Thursday, 29 August 2013

The Joys of Camping

A couple of weeks ago we had a short break and spent 3 nights under canvas. We just went about 25 miles away to the village of Hartfeld, which is where A.A. Milne set his Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

The Original Poohsticks Bridge
It's near the beautiful Ashdown Forest, so we had a few good walks in the woods, a picnic, and there was a LOT of tree-climbing, mostly by the kids rather than the adults.


Beautiful forest walk
Although I didn't really get much sleep, it was lovely to be away from home, and have nothing to do with tv or internet. The kids were never bored, and had great fun exploring, swinging on a tree swing, clambering over logs and trees and generally just being outdoors.


We had a real fire outside the tent every night, which was lovely, and we all stayed up late just watching the flames and prodding the fire with a stick.

Toasting Marshmallows


I know a few Mums who hate the idea of camping, but it was just so rewarding, and so so good for the kids to be away from technology for a few days. We are all dying to go again before it gets too cold!




Sunday, 18 August 2013

Summer Holidays Continue...









... just 2 and a half weeks to go!

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

July Rundown

Wow, the beginning of July seems like a really long time ago. It was a long and full month, including a family weekend away, sports day for the kids, Robbie's swimming gala triumph, a work trip to Cambridge, and the start of the school holidays.

I had a few days in bed with a nasty sickness bug, and I spent 3 weeks teaching 5 days a week on a summer school - these two events contributed to my low running mileage for July:

Ran - 16x = 65.3 miles
Cycled - 3x = 39.8 miles
 
2 Parkruns


It was a really good month, especially in terms of the kids' achievements. Robbie has now completed 4 parkruns and is keen to do more! I always check to see whether he want to keep coming, but he seems to really enjoy it, and I know he's got his eye on getting a free t-shirt when he reaches 10. 

My motivation for running at the moment is that I want to meet my goal from the start of the year to complete 1000 miles by December. I reckon that if I can average 20 miles a week, it should be in the bag. 

That's proving pretty tough now it's the holidays. 12 -15 miles feels a lot more achievable, but won't be enough, especially assuming I'll probably be ill or injured at some point. 

But it's good to have that motivation, otherwise I might be tempted to just relax, sit back and enjoy the summer sunshine... sigh...

Thursday, 1 August 2013

The Holidays begin!

The summer holidays brings conflicting feelings. Part of me rues the loss of time to myself - the difficulty of fitting in runs and the impossibility of long bike rides. However, another part of me - the overwhelming majority - looks forward to the time spent with the kids, and all the fun things we can get up to without school or work getting in the way.

The first morning of the holidays looked like this:

Not even posed!
If only this enthusiasm for reading could last for 6 weeks. A week in and they're still doing some reading every day, but there's been a lot of bickering, shouting and hyperactive behaviour to contend with. We've been lucky with the weather, and able to go out most days.

Last weekend, there was a notable acheivement for the kids as they swam in the sea for the first time!

'Let me out!'
The water was cold at first, but then the sun came out and it was fine. I was nervous because Robbie and Emma are very confident swimmers at the pool, so I thought they might not be wary enough of the tide. But we kept a close eye on them and they didn't go in too deep.


It's been years since I swam in the sea too. I suppose in Scotland it was never really warm enough, and once we had the children, it was impractical.


The big waves were great fun, and Robbie declared the experience 'terrifying but fun'! Can't wait to do it again.

This week I took the kids to Seaford, where we did a bit of cliff walking. They were pretty keen to stop walking and go back to the beach for an ice-cream though.





Love that picture of them both admiring the view!

The following day it poured with rain, but we had a good time at the cinema. It's been lovely today, but looks like there'll be cooler weather and maybe rain coming. I'll be trying to fit in as many days at the beach as possible, and squeeze in the running when I can.