the mainland along a rough track on Holy Isle (Lindesfarne). This is a wonderful place, which Garret and I have been visiting for many years. It was fantastic to cycle over the causeway with the children and even more fun to wind Freya up about the tide. The cycle back against the wind was tougher especially for Garret on Rosie’s bike following a hastily performed Heath Robinson repair. The week spun away from us and pretty soon we ended up at our regular annual destination of Centre Parcs at Penrith. This place suits us all, as we love the cycling and the sporty activities. We are all finally, even me able to sustain a reasonable badminton rally in our own contest the rules of which are devised so that no one gets bored or left out or too exhausted. This time we shared the experience with beloved Aunty Liz who made the weekend perfect all round.


PHOTOS
1.Reviving Toby with a Hot Choc
2.The beach at Bamburgh
3.In a tree
4.Rosie embracing the North Sea
5.The Poison Garden at Alnwick closely guarded. The perfect place to research methods for a detective novel aka Agatha Christie.
6.Lindesfarne Castle with Freya
7.The causeway to Lindesfarne

"Out and back again"

The great day of battle between Man and wet suit has dawned and gone, and we can safely say that Garret won....not the triathlon of course that would be silly but the bit about getting out of the wet suit successfully. he was very pleased with his swim, even during it he gained great confidence from the presence of others actually swimming at his speed or slower....it was a 600m "round the buoy and back again" course and once out, on dry land and onto the bike he was kicking metaphorical ass...until the gear wheel put on the night before partially broke leaving him with 5 gears only on a 12.8k hilly course. Undaunted he finished that leg and tackled a run of 3k starting with a large hill (up)...the race organisers must have really been chuckling at that one "Ahhh, now let me see how can we get them really hurting when the end is in sight, hmmm, that hill will do it to poor legs just off the bikes and trying desperately to find the running muscles hidden under the cycling ones".
We are very proud of him and relieved that all went well. Of course the constant cry now is "if only I had trained for it". Nevertheless 17th place is pretty good. After all this endeavour we took Toby to work in the afternoon and went off for a run, I set the route and Garret dragged me along in his wake. My excuse is that he had warmed up first with the mornings fun packed activities so I was technically having the harder run (this was very true). Weeks total for me and the dogs 17m