End of the month

It being the end of the month I turn immediately to a comparison of how my exercise has gone between January and February and am pleased that I have walked a bit further, ridden a bit further and run a bit further despite there being three fewer days in the month.

I had a lovely early morning walk with Juno up to Remedy Oak golf course before hitting the local paths and roads to run a little over 4 miles and then got on the bike for a ride to the library and back, all of which helped me pull further ahead of January's totals.

Walking - 51 miles

Running - 62 miles

Riding - 109 miles

That means I've clocked up 222 miles this month and spent more time out there than since April of last year. My step count is over 17000 a day and so I am starting to lose some of the weight gain since last autumn following covid, recovery and Christmas. 

The library is going well in terms of giving me access to books not necessarily held there and I managed to get hold of Shuggie Bain by reserving it online and then collecting it a few weeks later. Great service. I am also nearing the end of Half a Yellow Sun on audiobook which is great. I loved Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah and this is equally good.

Having had such a sunny weekend, cold too at times, the grey skies are back and so I am going to look at the allotments in terms of planning for planting and listing what we will need to get the most out of the two plots.

Very happy Liverpool won 11 - 10 on penalties yesterday and just as pleased that BT rang to apologise for the loss of internet last week and have given us credit of £32.00 for the days without the service plus an additional £50.00 following my complaint that there had been no communication from them about the outage or updates as to when it might return. That was a good gesture on their part. It also means that with the rail tickets being refunded, it is just the electric we are waiting to resolve in respect of compensation.

Busy day!!

I was out on the bike for a ride around Woodlands early ahead of a meeting of the village hall committee which became a further meeting devoted to arrangements for the jubilee celebrations in June. It's the first thing I have got involved with for years now, being happily retired. Lots of ideas for making the 4th June a special occasion for the village.

After lunch, Alison and I took Maria and Joseph to a concert at Alderholt Village Hall, 9 musicians from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra forming an ensemble played music around the theme of the sea. It was fantastic to be able to enjoy such stunning music in a rural setting local to us. A real privilege.

With more dog walks and plenty of cooking, relaxing watching the film Signs was a welcome end to the day. 

Normality resumed

 I enjoyed a trip up to Southampton on Wednesday night and avoided going too mad on the drink side of things, so much so that I was able to drive back before 6 on Thursday morning. However, I was definitely tired which meant a late walk for Juno this morning.

The sun has been lovely all day, although it's been cold too. We went for a walk in the woods and saw the early daffodils coming through the trees amidst all of the mud which absolutely caked boots and trainers and dog legs. After a quick lunch I was on the bike for a 10 mile ride to Verwood and back with some extra bits thrown in as well. I stopped at Joy's house to fix the front gate which had been damaged by the storm last week. Thankfully it was easy to do and I was able to go on to Lidl next for a few ingredients for curry night.

The food is cooking away nicely just now, vegetable curry with kidney beans and chickpeas, lentil dal, naan bread and poppadums. The jollof rice I did yesterday was really good and Glen finished it off at lunchtime today after his drive to London and back for work.

I renewed Joy's house insurance today and saved her nearly £200 for the year which was good and then I heard back from child benefit after being prompted to apply last week. I'd been reading The Guardian which had an article on how to begin to fight back against the cost of living crisis. There was a link to follow to check if you are entitled to any benefits and normally I would not have bothered. However, it was easy to do and suggested we may be entitled to child benefit. We had been over the threshold when working but retirement means we are no longer above but I still thought Maria being far from our first or second child, we would not qualify due to tightening of the criteria.

Very pleasingly, I took a phone call from the relevant department this afternoon which suggested we would be able to claim and there was also almost two years of arrears to be paid to us! Not a bad outcome for something I thought was a bit of a flier.

The photos are from our trip to the woods but there is an additonal picture from Evie and Amelia's trip to Stonehenge yesterday. Great photo and they dodged the hail and rain showers too.

