Welcome back weekends

We decided that 2012 would see us making a little more of our weekends.  It's all too easy to fall into the trap of housework, DIY and general 'vegging' as the weekend passes by. Running our own business we also seem to spend a lot of time planning our workload for the coming week and before we know it, Sunday evening has arrived along with the ironing of school uniform and work shirts.

Arnold, for one, has been rather pleased by the new approach to our weekends as the last two have seen us taking him on a countryside ramble and a walk by the canal.  Last Saturday we headed to Abberley nr Great Witley in Worcestershire armed with a circular walk we'd downloaded from the web and our O&S map.  I will be the first to admit here, that our map reading skills aren't the best and 'P' out and out refuses to look at the map at all due to his 'inability' in this area.  Now, you've probably guessed where I'm going with this, we did get kind of lost due to turning left instead of right at a very strategic point.  Never the less we had a lovely walk finding our way across country fields, past farms, animals and many, many (many) stiles.  The stiles themselves gave us a new challenge as most didn't have Border Terrier sized access therefore leaving us to pass Arnold back and forth between 'P' and myself.  I think he was starting to get a little narked towards the end of our 90 minute walk, God knows how St Bernard owners get on?



[caption id="attachment_1173" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="One of the few stiles with Arnold access"][/caption]



At the end of our walk we stopped at the Manor Arms in Abberley village for a quick half.  Although it was January 7th and 5pm, we sat outside with our muddy boots and muddy dog and didn't once feel the cold.  The landlord was extremely welcoming and we can't wait to pop in again.



Try visiting Walking Britain to download details of the same walk.  Maybe you'll have more luck at map reading :).



 

Mission to get fit 2011 – Update 5....Race week!

Ok, so the countdown's almost over.  This Sunday will see me taking part in the Evesham Vale 10k in Worcestershire and I'm starting to get very, very worried.  Although I finally managed a long run of almost an hour on Sunday, I've done nowhere near enough training to prepare me for the 10k distance.  At my current long distance pace I can only hope to complete the course in around 1 hour 11 minutes (if I'm lucky) and that's a diabolical time compared to my previous years efforts.  However, I'm looking more to the next few months.  I've come a long way in the last couple of months and if I just continue the training my September race could see me getting my best time ever.

Not much on the training plan for this week due to Sunday being race day, so shouldn't be too taxing!

Week 6

Mon - Rest - Rest
Tues - Rest - Rest
Weds - 25 min easy - 25.36 min, 2.17m
Thurs - Rest - Rest
Fri - 35 min easy -
Sat - Rest - Rest
Sun - RACE DAY - 10K 10.30am Evesham Vale

The Gallery - Mother Nature

This week's theme over at 'Sticky Fingers' is.........Mother Nature.

For this theme I thought I'd show you some of my favourite sunset pictures that were taken at Pershore, near Worcestershire.  When the children were little we used to spend many a weekend down at P's mom and dad's caravan.  It was always a lovely relaxing time when the children would play outside, ride there bikes and we'd end the day with a lovely stroll by the river.

The theme Mother Nature for me made me think of the many beautiful scenes we see everyday and as our river walk was one of these it was only right to include it.  I loved the way that Mother Nature can paint the same scene in so many different shades and colours to make it look like a completely different display each time.  I hope you can see this reflected in the pictures below.  I have to say though, the first picture is definitely my favourite with the whole landscape bathed in a beautiful orange glow.