The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Sunday 22 August 2010

Carisbrooke Castle

If there's a castle nearby then I want to visit it, so this morning (with Mick still in a state of slight-fuzziheadedness after last night's festivities) we were off bright and early to Carisbrooke Castle.

The castle doesn't disappoint, giving a particularly good visual impact as you enter via the gatehouse.

With a desire to make a brief appearance at the day-after-the-wedding garden-party, and a ferry to catch, our visit was only a couple of hours, but we managed to do a whistlestop tour of most of the features.

And now we're chugging back across the Solent, having not seen the sun (but having experienced plenty of rain) since our outward journey on Friday.
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Saturday 21 August 2010

The Main Event

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Friday 20 August 2010

Needles Old Battery

One of us was stupid enough to forget her National Trust Membership card. And I'm too tight to pay the admission fee when I have a membership card sitting at home.

So, Mick's currently inside the Needles Old Battery, taking a few photos so that I can see what I'm missing. I'm loitering outside.

Next its uphill to the viewpoint so that I can look down on what I've missed.


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Bobbing

Did I ever mention my strong dislike of ferries?

This one's turning out to be a pleasant surprise (okay, maybe 'pleasant' is a bit of a strong word - it's just not as hideous as expected). The main bonus is that it doesn't smell like a ferry.

In twenty minutes I'll set foot on the Isle of Wight for the first time in knocking on for 30 years.
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Wednesday 18 August 2010

Still Here!

Silence has again ruled, hasn’t it?

Considering that we are ‘stay at home slackers’, the last couple of weeks or so have been extraordinarily busy. Things are looking almost as busy going forward.

As a result, my walking mileage (and therefore my fitness) has suffered. It’s the 18th of the month, and thus far I have only walked 75 miles. Absolutely none of it was novel (although talking of novels, I did finally make it through the audio-book of Wolf Hall – my goodness, that was hard work!).

I still hope to break through 1800 miles for the year-to-date by the end of the month.

Mick’s running has not suffered so much (running, by its nature, being a less time consuming endeavour than walking). It was a 20-miler for him on Monday (I met him twice with fresh water bottles and jelly babies, and he was looking good at both points). His marathon is only a couple of weeks away, so his mileages are easing off now.

Other hot news is that Fitness Footwear gave us each a pair of shoes. Mine, which have proved to be incredibly comfortable, have barely been off my feet since they arrived. Mick’s are proving to be a good talking point (with opinions ranging from ‘hideous!’ to ‘cool!’). I will write more about mine soonest.

Day 18 7j

That photo has absolutely nothing to do with this post. I just picked a photo at random from our K2CW walk to make the post a tiny smidge more colourful.

Tuesday 3 August 2010

So Far…

Although all has been quiet around here, I have been getting out and about.

Well, ‘out’, at least.

Since my last posting all of my walks have been from the front door and I’m afraid that there were only so many times I could write about the same routes, and I exceeded that number long ago.

Not that it’s all been uninteresting. With the killer horses being grazed elsewhere this year, one of my abandoned routes (9 or 11 miles, depending what I do when I get to the canal) has become doable again. I do have to trespass to avoid one overgrown bit, have to battle with a field cropped to its boundary and I have been chased by a tribe of completely fearless bullocks every time (so fearless that once I get over the stile I can pat those at the front of the herd on the nose without them flinching), but otherwise I’m happy to have become reacquainted with that route.

I’ve also been beating speed records. Probably a simple case of boredom with the same routes. My record has been averaging 4.25mph over a 7 mile route. It’s not big or clever, but in the absence of hills, I guess that it’s keeping a small amount of fitness intact – which is the main aim of the outings.

Even with a bit of a drop-off in July, the year so far looks like this from a monthly mileage point of view:

image

All being well (touching wood, praying to the God of Uninjuriedness and all that), by the end of August I should have exceeded my previous highest calendar-year mileage.

At some point, I may even do something worthy of writing about.

 IMG_1774

Fearless bullocks IMG_1776

I didn’t mention the ‘field of thistles’ did I? I have now found the least prickly route through, but it still involves five minutes of dense thistles.