 

Back after storm Eunice

It's been an interesting week to say the very least. Power went off last Friday at 11.00 in the face of storm Eunise and stayed off until Sunday evening. That meant no heating, lights or cooker, as well as lack of internet, but we were fortunate in having the fire in the front room and plenty of logs, hundreds of candles and the motorhome with cooking facilities. Sadly we had to lose the contents of our two freezers and our train trip to Exeter on Saturday saw the services cancelled meaning we had to drive instead.

It was great seeing Murdina and Paul plus Ewan for a few drinks and plenty of chat before we returned home to the power cut. There are a few photos from the trip and the remainder are from the new allotment which has goats and chickens next to it, plus a wonderful cafe. 

The internet remained off until this morning which meant dog walks up the hill to get 4G signal but it was all very limited. In the meantime we have had Joseph for half term and Evie and Amelia for a couple of days including sleepover. They enjoyed trips to the new allotment and to the cinema to see Sing 2. 

Fingers crossed we are now back to more settled times. 

Old allotment and Moors Valley

Having had a heavy fall off the bike yesterday, head first at speed, I was back on the bike after the morning dog walk for a trip down to Verwood and on to Moors Valley. You can see blue skies in the photos but it was getting cloudier by the minute. However, I saw the great white egret, mute swan, coot, black headed gull, tufted duck, teal and magpie. 

Once back in Verwood I got on with filling Joy's bird food feeders and then moved on to fixing the front gates where some of the overlapping lengths of wood had become detached from the lower horizontal bar. I got the drill out and screwed them back in place and then finished getting the wood stain on the front, having done the inside last week.

From there it was back home for a quick lunch and then a trip to Wimborne, by car this time, to pick Maria up from school as the turnaround for dance on a Thursday is tight, and parked up so I could then walk the mile to the allotment. I was strimming more of the pathways and clearing a section of nettles which I am going to dig up next time, sorting the compost and then tidying the strawberry bed. All of this whilst listening to In Our Time on Romeo and Juliet and Half a Yellow Sun on audible.

The plot is ready to go in the main but there is always more to do, in this case, weeding, raking and enlarging the various beds.

I did the tea when I got in and we have Joseph for the night, so he ended up with pasta again having had some for lunch at school. However, mine was better with aubergine and soya mince in the sofritto, and all done in the chilli oil. It's the first time I have used the chilli oil I made and it was potent! Tasty and ok for Joseph it would appear.

New allotment

The rain had been heavy during the night but it was dry when Juno and I did the 2 mile walk in the early morning light, this time listening to Frank Skinner's poetry podcast. The wind was up but it didn't deter Alison and I from getting on our bikes and cycling the 12 miles plus (round trip) to the new allotment. 

I had totally forgotten about having applied for a place at the Gullivers Farm allotment, part of a community project outside West Moors. However, I got an email asking if we were still interested in a vacant plot they had and decided to go for it, despite it being additional work alongside the site in Wimborne. I just thought we'd see how it went, as the plot is smaller than our current 10m x 10m at just 9m x 7m. 

There was a follow up email today giving us details of the entry code and the plot number which gave us a good excuse to ride there on our bikes. What a good decision it turned out to be.

The plot is ideally sized and it also has 7 raised beds with woodchip paths around them. It is going to be so much easier to maintain and the additional work looks likely to be fairly minimal but we will get a real boost is terms of produce. How exciting it is. There are raspberry canes in one bed and what look to be blackcurrant bushes too. It is going to be so much easier to grow quality greens in these beds with proper protection from the birds, insects, rabbits and weather. I haven't bothered with them too much til now, as I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep them protected ahead of harvesting.

In addition, there are goats and chickens around, a fantastic farm shop with quality produce, a shop with facility to top up jars with herbs and spices, grains and so on, plus a coffee shop, picnic area and a play area too. It couldn't be much better and we can't wait to get started.

First 10km for a while!

I was pleased to be out with Juno early to make the most of the drier conditions after all the rain on Sunday. Once back home I took to the road and ran a 10km route for the first time since April last year. It wasn't the quickest by any means but it was all about just keeping going and churning out that 6.3 miles.

