Must. Train. Harder.

The true cyber-stalkers among you will already know that I ran the Glen Clova Half Marathon on Saturday, and finished in a slightly disappointing time of 2:11:00.



Nevertheless, it was a good day out and a (mostly) enjoyable run on an undulating course (I've been on rollercoasters with fewer ups and downs) through one of Scotland's picturesque glens. The low clouds threatened throughout, but the rain stayed off until the final couple of miles, by which time the only thing that kept me going was the thought of a fine pint of Lia Fail at the Glen Clova hotel, which thankfully did not disappoint. In fact, had Vikki not reminded me that we needed to get back to our children, there's a good chance I would have listened to my sore legs and still be sitting on that bar stool now.



The pictures above show some important race preparations, warming up with Ian and Tony (Ian is a friend from Stonehaven, Tony is a friend of his who ran the New York marathon last Sunday). The picture below is me nearing the finish line (at long last). I actually think I look much better here than I felt.

Ghosts and ghouls and gunpowder

'Twas All Hallows Eve on Friday, and the streets were filled with evil spirits searching to steal the souls of the living - or failing that, all manner of sweets, fruit, and nuts. Calum dressed as a vampire and Lachlan went "old school" as a ghost in a sheet.

On Sunday, Stonehaven held its annual bonfire and fireworks display. Once again, I had made the Guy's head for the Beavers, but we were a tiny bit late and missed his moment of glory.

The fireworks were really good; they had music this year which was a nice addition - the boys loved hearing the Star Wars and Indiana Jones themes especially. Magnus enjoyed it all from the vantage point of the carrier on my back. He was an absolute star and didn't get at all upset, although he did look confused at times.

Well done, Vikki - another PB

Phew. What a weekend.

I was fair shattered and I didn't even run a half marathon, unlike Vikki who completed her first in approx 1hr 55min (yes, that is quicker than me!).

We went up to Aviemore on Saturday morning and took the boys (except Magnus who stayed in Stoney with Vikki's mum and dad) to Landmark where we all had fun on the water coaster and climbed the big tower and watched the squirrels. We camped at Rothiemurchus which was really nice - a fairly peaceful camp site with nice clean toilets and showers. We went to bed expecting to either freeze to death or drown in the middle of the night, but were lucky in that the weather stayed reasonably mild and dry.

Our friends, Pete and Eifiona were staying at the same place in their VW camper and were kind enough to cook up some porridge and tea for us in the morning. Eifiona was also running in the half marathon and got an excellent time as well. Looks like I've got some serious training to do in the next couple of weeks to keep up the high standards being set round here.

Click on the picture below to see all the pictures...

2008-18-10 Aviemore

New Photo Stitching Tool

In the past, I've used a tool called AutoStitch to create panoramas from multiple photos. It's a nice wee tool, producing pictures such as the one below....

 

But today, I found out about Microsoft's Image Composite Editor (thanks Andy C and lifehacker.com) which I used to produce this....

 

The results look pretty similar to me but the ICE seems a bit slicker and is easier to use as well as having some nice looking features, so it'll probably be the one I'll use in the future.

Hopefully, the family Shanks will get out and about to take some new photos worthy of the stitching treatment sometime soon.

Gordon in Gourdon

A number of years ago, my dad moved to Stonehaven (where he had always said he wanted to end up) with his bidie-in Elma and they had a house built to meet their needs. More recently, my dad had been saying that perhaps the house was a bit large and they were maybe considering downsizing. None of which really explains why they have just moved to a bigger house in the town of Gourdon, about 11 miles South of here. In fact, it is very hard to find a really good explanation of their move other than that they wanted a change. In any case, the house is massive, and the boys were really pleased to find a chute, swings, and a trampoline in the garden, and inside the house was a playroom complete with a little swing that suited Magnus just fine.

 

 

 

 

I wanna be a rockstar

 

As ever, Vikki's Uncle Peter and Auntie Nancy gave Lachlan a really cool birthday present, because they are generous people and I suspect Peter is really a big kid at heart. And as ever, it took me ages to remember to buy some batteries, because I am basically useless. In this instance, the present was an electric guitar and microphone which the kids are now thoroughly enjoying making a fine racket with. Thanks, Peter and Nancy!

Where we were!

As the highly intelligent superhumans who read this blog managed to work out from the somewhat obscure clue in the previous post, we were in The Hague (or Den Haag or even 's-Gravenhage) for the weekend visiting our friends Faye and Wessel. The really observant among you might even have guessed that the weather wasn't great - it rained buckets on Friday when we arrived and on Sunday with some decent enough weather on Saturday.
We had a good time anyway - Faye and Wessel were great hosts, and all the locals were friendly, spoke great English and didn't seem to mind that we hadn't a clue about their language and found it very funny that they have words like "slagroom" and "SpuiMarkt". I really like it when people live up to their national stereotypes and although we didn't see any herbal cigarettes or a surfeit of smutty DVDs we did see a lot of people on bikes including women getting sidesaddle backies on bikes and a couple riding on seperate vehicles but with arms around each others shoulders. Ahhhh.
Faye took us to see the Panorama Mesdag which is an amazing 360 degree picture which really gives a feeling of being in a different time and place.
On Saturday, we visited Escher in Het Paleis which I really enjoyed (although there were no lego models), had some lunch at Rootz which I would recommend if you're in the area and took a trip on the Tram to Delft which was lovely and where Wessel gave us an insight into his student days there and we stopped for a drink here.
On Sunday we went to the Mauritshuis to see the collection there. On the way, we saw a heron which a passing local told us was called Harry from The Hague. When he realised we were from Scotland, he told us he had been on a cruise through the Caledonian Canal and then round the Northern coast of Scotland and had thought it was a fantastic country. We had to agree with him.
Big thanks to Faye and Wessel for their hospitality. It was great to see you guys.