Week off

Took the week 3-7 July as leave. Had mooted the idea earlier in the year with Ruth of possibly booking to go somewhere, but that didn’t come off so decided a couple of months ago to go down to Abergavenny to visit Mum and Dad. Headed down to Wales on the Sunday morning, starting off by calling at Dave’s house in Newport, where he was spending the day in charge of Alys and Huw while Hazel was away for the weekend (and Nia on a Rainbows outing).

Newport Wetlands

Huw was a good deal more smiley and alert than when I last saw him and now appears to be enjoying the musical playmat that both the girls have used. The four of us went out for some air to Newport Wetlands, where I pushed Huw and Dave carried Alys on his shoulders for most of the outing, having tried unsuccessfully to interest her in walking. We spent some time watching the little fish in the lakes there and Alys reiterated that she does not like swans. Stopped for an ice cream in the café. Returned to the house where Dave and I had lunch and Alys had a sleep.

On the Monday, I went down to Newport again with Mum as recently she has been accompanying Hazel to the local leisure centre so that she can mind Huw while Hazel and Alys attend a mother and toddler swimming lesson. I sat with Mum up in the viewing gallery and observed the class, which hopefully Alys enjoyed, though I couldn’t really tell. Mum managed to get some milk into Huw – who is tricksy about food – but was then a bit downcast when he brought most of it up again. After the swim we walked through Newport’s new town centre development and had lunch at Boswells. Alys seemed underwhelmed with her chicken nuggets but excited by the play equipment in the shopping centre.

On the Tuesday Mum and Dad set off for their annual reunion with their school/college friends, this year down in Somerset though I’ve forgotten the name of the village. One of the trips planned by the organizing couple was evidently to some sort of willowcraft centre, leading Dad to make all sorts of doleful pronouncements before leaving to the effect that they were all going to end up ordering coffins.

On the Wednesday I went for the walk on Blorenge noted earlier. Ruth arrived by train late afternoon.

On the Thursday Ruth and I took the train into Hereford, as she hadn't been there before, and had a walk around. We went for lunch at Gilbies Bar & Bistro, which seemed nice, and then for a walk to the cathedral via M&S. Had an ice cream. Walked to Hereford's new Old Market shopping area and had a mooch about. Got the train back to Abergavenny. Cooked a meal for Mum and Dad out of Delia's Summer Book.

On the Friday we went for lunch at Plas Derwen, partly because Mum wanted to book rooms for Steve and his sister, who are wanting to stay there later this month. Nice lunch once we - and some other guests - had fended off the unwanted attentions of an annoying man at the next table.

Returned to Milton Keynes on the Saturday morning, and Mum and Ruth left together for Newport where Mum was heading into Bath to visit Hannah. Nice week though was plagued by hayfever for a good deal of it, coupled with developing a minor cold. Both have thankfully gone now.

More produce

Haven't yet tried the chutney.

A pic of the tiny aubergine that we managed to grow, though we realise that the plants are not best suited to being outdoors in the British climate. Along with some more of the still-green tomatoes, and a courgette.

Here's my previous experience at growing an aubergine, another tiny fellow that Ray and I managed to grow on our balcony at Belgravia Court in 2005.

Our courgette plant has produced a lot of courgettes, as is their way. I always like the idea of doing something with the flowers, ever since Mum told me about a delicious-sounding dish she and Dad were served in France involving courgette flowers stuffed with some kind of seafood, but have never actually attempted it. Have eaten a few of the courgettes, which tasted pretty much like courgettes from Waitrose, but hey, it's nice to grow your own stuff.

Luckily we only have the one courgette plant and so far have managed to harvest them before they turned into marrows. Mum and Dad still seem to have a glut of marrows on their allotment. From what I gather my Uncle Ian is the only known person who is keen on stuffed marrow, so quite a few have been going their way.

And we didn't grow these, but here are some peas our neighbour Kris gave us from his allotment. Or possibly his dad's allotment. Ruth seemed surprised I'd never shelled peas before, but I pointed out that most of us grew up in suburbia and have always had our peas out of the freezer. They were nice enough, but I have to say frozen peas will probably do me. There's only so excited you can get about a pea.

Homemade stuff

As per the perverse way of ugly plants producing fruit that nobody likes much, the rhubarb plant in the garden in Caversham had done extremely well for the last few years, producing loads of fruit, some of which is still languishing in bags in the freezer. Back in May Ruth made the decision to get rid of it in the interests of freeing up space to grow other things we might be more inclined to eat and, as I balked at the thought of yet more frozen rhubarb filling up the freezer, she got the idea to try and make wine out of the remaining fruit. This led to the purchase of a good deal of kit from a company amusingly named Bigger Jugs. Here's the initial stage of the chemistry, with chunks of rhubarb soaking in one of the supplied fermenting bins:

And below in its current state, which is a peachy-orange liquid. The space it's in just happened to be an available space in the kitchen, but it's perhaps unfortunately placed next to various cleaning products. Hopefully it will, in due course, taste better than those, but I'm not overly hopeful. Apparently it's supposed to rest in its demijohn for at least six months, so we're anticipating a sampling of rhubarb wine sometime around Christmas.

