Wet cold and flu

On your marks!

There we were lined up for the off - a bit like the start of the Grand National this. I wouldn't normally edit my blog in such a way that a photo would stray across the page - doesn't look very tidy does it?  However this panoramic snap just needed to be seen in its entirety. No that's not me heaving under the goal posts, I'm at the other end with the green sleeves trying to plot a dryish route through the mud. Vicky is nowhere to be seen - she was hanging back in the trees behind waiting for the mad trampling to be over so she could then deftly thread her way through the field with Skip. It was a grim wet muddy course through Henley Woods at Oswestry. It's probably quite lovely in summer and that's probably the next time we'll be back for this one. Still it was friendly enough - there seems to be a real community spirit here as evidenced by the large number of cheerful volunteers. Plenty of junior runners prepared to get muddy legs on a cold morning so someone must be inspiring them to get out of bed early on a Saturday.

Saltaire - it's not by the sea you know!

Later that week, prior to a pleasant day's work in Bradford, I spent an evening in Shipley a rather interesting suburb. Part of Shipley is a World Heritage Site - how about that! This is the area known as Saltaire, the name is a hybrid word derived from the River Aire and Sir Titus Salt, who built a model village here to house his workers. The houses were a significant improvement on the slums of the time - they had running water! Much survives for tourists to peek at, however it was windy, wet and rainy so I decided not to stroll the mile or so up to Saltaire and I settled for the Wetherspoons over the road for some Goose Eye Chinook Blonde. Last week I was in a pub called the Sir John Arderne in Newark, you might think it fitting therefore that Wetherpsoons would have called this one the Sir Titus Salt. But there was already a Wetherspoons called the Sir Titus Salt in Bradford so they came up with the moniker Sir Norman Rae to commemorate another scion of Shipley. Rae was a wool merchant who gave a parcel of land to Shipley council to use as a park - there's no parkrun in it yet! One curiosity that I gleaned about Shipley is that, until this year the past 14 years worth of councillors from Shipley have all belonged to the Green Party - must be some interesting reason for that but I didn't get a chance to find out.

Or else!

So I have this in writing from the NHS website - "If you have what you think is flu after vaccination it may be that you have caught a flu-like virus that isn't really flu, or you may have caught flu before you had the flu vaccination." I had the jab on Thursday morning, 3 o'clock the following morning what did I have? Something horrible!! I actually think what the NHS suggested is not quite right, the flu jab knocked my immune system out which meant that a lurking common cold, which I would have perhaps normally shrugged off, then grabbed me big time. I could live with that alone but unfortunately this all put my heart out of sync. So no parkrun for me this Saturday. I stayed in bed while Vicky did her volunteering bit as tailwalker at Bodelwyddan parkrun.

Back to normal?

Am I going the right way?

About 25 degrees cooler than last week's 10k but it had to be done. The Bodelwyddan Castle parkrun had commenced operations in our absence. Its not a bad little run, much of it being off road and in the grounds of the castle. It was never really a castle - built in the 15th century as a manor house it was then rebuilt in the style of a castle in 1832 and is now a hotel and museum. Very attractive it is too but I didn't really see it as I was busy galloping round - Vicky said it looked great.

Well it does look like a castle doesn't it?

You leave my nuts alone!

Not much else to report this month apart from our lovely trip to Anglesey to the Nant y Pandy parkrun the following Saturday. And the reason we have a photo of a cheerful looking red squirrel here is because we spotted a number of them on the course. (Not while we were running of course but we took Skip for a stroll after the run along the Dingle valley where we'd just been running.)

Kit for mending anal fistulas - handle with care!

Changing the subject slightly, here's a selection of suspicious looking surgical instruments from 750 years ago. These belonged to Sir John Arderne who was a well known surgeon of the 14th century, He lived to the ripe old age of 85, no mean feat in those days. He made his name through developing an effective procedure for anal fistulas, something that knights on horseback were prone to as a consequence of long days on the saddle. I thought this was impressive stuff as I read about him at the Sir John Arderne pub in Newark, Lincolnshire whilst quaffing beer from the excellent Milestone Brewery. One of the first pubs I'd been in since we arrived back in the UK and the (very British) beer was exceedingly tasty! Things are back to normal.

If only we'd known!

Show me the way to go!

I love lighthouses and this is a particularly picturesque one situated on the rocky Monterey peninsula in California. It's the Point Pinos Lighthouse and is notable for being the oldest working lighthouse on the West Coast of the US. Not only that but you can also come and take a look round it. If you get the right day that is - it's open five days a week but not on Wednesday when we were there! Next time maybe.