From that point on I took Juno out for another walk whilst litter picking and then set to cleaning the secateurs, 5 pairs of them. They look a lot cleaner obviously but I gave them a sharpen too , along with a dribble of oil. 

After a bit of lunch I was back out, this time on the bike for a ride down to Verwood. We have applied for child benefit. It just came up out of the blue as we have not applied in the past due to earnings and Maria being our 5th child. However, it looks like we might now qualify for a bit of support. I took the application form down to the post office, a bit puzzled as to why the form cannot be completed online, and then popped into the library.

They are great, libraries. I'd reserved a copy of Shuggie Bain online and was able to collect it today, as well as a few other titles and a number o leaflets about forthcoming local events.

Joseph and Bridie were here for tea and I took Juno out for a final walk meaning I was over 25000 steps by the end of the day.

The shepherds pie was a success; onion, carrot, rosemary and sage with soya mince, miso and tomato puree and peas. It followed a nice lentil soup which the children enjoy.

This morning I have taken Juno out for a 2 mile walk ahead of her trip to the vet later, a 6 month check up, although several weeks late. I also got a 5km run in before the rain which is forecast for the mid morning. 

Ballet exam

I took Maria and Amy to their final ballet practice lesson yesterday afternoon and took the opportunity to enjoy a 2.5 mile walk with Juno whilst listening to Half a Yellow Sun which I am enjoying very much. In the evening we had both Amelia and Joseph for a sleepover and they played very well together until bedtime.

We were all up early this morning for the 9.14am exam start time and Maria has to be there an hour beforehand which meant getting to Studio One for around 8.15. I was graetful the forecast rain hadn't arrived and got Juno out for a walk round the goat farm before we dropped Joseph back home, got Maria to dance and then went on to Bournemouth to drop Amelia off. We were still back for Maria in good time and she was very pleased when she came out of the exam which is always a relief. 

Hopefully it won't be long until she gets the results and after her platinum recently, Maria has her fingers crossed for another great outcome.

Once home I was straight out for a run, 3.5 miles in the rain which had got going by now. Once changed, I popped down to Verwood to collect Joy for Sunday dinner, and then Alison took her back home whilst she and Maria went on to Verwood Hub to watch West Side Story, the remake of the old film musical. I preferred to remain at home and to watch the football.

 

Saturday morning update

After something of a lie in, Juno and I walked off into the woods at Remedy Oak golf course giving me the opportunity to catch up with yesterday's podcast from Kermode and Mayo. I was walking off the effects of few bottles of beer, wine and a couple of glasses of sloe gin and blackberry vodka which had ended with me falling asleep to music videos on Youtube and waking at 3am to make my way to bed for a more settled sleep.

I had forgotten how tired I had felt after all the walking and running yesterday and didn't really think about it as I set out for a run just after 10 which took me a little over 4 miles through the woods with very few sections on the road, something I enjoy more and more. Having made my way through wittertainment I was on to the History of England podcast which is up to the events prior to the Norman conquest. Harold Hardrada is being persuaded to invade England by Tostig Godwinson and William is waiting for favourable winds to carry him across the Channel. I can't wait to find out what happens next!

Alison has gone to collect Amelia who, having recovered from Covid, is here for a sleepover tonight. There is a birthday party first though, so Alison is there whilst Maria and I enjoy a quieter Saturday morning. There's 90 minutes of dance for Maria this afternoon, so I will take her to Studio One and spend the time taking Juno for a long walk in the woods off Uddens Industrial Estate.

I meant to mention having enjoyed the film Belfast on Thursday evening at the Tivoli. Not sure I could have managed longer than the 100 minutes or slightly less in the seats at the Tivoli but the film was well worth watching and the venue is great being so close and having a bar inside.

Tired of steps

The reason I am saying about being tired of steps is that I have walked and run a lot today and am feeling shattered. Juno's early morning trot along the road and back turned in to a mile long walk but it was still followed by a long walk slightly later once the light was showing. I'd anticipated not having much more to do in the morning as Alison and I were off to Dunelm but it was a short trip, successful thankfully, and it gave me the chance to run down to Verwood to get some food for tea and to walk back with it.