Second bit of River Cottage-type industry: the tomato plant we acquired earlier in the year has grown plenty of good-sized tomatoes, but they haven't ripened - Ruth thinks it might have been a variety that's supposed to be grown under glass. Picked the larger ones yesterday and looked for a recipe for green tomato chutney - I'm not hugely into chutney but remember making it from green tomatoes once before and it being quite nice.

Couldn't locate the recipe I used last time, so used this Nigel Slater one which mixes in some regular ripe tomatoes with the green ones. Not too sure about some of the ingredients (raisins?) and, contra Slater's assurances that it should only make a couple of jam jars' worth, I found it filled five jars - though admittedly there was quite a lot of liquid; perhaps I should have drained some of it off. Not too hopeful that the end product's going to be a treat, but you never know.

Catherine Howard

Have not yet blogged that in February, and following Beau’s sad death in December, we (well, Ruth) adopted another female rabbit as a companion for Harley – a young, pretty grey female who had come into the rescue centre with one or more siblings (I forget how many). As they often do during bondings, Reading Rabbit Rescue posted a video on their Facebook page of her and Harley in the ‘bunny moon suite’ during their stay. RRR hadn’t published photos of any of Harley’s bondings since his none-too-successful bonding with Lexie, so they were evidently feeling more confident about this one.

Sandra, almost in the same breath, praised Harley’s longevity, attributing it substantially to his being a house bunny, given his respiratory problems, and commiserated with us over our bad luck with our females.

The new bunny was referred to as ‘Greybun’ during her time at RRR and initially by us; on pressing by Sandra, we chose ‘Pippa’ as being a cute sort of name, so this was duly entered on her card. However, between ourselves we had taken to referring to her, wittily, as ‘Catherine Howard’, given that she is Harley’s fifth female companion. The nickname has inevitably stuck, though I’ve at least once exclaimed loudly in public something along the lines of “Catherine Howard let me stroke her this morning!” which could raise eyebrows. There are advantages to more traditional pet names such as Snowy, Fluffykins etc.

CH is the youngest bunny we’ve yet adopted, as she only turned one in April. As Harley is now around nine, we’re trying not to feel guilty over having separated her from her sibling(s) to come and live with an old man. She and Harley seem to be working well together, though perhaps inevitably she is livelier than he is. Here they are, with Harley in the typically subservient pose he adopts with females, presumably in the hope that they will accidentally groom his head while reaching to lick their own foot.

Pics of our five females below:

Lola	Lexie
Willow	Beau (with Harley)

Catherine Howard

In an idle moment we had a go at pairing the females up with one each of Henry VIII’s wives. Lola, our first female, would fit with Catherine of Aragon, we decided, given that she was with Harley for the longest - four years until her death in 2013. Spirited, wilful, furniture-loving Willow we decided would be Anne Boleyn; shy, short-lived Beau (in terms of her time with us – she was actually around five when she died) would be Jane Seymour, leaving thumping great bruiser Lexie to be Anne of Cleves. Obviously, we’re hoping not to get a Catherine Parr any time soon.

Walk around Blorenge summit plateau, 4.98 miles

5 July

Well, it's been a while. Did this little walk while spending a week's leave this last week staying at my parents' house. When there I always enjoy looking up at Blorenge, a cuddly-looking hill to the south of the town, and had been idly pondering a walk up it. This week got around to trying a route out of Chris Barber's The Seven Hills of Abergavenny, which includes four walks on Blorenge - I chose 'Around the summit plateau', which is a bit of a cop-out in terms of actually climbing the hill, as most of your ascent is done in the car driving up the B4246, which has great views and one positively hairpin bend.

Keeper's Pond	Summit of Blorenge (albeit I didn't actually climb it)
Looking down towards Abergavenny	Another view

Parked at the car park just off the B4246 next to Keeper's Pond at around 9:00 am - just me and a dog walker (and his dog) there - and took a brief stroll along the path around the lake, to admire the views. The little lake - which was glinting v. prettily in the sun - is apparently artificial; the book informed me it was constructed around 1820 as a water supply for the Blaenavon Ironworks and Garnddyrys Forge. From the pond I walked a bit further along the road to the Foxhunter car park, next to two prominent masts, and then took the pretty obvious path across the moorland that leads straight to Blorenge's summit. Had the summit to myself so stood for a minute attempting to think deep thoughts, and taking a selfie.

Followed the path onwards towards the edge of Blorenge's steep north east face which overlooks Abergavenny. Again, had the place to myself apart from the sheep. Admired the views for a while, then attempted to 'contour around the lip of the escarpment to the left', as advised by the book. Path initially not too obvious but became more so further on. Followed the path back to Keeper's Pond. It apparently joins an old tram road en route though I can't say I noticed the point where this happened.

