Training

I'm spending a few days in Bristol, attending a training course for a change, rather than running one! Interestingly, Tim is running a training course on Friday, which will be a new experience for him. I wonder how he'll find it? I really enjoy giving training courses, but they are tiring - you end up talking a lot, which is hard work even for a chatterbox like me!

Of course, Bristol means aerospace, and an A380 landed on the runway next to the canteen at lunchtime. I saw them taking off when I was in Toulouse, but I was much closer to it this time. I drove right past it on the way off site as well - I didn't have the camera with me, but I suspect you're probably not supposed to take photos on site anyway...

Bristol also means family, and I'll be popping in to see the Spencer clan tomorrow evening. Again, bringing the camera would have been a good idea... my excuse is that I left the house at 5:30 this morning, and you can't expect me to remember anything at that time!

A nice weekend

While half of the UK is under a large amount of water, we had a very nice weekend in Bedford. Well, Tim got wet on Saturday but he was in Hitchin, so it doesn't count. Anyway, on Sunday morning we decided it was too nice to stay indoors and set off on a Walk from the front door. One of the nice things about our house is that the river is only 2 minutes walk away, and you soon get away from the houses and out into the countryside (see above). I should point out that I took this photograph - apparently if you ar Tim's height you can see houses and power lines above the crops!

Through the wonders of google, you can see our route here.

It may have been a short walk, but we enjoyed spending some time together, talking about all sorts of things, and admiring the wildlife, including lots of butterflies:



Now this one is a Tim-photo!

Then and now

Over on Facebook, Chris has been asking about the garden. So here is an update!

The garden has suffered from a bit of neglect this year, so it's not looking as good as I would like. But then Tim pointed out that it's looking a lot better than it did two years ago:

Meanwhile, parthenocissus henryana is doing its best to colonise the fence:


The bed on the left is supposed to be our vegetable patch, but not very much happened there this year. I'm considering buying fruit bushes for it instead. The rest of the garden is now starting to fill up with plants, as you can see - most of them are perennials, the idea being that we won't need to do much to the garden each year. Last year the central bed was filled with wild flowers (hence the state of the 'vegetable patch' this year), but this year we added the grasses instead. Overall, I'm pleased with how it looks - considering there was nothing there when we moved it it's now a lovely place to sit out in for breakfasts and dinners.

That's if it ever stops raining...!

Not so successful...

This afternoon Tim and I decided to try out the permanent orienteering course in the local forest - we've had the map for a while and wanted some fresh air and a bit of exercise. Two things hampered this plan slightly:

1. For an allegedly permanent course, there were no posts/markers to be seen. Tim and I are both proficient enough at reading a map to be sure we were at the correct locations, but nowhere did we see any sign of a letter to fill in on our sheet.

2. It rained. Heavily. Only once we were far enough away from the car that we got very wet on the way back. Did I mention that we didn't bother to take any waterproofs? This did curtail our search for markers, so perhaps point number 1 is not comlpetely correct!

So not quite as active an afternoon as we had hoped for. Never mind - there's always next weekend. If anyone knows any other permanent courses then let us know as we'd love to try again some time!

Badminton

After a few re-writes, this post is about badminton. Yesterday I went to Bedford & County Badminton Club for the first time. Having not played badminton, or indeed any concerted sport, for over a year, I’ve been overdue a return. They’ve even gone and changed the rules since last time I played!

I played very poorly. There’ are so many aspects of the game which seem to fall away, or at least go into hiding, when you’re away from it for so long. Positioning, shot selection, timing, power, agility, technical shot making: it was all missing last night. I have a long way to go before I’m back up to par, let alone competing with some of the better players at the club. I trust that the basics will continue to come back quickly so that I can begin to improve on the harder stuff.

So, this post could have been about competitiveness, drive, disappointment, new environments. Instead I’ll keep those thoughts to myself, and look forward to telling you how great it all is once I’ve remembered how to play the game. Besides, all this typing really isn’t doing my aching shoulder any good…

This weekend the Tour de France came to London. This was a perfect excuse for Trish, Cory & Duncan to visit us for a weekend - another set of friends who have realised we live a nice distance away from the capital! We spent Saturday relaxing in Hyde Park, soaking up the atmosphere with the rest of the crowds and watching the cyclists zip by. Sunday and Monday were spent relaxing at home and playing with Duncan, who is officially cute. We managed a trip to the local park as well, as shown above - much fun was had by all!