Autumn 2018

Another long delayed post. Now,as the weather turns after an improbably long hot summer, seems as good as any time to commit some thoughts to the Blog.

Life is pretty much as it was. My daughter is now in New Zealand working on a dairy farm and trying to get sponsorship to stay on the other side of the world on a permanent basis. We have only seen her twice in nearly three years. Of course the internet means she is never out of contact but sometime I just miss her presence. Out of the blue last night my wife said she missed our daughter with such a poignancy it made me sad. It looks like we will have to go out to see her next year.

My son's long term relationship is now over and he is coming to terms with that. It hasn't been easy for him to progress but there are signs that he is moving on.

There has been a lot of illness in the family over the last few years, cancer and heart problems for the wife's parents and our brother in law. It does make you realise how fragile life is and how it can take an unexpected turn without notice. You just have to go with flow and try and deal with it all and accept that for a lot of things you are not in control. A hard lesson for some.

I ran the Stockholm marathon in June this year finishing in my 2nd slowest time of 5:42. It was unusually hot which is a theme for my international marathons since Paris. Stockholm is a lovely city and the Swedish people were helpful, considerate and all spoke perfect English. I would recommend a visit.

I have a further marathon around Newcastle's Town Moor in November and I am panning to run Copenhagen next May although I must admit I sort of lost the passion for running post Stockholm. This loss of passion resulted in under training and disastrous 20th GNR finish time of 2:38:33. This time means I will be in the fun runner pen come next September's GNR, competing with the blokes with tutus on or dressed as s Spiderman. Nothing wrong with that but it's just not me.

My passion for running was rekindled by the Kielder half marathon earlier this month which I finished in 2:22:45. Still slow but that run is hard with a wicked switchback hill at mile 8 and long slow inclines which are real tests. The run is a cross between a cross country/trail road run and different experience for most of the runners. I completed a 15 mile training run on Sunday and plan to finish the Town Moor Marathon matching last year's time of 5:10. We shall see.

Music wise it has been an OK year. Paul Weller,The Wedding Present in Newcastle Upon Tyne and The Cure at Hyde Park. The Cure were great it was only the second time I'd seen them , the first time being 1979.

Peterborough United continue to delight and frustrate in equal measures but hopefully this season with a whole new squad and manager we will finally recover from the hangover of relegation from the Championship on the last day of the season that has been hanging over us for 5 years now.

Well that's it.See you again , soon.