Since then I've been out with Juno again and then in the front garden spring cleaning the motorhome, including the roof which required getting the ladder out as might be imagined. 

It's all left me physically tired but I'll get on to making the tea once Joseph is off the bus. We are having vegetable curry, basmati rice, naan bread, onion bhajis and poppadums with a bit of mango chutney. Plenty to get on with then but at least there's aosme cold beer and a bottle of red wine ready to go too.

Allotment update

I got it wrong in terms of clothing today in expecting the recent warmer temperatures would hold true for today and ended up freezing cold. Juno and I were out even earlier than usual for the long morning walk, well before 7am and in ample time to enjoy the rooks and jackdaws splitting into two distinct groups as they wheeled overhead in the semi-darkness. 

Once home I got ready for a ride down to Moors Valley before going to Joy's for a morning in the graden with Alison. I was very quickly aware that the wind generated when on the bike was biting cold and my fingers were so cold in the fingerless gloves. It meant I didn't hang around too long with the binoculars but I did stop for a look at the tufted duck and coot on the lake, noting a grey heron on the far side in amongst the overhanging shrubbery. The lake at Moors Valley was home to the family of swans but there was also a cormorant there, reminding me that I'd seen one, the same one? last week perched in a tree at the far end of the water near the train station. I also saw a goldcrest which popped onto the path for a moment.

At Joy's the first thing I did was sort my poor fingers out getting them warm again before filling the bird feeders. Then it was time to get a coat of wood stain on the front gates which took quite some time and made me notice the vertical strips of wood were coming away from the bottom strut and will need fixing next time I am down. I only did the posts and inside of the gates and so will crack on with it again next week. I hope to be able to carry on with the tidying and clear out of the shed but that may have to wait.

After a quick sandwich I drove to Wimborne as I had the grass strimmer with me and set to cutting the paths surrounding the plots. The allotment is looking pretty up together and ready for the growing season and I got a good bit of weeding, a little more digging and clearing up done. The strawberries need a hard thinning out as they are so thick in their small plot and that won't allow for good fruiting. Everything else is just a matter of time. Got some record shots as above so I can compare in coming years.

Alison did the tea tonight which was a nice change after doing the cooking almost exclusively for weeks now and we have Joseph for the night after a few days off. Amelia has tested negative for Covid after the week off school which means another clear test tomorrow  will see her able to come over for the weekend, although Evie will have to stay home isolating with Joe and Kate still.

Glen is still very shken up by the sudden death of his boss on Sunday. James was very good to Glen and Glen had been enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and convenient hours. That could change but he is picking up more hours to help out for the time being. Poor James was only 45 but the heart attack took him out so quickly the air ambulance was too late. Devastating.

Kingston Lacy snowdrops and sunshine

 

Blue skies, beautiful snowdrops and the first camelias. It was a lovely trip to Kingston Lacy where the car parks were full, people clearly making the most of the fine weather and feeling less inhibited by Covid. We were struck how quickly we managed to get round the grounds, something to do with not having the children with us and slowly dragging them along.

                                                                                                                                           

15000 steps before 9am

It was a gorgeous morning from the very start as you will see from the photos. I was struck at the sight of what I thought was Venus on the horizon as we walked up past Martins Farm and on checking Google, it turned out to be the case. What an amazing sight, so bright and clear. Once back from the dog walk with Juno, just under two miles as usual, I was back out for a run which began following the same route as the walk but then proceeded down into Verwood and back.

I took a few photos from there too looking over the heathland and there are also a couple which show the low bright sun as I ran down a narrow pathway bordered on the right by fields with cows and sheep looking almost like some kind of idealised version of a child's play farm. That was further enhanced by the presence of several ponds or lakes accompanied by the sound of honking geese. There were also buzzards about a lot today and I later saw a couple being mobbed by rooks as they tried to float on the warming air.

