Here are my 2014 highlights:
Running-man:
- My first two 10,000 metre runs: Port Sunlight & Manchester Great Run on consecutive weekends
- My first "fell run" : Leg it Round Lathkill.
- Completed 50 Park Run 5km runs (November)
- Now training for the Wilmslow half-marathon on 22nd March 2015. My first.
Bagging-man:
- Only 10 Scottish Munros bagged this year. Superb as they were, they became slightly eclipsed by the year's walking highlights: Brokeoff Mountain and Yosemite Half-dome
After the Garden Meadow project, which enjoyed early success until the cats joined in, not much beyond some purple broccoli, a few broad beans & raspberries. Here, pathetic carrots:
Retired-man:
The biggest change this year of course: my "retirement" from end of April. I'm still enjoying all that freedom & have learned the following:
- Avoid expressions of envy from strangers by lying when answering the "what do you do?" question.
- "How do you fill your time?" is actually a rhetorical question.
So far:
- Completed Health-informatics course
- Corsera course on Programming in Python - great, time-consuming fun
- Visiting Mum & Dad (in Northern Ireland) twice, for several days
- House-clearance in Stratford-Upon Avon, & a visit to the fabulously outlandish Pitt-Rivers museum in Oxford
- Taken on more PTA activities and a "web-master" for Stockport Walking group.
- House-husband, or "Glorified catflap" according to Rowena
- Teenagers' taxi driver
- Midweek walks:
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| Car doubling as a skip |
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| Shutlingsloe |
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| Coombs reservoir, with pensioners |
Penny's ear infection nearly cancelled Christmas 2013, but regular lunchtime "patrols", weekend gardening and walks show she still loves the outside life. I think she's rather enjoying having a house-husband this year, too.
Rowena was 16 in October & is in her final GCSE year - working very hard, getting good grades. On top of this she has been fitting in ballet and acro-dancing; guides-leader; rangers participant. That's four evenings a week, with 2 activities on Monday. Some Saturdays an assistant at her dance school with the junior classes. She leads a recorder group at school; anti-bullying ambassador, member of Comenius project (we hosted a Latvian student). The taxi-ing demands are considerable ...
Clara was 14 in June & is in her first GCSE year & working very hard, most evidently in Art, which seems to take hours at weekends. But she's very sneakily working hard at other subjects too, given the school report. Attends a drama club on Wednesday, works in a charity shop on Saturday. Clara's signature cooking dish is chocolate brownies - these are excellent. And she likes walking, occasionally demanding to be taken for a walk!
Paddling in Yosemite
