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It's another wet and miserable day after an Autumn of heavy rain, leaving the ground saturated; the only positive outcome being the retreat of the moles as they seemingly took off on a sabbatical to pastures new, namely the neighbouring recently ploughed field. However, obviously feeling homesick after a month they decided to return to us with a renewed enthusiasm to burrow, and so embarked on a particularly vigorous earth moving project, leaving piles of sodden clay across the bottom of the garden like an outbreak of boils. Our retaliation involved some particularly aggressive firework bangers that we got from a pyrotechnic expert at a bonfire party, which we planted around the molehills and lit, retreating to a safe distance as they exploded. With the residual smoke escaping from the gaping holes in the grass, we assumed our furry fiends would once again decamp to the field, but no, they have decided to stay, bangers or no bangers! Well I suppose we all have our problems that we have to live with in our lives; George Bush has Bin Laden, Tony Blair has Cherie, and we have our moles!!
Even after visiting 'Sharrow' for a quarter of a century, we still don't take for granted the beauty of the area.Under new management now, the hotel is opening for the first time this Christmas and we were tempted to spend Christmas there, but unsure whether we could cope with the gastronomic demands of a minimum 3 day stay, we chose instead to be at home at 'Oakfield', but will perhaps call up there sometime earlier in December. So the intention of the September visit was to shock my body into some serious and demanding training, by forcing myself to run up the hills and mountain passes, having now conditioned myself to 10 mile road runs around the lanes of The Cotswolds. Dennis too joined in with the latter part of the training routines, namely by carb loading, courtesy of the famous Sharrow afternoon teas! After a break of 20 years from running what I did find is that I 'got my lungs back again', seemingly being able to draw in twice as much breath as before. Also, after the gruelling bind of uphill running, it became relatively easy, even a luxury, to run on the level; like taking the handbrake off a car that's revving to go (though I can't exactly compare my performance to the Aston!) The following weekend saw us up in Newcastle in our hotel overlooking the Tyne Bridge, ready, willing and positively able in anticipation for The Great North Run. Our team of six representing 'Persimmons Homes' and running for the children's charity 'Dreams Come True', met up for a photo call before getting the metro to the town centre for the start. You can imagine the logistics of organising a road run involving 50,000 people, their families and friends, and all their gear. There were dozens of buses just to transport the track suits to the finish. The queue of runners stretched back two miles behind the start line, taking us 15 minutes or more just to reach the official start, the portaloos lined the roadside as far as the eye could see(!) and the discarded bodywarmers and binliners used to keep runners warm whilst we waited to start were lying a couple of feet high in the middle of the dual carriageway as we finally got under way. In the past, I've found the crowd of runners soon to disperse after a couple of miles, but not this time! It was four lanes thick with a mass of people nearly all the way. We were all supposed to grade ourselves by lining up according to abiliy, myself choosing the 1 hour 45 minute stage for the 13.1 miles. However, I think the majority of the runners chose the same, and some were walking after just 5 miles, which tended to hold us up. I spent a lot of effort just trying to weave in and out, determined not to be overtaken by some runners disguised as giant tomatoes, their pairs of feet working furiously from beneath their bulbous red camouflage. Dennis and colleagues were waiting by the Tyne bridge at the 3 mile stage and spotted us before making their difficult journey down to the finishing line on the coast. With trains crammed and roads closed, we all arrived there before them! Suddenly half the race was already run and I was still feeling remarkably fresh, perhaps because of the enforced slower pace, but also for the first time I was taking on plenty of water and took advantage of cooling off through the showers of mist placed along the route to occasionally run through. After the 10 mile stage the crowd was evening out and it was an ideal time to speed up. It felt great to actually want to accelerate and running down the home straight along the coast, the half marathon seemed over all too soon. Perhaps they should have organised a return route so we could have had the option to do the full marathon! I finished well in my targeted 2 hours, at approx 1.45 and the only remaining challenge was now for us all to meet up and somehow get back to the hotel for dinner!