One way to get over jet lag!

Our flight from Brisbane to Vancouver arrived at 7 am in the morning. What we didn't know was the fact that the Richmond Olympic parkrun is only a 10 minute cab drive from the airport. So, if we'd flown on a Saturday we could have done a parkrun in Brisbane in the morning and one in Vancouver the same morning. (Brisbane is 18 hours ahead!) And, rather like two runs on New Year's Day, both events would have been recordable. However we flew on a Wednesday - should have done our homework - next time maybe.

Island in the sun - for some of the year!

I had mistakenly thought that Vancouver Island was around the same size as Great Britain. When we got there we found that it was much smaller and we could have done a bit more exploring in the time that we had. I realised how my confusion had arisen - the capital of Vancouver Island is Victoria. However Vancouver Island is bottom right on the map (just digging into the north west tip of the US.) Victoria Island on the other hand is on the frozen wastes - it's the red bit. Just as well we didn't book a flight there. It's slightly larger than GB (as I'd seen on the list of the world's largest islands), round about 2,000 people live there (in igloos?) and it's notable for having the world's largest island within an island within an island!! Part of Victoria Island is in the recently created province of Nunavut, this includes all those islands surrounding Victoria Island. And here's the real fun fact - the car licence plate for Nunavut is in the shape of a polar bear! Oh go on - here's another odd fact - it's illegal to lock your car doors round those parts. Why you might ask? Well if you're walking down the road and a hungry polar bear takes a shine to you - if there's a car parked nearby - get in the tin can, he's not got an opener!

Got your antit-freeze?

Florida - turn on that air-con!

The good old boys!

Back in the groove once more, no park runs in southern Florida so we had to find something else to keep us occupied on a Saturday morning. This was the Old Naples 10K a popular event in a fairly affluent town on the west coast facing the Gulf of Mexico. Boy was it hot even at 7:30 in the morning and even the locals seemed to be suffering. However a bit of true grit saw me though to the end - I knew the guy in the yellow t-shirt was closing in on me but I just held him off for the V60 prize. I was in with a slow 47:46 and Vicky was well down on her best 10K times with 80:05. (Incidentally the winner of the whole thing was from Ellesmere Port!)

I can swim quicker than him!

Following the race we had a long drive across Florida on Interstate 75 a road known in these parts as Alligator Alley. Of course we had to take a pitstop at some point and by the car park was a waterway. This young lady decided to take some air right by the river bank. You might just spot something in the water on the right of Vicky's neck in the photograph. This turned out to be a seven foot alligator swimming swiftly towards us. "Quick quick get away from there!" "Not until you've taken my photo!"

Has it got a shed though?

Palm Beach is an extraordinary place. There are more billionaires here than anywhere else in the US. Palm Beach itself is an island very close to the Florida coast and we were very lucky thanks to our host the wonderful Sarah, to be provided with a guided tour of some of the astonishing features including this palatial residence which belonged to Henry Flagel, a captain of industry. He built this in 1902 when he was in his early 70's, but this was scene of his death eleven years later when he fell (pushed?) down a flight of stairs. Very suspicious! Who stood to gain? Why his young third wife of course. Today various Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Trumps all live in various Palm Beach mansions at various times of the year, and guess who has a mansion sandwiched among these guys? Why Rod the Mod Stewart, we drove past his house, he's next door to some chap called Glazer. According to our reliable source Sir Rod enjoys life here and is often seen down at Starbucks chatting people up and signing autographs.

No it's not a masked ball!

Here's Rod and Penny socialising with their mate Donald at the Palm Beach Policeman's Ball at the Mar-a-lago Club which is basically part of Trump's house. At 64,000 square foot it will be relegated to being the second largest mansion in Florida when David Seigel's house is built, this one is called Versailles (a bit if a copy of the French Palace!) and it's taken so long to build that the children's playrooms have been remodelled as 'yoga parlours' now the children have grown up. (Seigel is 83 years old by the way and his house is actually up near Orlando in mid Florida - handy for Disneyland.)

Last night on American soil saw us in Fort Lauderdale, not a particularly distinguished city, but we had to fly out the following morning from the local airport. Now's my chance to post a picture of my all time favourite footballer Georgie Best. Here he is in the colours of Fort Lauderdale Strikers taken when his best days were behind him He played here in 38 games. After leaving United he then became a bit of a journeyman playing for no less than 17 other clubs - the first of which after his departure from Old Trafford (and here's a pub quiz question) was the Jewish Guild Football Club in South Africa!

What a star!