After a couple of years of being postponed it was wonderful to see the vibrant ‘Lumino City‘ return to Wellington’s waterfront on the weekend of 18th-19th November. This festival started in 2015 and has grown each year, with more lanterns, entertainment and visitors. Though it was a soggy evening for our visit, it felt tropical […]
‘The Best Sunday Ever’ was the hashtag for the 2022 event of Toast Martinborough, held on the third Sunday in November; and it was definitely a fantastic Sunday and a much anticipated event, after being cancelled for the past two years due to the pandemic. The event was first held in 1992 and is held […]
With continued niggles in my left hip area and peri-menopause symptoms (oh the joys!) I am taking a much more balanced approach to running these days, spending more time on strength, stability and stretching. I enjoy yin yoga classes to balance out the ‘yang’ of running. I listen more to my body and rest when […]
My youngest daughter and I spent a week in early August visiting family in Colne, Lancashire, Chinley in the Peak District and Knutsford in Cheshire. Our time was spent catching up with family, walking in the beautiful hills of the English countryside, visiting the iconic seaside town of Blackpool and riding the roller coasters at […]
At the end of July, my youngest (Alice) and I headed to London, after having enjoyed a wonderful week’s holiday in Cornwall (see posts here and here). We planned to catch some shows and I’d organised a catch up with some University friends (whom I’d first met 30 years ago!). I am fortunate to have […]
From a sea-life safari and massive water slide to a historic house and gardens, here follows more snap shots from our week’s holiday in north-east Cornwall (for the first post, of beautiful coastal walks, click here!). Boat Trip with Padstow Sealife Safaris Early in our stay the forecast across the country was for extremely high […]
We left Fleet in Hampshire early on Saturday morning, joining the A303 and waving to historic Stonehenge as we drove on the stretch of single carriageway through the World Heritage Site at a moving pace (which was good, considering it was summer, sunny and often known to be a stretch of road that can see […]
I’ve been back in New Zealand for just over two weeks and came from record breaking high temperatures and dry conditions in the UK to the wettest winter on record in New Zealand and hundreds of slips all around Wellington. Earth is on a scary path of more extremes and it is frighteningly noticeable. I […]
It felt great to be at the last Xterra Wellington event of the series, meeting up with fellow runners in the Wellington community and hitting the trails at Makara wind farm, with sweeping views over the coastline to the south island on the horizon. Having ran both the medium and long course in previous years […]
I finally enjoyed the opportunity to fly to Melbourne to visit the city where our oldest is now living and marvel at the creative, bustling hive that it is. There are more people living in Melbourne than the whole of New Zealand, so my initial response to arriving in the central city was one of […]
February 2020 was the last time I lined up at the start line (well not quite on the start line – as that’s for the real athletes – but mid-way back!) of a running event. The Tarawera Ultra Marathon was the longest I’d ever ran and it was an incredible event. Around six months after […]
There’s always two every year, one in the UK (always two weeks before Easter Sunday) and the other in New Zealand (the second Sunday in May). This year was markedly different. It was the first year without my dear Mum and the first year without our oldest daughter in the same country as us. My […]
It’s been a time for adjusting, with our oldest daughter moving to a different country to start University in Melbourne, my Mum dying in December and my thoughts very much with my Dad and sister, miles away in the UK. In the wider world there’s turmoil, with the pandemic lingering on, the atrocities of what […]
Mum’s funeral was a day of coming together for many people that had touched her life, even though many people hadn’t seen much of Mum for a few years – such was the torture of Alzheimer’s disease in stealing her away from so many people. It was a moment of remembering the person she was […]