The route as shown in Chris Barber's book

The Trek

British Heart Foundation 50km trek, Saturday 13 May

Took the 0612 train from Reading on Saturday morning, getting off at Staines and heading to the Spelthorne Leisure Centre for the start of the London to Oxford Trek (or the London to Henley ‘day trek’, in the case of six out of eight of our group). Our team convened in the sports hall to register and collect our BHF red T-shirts and a map of the route. Matt, Guy, Rebecca and Hai had spent the Friday night in the Staines Travelodge, as the journey by public transport from Milton Keynes is cumbersome; Sara’s husband Scott had delivered her, Galina and Louisa by car.

Start of the trek at Spelthorne Leisure Centre, Staines

Team 'OU Pretty Things' ready for the off

After an inaudible safety briefing, we set off at around 8:00am. The route was well signposted with arrows throughout, so there wasn’t much danger of getting lost. Although it hadn’t been planned that way, we fairly swiftly fell into two groups, with Sara, Louisa, Rebecca and Matt striding ahead and Guy, Galina, Hai and me walking at a more reasonable pace some way behind.

Guy, Galina and Hai having a sit down at the second checkpoint

At Maidenhead. Flagging

Our 'Tier 2' team arrived at the first checkpoint in Windsor, 15 km into the walk, at around 11:00am, and the second checkpoint, at Cookham Reach Sailing Club, at around 3:00pm, after the speedy lot had already left it. We were all flagging a bit as we walked through Maidenhead – albeit it was the halfway point for the 50km event, the realization that there was the same amount to go ahead of us was a tad depressing at that point. We were obliged to sit on the ground at Cookham Reach as the tables were all occupied, but still valued the chance to take our shoes off and eat something.

Guy started to get knee pain at around Marlow and spent some time looking around for a walking stick, eventually finding a huge thing that we joked looked like Gandalf’s staff.

We reached the third checkpoint, at Hurley Lock, at around 5:45pm, where we had some more food and drink from Michaela’s Tea Shop, plus a nice sit down. By this point in the walk, difficulties had evidently kicked in for some, with various people with their shoes off being ministered to and one woman lying on a bench wrapped in foil. I recognised her as a woman who'd overtaken us earlier, but nobly resisted the urge to say "Ha, not so quick now then, are you".

Guyndalf

Having a sit down at Michaela's Tea Shop

Insufficient toilet arrangements at Hurley, coupled with Hai lingering over her tea cake, led to Guy and I setting off from the checkpoint ahead of the other two as he was keen to keep his knee moving. We managed to get what we felt was quite a decent pace up, spurred on by the thought of the finish line, but the last section into Henley felt interminable. We finally crossed the finish line in Mill Meadows at around 8:30pm, with Galina and Hai arriving around half an hour behind us.

Guy and I cross the finish line

We were scanned at each checkpoint, I guess to check that everyone was in - indeed I have subsequently received a personalised email congratulating me on finishing.

 

Here's the map of the route:

And here are the stats from MapMyWalk. I didn't pause the tracking at the checkpoints, so the 12 hour time is the overall time.

Amazingly, Matthew and Hai completed the full 100km, setting off from Mill Meadows around 9:30pm and walking through the night to reach the finish line in Oxford around 11:00am on Sunday. Matt is impressively fit and had recent experience of a combined day-and-night trek of over 50 miles, but Hai freely admitted to finding it very tough - not helped by heavy rain in the early hours. Here they are at the 100km post - though it was apparently then about 3km further on to the actual finish line in Oxpen Meadows. Hai said on Tuesday morning, somewhat indignantly, that she'd signed up for 100km, not 103km.

Managed to resist consuming either of the packets of energy gel Judith had kindly donated to me, along with various energy bars. Apparently when you're flagging in the later stages of a triathlon these are just the thing. The walk, although a slog, wasn't at any point strenuous enough that I felt I needed one of these - but I guess I'll keep them for possible future use.

Walk via the Stratfords and Deanshanger, 6.3 miles

7 May

Final walk of any length before the BHF trek, intended as a 'scaling down' before the main event. Returned to Wolverton early on the Sunday morning to sort out a few bits and pieces, including making a revision timetable for my impending exam for Essential mathematics 1, of which the least said the better. As it was a nice day, spent the morning on this walk instead.

Took the bus to Stony Stratford to avoid the dullish walk there from Wolverton, then walked the length of the high street and into the neighbouring village of Old Stratford. Turned left down Deanshanger Road and walked to the end to join the footpath running alongside the A422. Crossed the road at the footbridge and walked into Deanshanger.

Houses along London Road in Old Stratford	From Stratford Road looking back towards the footbridge
Puxley Road heading back towards the A422	View near Passenham

Did a clockwise circuit of the village and then joined the quite rural-feeling Puxley Road leading back towards the A422. Crossed the road and headed down the road leading through the pretty village of Passenham, which at a glance seems to consist entirely of Manors and Old Rectories. Walked through Passenham and turned left to join the bigger road leading back into Stony Stratford.