Usually, when you’re doing family history research, you can just find bare bones of a life, the births, marriages and deaths, addresses and jobs from censuses. But occasionally, you find yourself finding a far richer story, whether it’s been born in a workhouse and left in England when your parents emigrate to the US, or […]
Right, I’m really not doing a lot of this blogging, am I. But for my own record, here’s what I got up to in the 2nd half of 2023.
I did my first fell race this weekend. Organised by Mercia Fell Runners, it was a 5k race with about 350m of ascent targeted at Novices only – those who had never done a Fell Race before. There were 78 entries and 58 participants who headed to Church Stretton to give it a go. Lots […]
Moving house is always given as an example of a stressful experience, and so it is, but the aftermath should never be underestimated. Especially when, like me, you’ve moved from London, where I’d had a home for 20 years, to the “countrysideâ€. Sort of the countryside, it’s a village and the Birmingham sprawl is not […]
This report is split into 3 posts Italian Base Camp to Glacier Camp We’re into the sharp end of the trek today. We had an early call at 05:30, the intent is to get started early before the sun hits the slope in the valley and starts letting loose the rocks. In previous years, the […]
This part was relatively straight forward. We slowly made our way north and upwards, travelling along valleys. There was a lot of up and down and a few diversions, but nothing was too difficult. Apart from me falling into a river! This report is split into 3 posts Darbang to Sibang An early start today, […]
This trip was originally booked for October 2020. But we all know what happened that year! It moved first to 2021 and then finally to 2022. We were a go. The trip was picked based on providing skills needed to get to my long term ambitions. I don’t know if I will end up climbing […]
Another episode of the quarter notes, written purely for my benefit so I can remember what I was up to! I started the quarter with another trip to London, this time to go to my first cricket match, a T20 country game at Lords. I’d been invited along by a Twitter Friend to learn about […]
I started April with a trip to the Peaks. It was supposed to be a walking weekend with my Wine Club weekend, but covid intervened. I ended up visiting on my own for a few walks. The rest of April was very quiet, little done. I carried on with fitness, getting progressively fiter and stronger. […]
I missed 2 years, but then again, so did a lot of the world. Now back to usual service of boring blogging. The big news is I sold the London flat and moved back up to the Midlands, which meant buying a car. Still not bought a new place but working on it I started […]
Ah, my time is done, the Games are over and now to reflect on the time I spent as a volunteer as part of the Commonwealth Collective.   After failing for 2012 but getting in for 2017, (You can read all about my experience at the World Athletics in 2017) I decided to try and be […]
Florence Pashley was my great-grandmother and was one of the first relatives we started to gather information on way back in the 80’s when all of this research was done by occasional trips to London to the records office (in Islington at that point) and trips to local records. A slow build-up of information that […]
As part of this long lockdown I’ve been tracking my health through the app developed by the Covid Sympton Study I try and go in and record symptons (or lack of them) daily. During the nearly 2 months I’ve been doing this (I think it’s 2 months, time gets a bit concatenated) I’ve had 2 […]
Hah. blogging – what’s that? I see more daily notes happening in these time of lockdowns..so finally documenting what I did in the last quarter of 2019, when the future was rosy, seems a good idea. Remember those times! Bournemouth Half Marathon: I’d originally signed up to the do the full, but with a summer […]
Summer is a memory, the leaves are falling and it’s time for quarter notes number 3 of the year. So what have I been up to? First up in this quarter was Henley Regatta. I went on both the Friday and the Sunday this year, catching up with a friend from New Zealand and various […]
Yes, another month with improved motivation. Not perfect, but getting there. The numbers 23 activities. (+3, some great quality sessions) 37 hrs (- 11. back to more normal parameters in events, no 12 hour walk in there, up 10 on Jul) 101 miles. (-27, again not skewed by a 35m event, so therefore in line […]