I managed to complete a little over 5 miles on the run listening to Frank Skinner's poetry podcast and then got on with feeding the birds and doing odd jobs around the place before our trip to Kingston Lacy.

Allotment and cycling

After the usual long dog walk in the early morning, I got out on the bike to Wimborne to spend some time doing further preparation of the beds at the allotment. I managed 19 miles on the bike in fairly strong winds and was constantly grateful to the battery which meant I kept up an average speed of 15 miles an hour in spite of the conditions. On the way home in particular it was lovely to be able to relax and enjoy the scenery without being head down putting in a more considerable effort. No doubt it is still a pretty long ride with plenty of pedalling required but it is a real bonus having the buttons to press to help when the going gets tough.

I stopped in Wimborne first to top up jars of herbs in a new shop where you can add loose herbs to your old jars and the cost is so much less. Instead of a minimum of a pound for each jar, I was able to fill the empty jars, 3 of them, for a grand total of 77p! I also popped in to the Tivoli to book a ticket to watch Belfast on Thursday at their cinema. 

The allotment is already pretty up together but there was a fair bit of digging to do still. I got that done over the course of a couple of hours whilst listening to Half a Yellow Sun on Audbile. Next will be some weeding and checking out how the broad beans, onions and garlic are doing. 

There were at least 3 skylarks singing as I rode back, another sign of spring.

Moors Valley ride

I took the bike down to Verwood before lunch to return a book to the library and took 3 out before cycling down to the cemetery and then onto Potterne Park. It was a quiet path across to Moors Valley for a change and I had a nice ride to the lake to see what was there today. Little egret, coot, moorhen, herring gull, black headed gull and teal. The coots were displaying some familiar behaviour for the time of year, aggressively seeing one another off.

Once back home, I took Juno out for a walk and collected a few twigs and snapped branches which are great for lighting the woodburner once dried. It was very disappointing to see just how much litter had been cropped recently and so I went straight back out to do a litter pick on my return. There were 3 blossom hill wine bottles, a familiar sight sadly. They are a constant along the verges of Woodlands.

Covid strikes again, again.

To no one's surprise, Evie has now tested positive for Covid, joining Amelia and Joe is isolating and feeling a bit rubbish. That just leaves Kate but it must only be a matter of time for her too. At least Bridie is feeling better and has returned to work after the week off. On the other hand, Joseph has been kept off school due to a nasty cough and so he and I are making our way through a bit of home schooling which is at the stage of cookery for now.

There was some maths to start with and then spelling shed for English before we set out on making some lentil soup. Joseph was meant to be cooking soup at school which is why we've gone for this today. He's done a good job in chopping the vegetables up and adding the stock cube, lentils and water. Now for time to cook before getting the blender out.

Juno and I did just under two miles on the morning dog walk with some pink in the sky which hasn't prevented us from enjoying a sunny morning so far. The bird feeders are full, the hoovering has been done and the kitchen is thoroughly clean too. Next up, a bike ride once Alison has returned from Verwood where she is cleaning Joy's house and checking up on her. 

Springtime but actually the tail end of winter

It's been a very changeable weekend of weather and I've been caught out a few times. However, as you can see, the snowdrops are out and I paused to take some photos during my 5 mile run yesterday. Today was very dull and blowy as I ran a little over 5km and I am now averaging over 16500 steps a day which is well above my target. Another target for the year is to average reading a book a week and I am well ahead with 9 titles already completed, the latest being The Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris. 

It's not a novel that I'd have read in the past possibly but I have changed quite a bit in recent years (age?) and have found myself drawn in to stories like this. 

Maria achieved her first ever platinum award in dance after her recent tap exam with 91% and was rightly delighted. She has worked so hard and is making real progress. 

There seems to have been an awful lot of FA Cup football on and it was great to see Plymouth perform so well in their tie away at Chelsea. To have taken the lead, to have taken the champions of Europe to extra time and be a missed penalty kick away from penalties is an incredible achievement.

With Celtic winning well and Scotland winning at rugby, Liverpool winning in their tie versus Cardiff, I can't help but feel pleased. These things don't come together too often.