Stories and tips from around the world.
Whilst I've read a number of Neil Gaiman's stories, and have watched numerous TV shows and films that he's been involved in, I've never read the book 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane'. I was however aware of it being a stage performance in London, but I was never interested enough to go and see it. That is until I found out the show was on the road, and was coming to The Curve in Leicester. This …
One of the things I don't usually mention on this predominently travel-oriented blog is that I'm a fan of anime, and Studio Ghibli in particular. After being introduced to the work of Hayao Miyazaki through Spirited Away, one of the first animations I watched after that was the classic My Neighbour Totoro which features two young girls, Mei and Satsuki, moving to a new house in the countryside wit …
The unexpected end of our time in Cornwall and Devon. We did at least get to see a little more first.
It may have rained today, but it didn't stop us going out to see new places such as Ilfracombe. There were even some sunny spells which helped.
With some time to spare, we explored Dunster and Minehad, and then onto Westward Ho! and Lynmouth. Some of the towns were quite picturesque, but they were all also quite different from each other.
The start of a small adventure in the UK, starting off with a night in Weston-Super-Mare to break up the journey.
I got up at 06:30 to go for one last run along the coast. This one was once again a 20 minute easy paced run which ended up becoming a 25 minute run — just enough to make it a 5K at a slowish pace (probably fairer to say it was half way between easy and race paces). This morning though it was cloudy and damp following the previous night’s thunderstorms so there wasn’t as good a view. Today we didn …
Today I got up at 06:30 expecting to get ready for a day trip over to Guernsey. To make sure we’d get there my Mum who has on occasion had travel difficulties saw the Doctor to help with her nerves, and also brought a hip flask of brandy with her. However, she hadn’t used the medication she’d been given or the drank the brandy; she instead felt that she couldn’t go on the trip. I did wonder how mu …
Up to this point I’d not slept that well, yet hadn’t been overly tired. So once again I was already awake when I got up at 06:30 to go for a run. This was supposed to be a 20 minute easy run, but instead turned into a 5K easy run (so about 27 mins, a 5K in 20 minutes would be my race pace and setting a new PB). Instead of running purely along the coastline this time I ran through some of the city …
Today was the first run of the second week of marathon training so I got up at 06:30, before the others had gotten up and went out without making any noise. This time it was a very slow recovery run for what was supposed to be 25 minutes. Instead of heading across the promenade and into the city I instead went east towards where the market was the day before. Sadly this route included a particular …
We got up at 07:00 and by 08:30 we were out on the road headed in the direction of Dorchester and went straight through to Cerne Abbas. In this village there is a giant carved into the limestone rock though it’s origin is not entirely known. There is speculation that it may be an ancient carving of Hercules, or a Saxon (or other) deity. What sheds some doubt on it’s age though is that it is not me …
I got up at 06:30, particularly early for a Sunday, so I could go for a “long” run before breakfast. I decided to take it at a very slow pace along the seafront. This route took me over the bridge to where we’d walked the day before. The run felt easy and I didn’t have any knee issues during the actual run. Later in the day though I did feel the odd twinge in my knee when going down hill. When I’d …
We got up at 06:30ish and straight after breakfast started loading the car up ready for our holiday down in Weymouth. By 07:30 we were on the road heading south. One of our stops was at Uffington to see the Bronze-age white horse carved in chalk on the side of the hill there, and to have a cup of tea. It’s not that easy to see properly though as it’s at an angle where seeing it from the air would …
For the first day of my 30th birthday celebrations I went from Winchester, the ancient capital, to the modern day capital of London for a tour of the Cutty Sark, and to watch the musical "We will rock you"
No sooner did we arrive in Scotland and collect the rental car, we headed south back into England to see a castle first... purely because it'd been used in the filming of Harry Potter.
Our second peak would be the highest in England: Scafell Pike. The conditions for this one were at least forecast to be better.