Dennis, Karen, Louis and Oliver had had a frustrating journey down to South Shields to meet us, having probably walked the half marathon in doing so, and then it was further hassle to find a bus to get back to Newcastle, but with over 100,000 people there it was only to be expected. Anyhow, to date, our team has raised over £11,000.00 for 'Dreams Come True' and so many thanks to those who sponsored us. We celebrated the event back at the hotel that evening, and returned home the following day. Since then, the charity organisers have been in touch by e-mail, wondering if I'd be interested in entering the New York marathon for them. Well I decided in theory I'd love to but it was that weekend I had the car to wash, or any other excuse I could think of! Overall The North Run was a great event, a challenge successfully accomplished, with lots of money raised for a good cause. Am I continuing my jogging? …er no, but I am back training in the gym for the Winter. Two weeks later, watching the daily weather report over Europe on Sky News each morning, and seeing Spain continually basking in 30oC of sun, we looked out at our dull October skies here, and decided to jump on a plane to Ibiza. We booked in as usual at 'El Palacio' hotel in the old walled town of 'Dalt Vila' with our room overlooking the busy harbour below, (where our old boat 'Denizen' is still moored) and we were soon in the routine of taking late breakfast in the walled garden, resident cats in attendance, and looking forward to a lazy day on the beach. The island was preparing to 'close down' for the season and so it was pleasantly quiet, but after a particularly hot Summer the sea was still a delight to cool off in. We revisited our favourite haunts, with lunches at 'Es Torrent' where the menu is simply whatever fish is caught in the bay that morning, and evenings at 'El Olivo' just below our hotel.
One good thing about Spain, you can normally rely on taking some nice colourful photos to brighten up the page! I suppose it just wouldn't be natural to do a newsletter without mentioning cars, and so this month's topic of conversation is the resident 'woodpecker' that adopted the Aston Martin. Since new, we would occasionally hear this 'rat-a-tat' noise coming from somewhere behind the front seats. The nearest description was that of an active woodpecker and so during a couple of trips back to the dealer's works in St John's Wood for upgrades, (including a fantastic new carbon fibre dashboard to replace the mahogany standard one that we didn't really like) the noise was investigated, but the woodpecker decided not to show up whilst in the garage, only returning promptly after delivery back to us! To cut a long story short, the offending bird was located by the engineers as the fuel purge valve operating as it should, to vent off unwanted vapours from the tank, but requiring isolating to quieten the woodpecker! So, last week we took the DB9 down to the garage for the work to be carried out and later joined Alan at Aston for lunch and introduce him to a friend who would like to become a future Aston Martin owner, with the new V8 Vantage model in mind. We have been so impressed with Stratstone's service (they are the World's largest dealership, located on Park Lane in London), particularly when compared to the service, or lack of it that we get from Mercedes, that Dennis has decided the DB9 needs some company perhaps in the form of a little brother, namely the new V8 Vantage, with usual conditions, i.e. can we have the first one please! Well we already know that wouldn't be possible and already orders stretch years ahead for the super new model that is intended to compete directly against Porsche as a small two seater manual drive sports car. There are already plenty of websites illustrating the Vantage, designed for the younger driver compared to the larger refined V12 DB9 more suited for the 'gentleman'. What do you mean 'what are we doing with one' then?!! We were invited to a really good party on November 5th to celebrate bonfire night at our friend Antony's newly acquired windmill house, already stripped out and contents of which provided ample fuel for the fire. With grand designs for total refurbishment, it's going to be a big building project for him but the end result should be a beautiful home already surrounded by large established gardens, and also providing a base for his work. Within the grounds is a party room with bar, ably manned, (or womaned, should I say) by the young helpers in the following photos.
There's the Wicked Witch in the picture on the right. (No, not Antony, the figurine on the wall!) Meanwhile, after an over zealous use of firelighters, the Windmill burnt away merrily! Determined to keep the Aston free of mud and muck being splattered down it's flanks and undercarriage, we tend to only run the car on dry days, and so with no rain forecast to stop play earlier this week, we took the car out for a fast run down to 'Cliveden' where we joined Ken & Lesley for lunch. The hotel sits in 300 acres of parkland managed by The National Trust, and ideal for walking, or a spot of squirrel watching in the case of Boolee, Ken & Lesley's alsation dog. I've mentioned 'Cliveden' in previous newsletters. It's steeped in history and sits grandly above the River Thames in Berkshire.
'Dining out' is another topic regularly featuring in our newsletters, and recent updates on newly discovered venues includes 'The Howard Arms' in Ilmington, a characterful Cotswolds village pub whose food was recently voted the best in the country. Meanwhile our 'local', The Fox in Lower Oddington won the Michelin guide 'pub of the year' award, so all in all we seem well served around here, and last weekend enjoyed a good lunch with a friend at 'Buckland Manor' by Broadway, another favourite venue. With all the usual subjects of interest covered (or not as the case may be!) it's time to call Dennis to do his programming to get this letter on line! All that's left now is to wish you all well, excluding of course our resident family of moles, who, as I type are no doubt planning their next assault as they ominously progress towards our revered 'bowling green lawn' that never was, due to the 4 ft incline! Still, as long as they stay down by the oak tree perhaps we can come to some arrangement and call a truce. Best wishes, Colin & Dennis. |
