Just in case you're not a facebook friend...

Big congratulations to Vikki who set a new PB and smashed 50 minutes for a 10K at the Garioch 10K on Sunday. The boys and I played in the park on what turned out to be a nice warm sunny day in Inverurie while she zoomed round the course. Looks like I'm really going to have to go some if I'm ever going to catch her.

A Tribute to Kate Bush?

Whatever other people think about it, running is, for me anyway, quite hard. Running in high winds is particularly hard. Running up big hills in high winds is extremely hard work. Running up big hills in high winds in ankle deep snow is really just getting a bit ridiculous. And yet, somehow on Saturday I found myself part way up Mount Keen with some of the running club, running shoes caked in snow, 50mph gusts of wind whipping snow into my face. I reached about 650m altitude before I decided the sensible option was to head down again. Fortunately I had some company on the way down, although some brave souls went on and reached the summit. The run back down was great fun and everyone made it without injury and no reports of frostbite. Well done to everybody who came along.

 

 

Se7en

Regular blob readers may have realised that it was Calum's 7th birthday on Sunday, and what a busy day it was. I started off with a 9.5 mile run, then Vikki and I went to donate blood (which took ages for various reasons I'm not going to go into). And then we all set off for the Deeside Activity Park with six of Calum's friends - Vikki's folks came along to provide some much needed backup.

It was good fun - the boys did some archery, quad biking, and carting, and despite making a lot of noise they were pretty well behaved. Calum managed to get stuck in a stack of tyres which everyone else found hilarious.

Rob from the Deeside Brewery was doing some free tastings of their latest batch of Lady Macbeth so I had a couple of tastes, thought it was rather nice, and took a 2 pint carton home for later. I also bought a couple of bottles of Broichan which I'm quite looking forward to.

After the activities, it was back to our house for more play, party food and cupcakes, before we finally returned the other kids to their rightful owners (unfortunately, we had to keep all of ours) and I was finally able to relax and enjoy the aforementioned beer.

There are some photos of the day on our picasa web site....

2009-03-22 Calum's 7th Birthday

It never rains....

Blimey, Blob fans, it's been far too long since I dazzled you all with my wit and wisdom. So long, in fact that I don't think it has ever happened. However, it has also been a long time since I filled these pages with my usual nonsense. The reason? Well, for starters, the great book of face has turned my head with it's slick interface and silly games. Also, I keep finding that there's not much to blog about, or I'm too busy doing stuff that I would blog about to find time to blog about it - basically, it all seems to happen at once, as I hope to demonstrate with some quick -fire posts.

Enough waffle, shanksi; time to give the people some of what they want, starting with a video of a baby climbing some stairs. Go Magnus!

From 2009-03-20 Magnus climbing the stairs

Mmmmm, Flapjacks

 

Flapjacks are great - they taste good, and they're probably quite good pre-running food, what with the combination of sugary stuff for quick hit energy, and oats for a more slow-release, longer lasting energy. Unfortunately, some of the shop-bought ones aren't that good, and some of the better ones aren't always available at our local supermarket. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and make some using the recipe from the Good Housekeeping Guide cooking book (thoroughly recommended), and our Lego cake tray (which had never been used before). The first batch (pictured above) was pretty successful, and the second lot are just out of the oven, so I'd better go and see how they're doing!