the first of the snowy days

We had a nice relaxing break at Norfolk this weekend; and made the most of taking it easy by swapping running for walking for the weekend.
I'm a bit concerned Colin might have shocked anyone who was out and about in the snow, and saw the footprints that Colins "5 finger" shoes made. The shoes, which I think are scary, have separate toes and are like gloves for feet, they're supposed to help improve  posture; Col gets strange looks from people who see his bizarre footwear on his feet, and I would have loved to have seen people's faces as they stumbled upon these footprints!

Despite the snow at the beginning and the end of the weekend, the Saturday was a really lovely sunny day, great for walking, and taking snapshots of windmills and fishing boats; just what Norfolk is famous for!

Jackie

A small world day

I joined my local Embroiderers Guild yesterday - which was very good (more later) and rather bizarrely ended up sitting next to Colin's old art teacher from school  - what a small world!  She was very lovely, and strangely rather complimentary about Colin,  maybe she'd forgotten that Colin had colluded in his friends trick of swapping the white paint for a pot of glue.....Reminding Colin about his old art teacher,set Colin off giggling all over again, as he recalled the story of  Diane's confusion after finishing her work of art with flicks of what she thought was white paint, and later returning to find that they'd disappeared!

The presentation at the Guild was very good: called "Entertaining Angels" by Anne Menary; it was a series of embroidered and collage angels who we might entertain, but are also entertaining; largely by plummeting down to earth head first as they learn to fly.  Anne's sketchbooks are just as interesting; more an aide memoir to ideas than a sketchbook her paper collages utilise whatever is available, consequently angels are represented by catalogue models and the great bear constellation by a panda!  - All very skilled, and very amusing!
Jackie

Remembrance Day

Today being Remembrance Day also means to me that its the Booth Decorators League X-Country race at Chaddeston . I can't say it's the most picturesque place to be running but it definitely means that I can act like a kid. It's a fairly flat course over around a muddy field , But what I do like about it is the running through the stream and best of all we get to do it four times so as to freeze your feet.
Today wasn't a bad race as I took it steady to start with and picked off runners steadily through out the race.
Only trouble I really had was that I have picked up Jacs bad habit off shoe laces coming undone part way round . I was a little worried on the second lap and two stream hops to go that my spikes (shoes) would come off . thankfully they didn't and I came home first for our club and in 23 rd position overall.

Didn't think this was to bad a result as I had run 16 miles yesterday. My mileage is starting to creep up again so lots of long runs thru the winter.

Gam

Vegetal Days

After lots of deliberating Colin has purchased a new mobile phone with a camera, we realise this isn't a necessity but did think that it would be great for taking photos when we're out running.  (We can probably justify it further in that my phone is still of the brick variety, never switched on, and rarely charged up)
As we keep pointing out, neither of us are comfortable with technology, so, when Cols new phone went off in the middle of the night, he went charging downstairs to answer it, and stressed by the burglar alarm beeping, grabbed the phone only to realise that he'd taken a photograph of himself with no clothes on....

On a completely unrelated noted, here's a carrot from our allotment

And on a completely unrelated, but vegetal note, we've just discovered the delights of pumpkin pie; it sounds healthy but unfortunately its not, but it is really really nice.

Jackie

messy days

I'm definately not cut out to be a screen printer - I love most textile techniques and am happy to give them ago, but I also know my limitations and am aware that precision and tidyness aren't my strengths - As part of my textiles degree I've had to try and get to grips with screen printing, where neatness and precision are quite crucial....
Thankfully I've managed to do most of my practicing while Colin has been out of the house, and think that I've managed to clear up quite successfully after each attempt.  While I've found this a difficult technique I have enjoyed it and can see possibilites for mixing it with other techniques.
Here's one of my attempts "Dancing in December" inspired by the Dancing Building in Prague.

Screen Printing inspired by the Dancing Buildings in Prague

Derbyshire day

I have had a trip down memory lane today on two accounts.

Firstly a long while ago I used to spend most of my free time in the peak district walking and climbing, over time I have stopped climbing due to one reason or another ,and I also have stopped walking as much in order to run more. My second part of my memory lane was to catch up with a friend from school.

As my friend  now has children so walking for a young one is at a slower pace ,I did however see more of the peak than I would normally have . On all accounts The beautiful day (no wind sunny and my favourite no  rain) catching up with friends and being up in one of my haunts Its been a great day all round.

gam

Halloween

Col ran the Worksop Halloween half marathon on Sunday, and despite his running shoes falling to pieces at mile 3,(personally I think they caught fire!) he got a pb with a fantastic time of 1hr25.  The route is a really pretty one at this time of year as it goes through Clumber park, and apparently was made even more entertaining as many of the Marshalls and runners were in fancy dress.   - One of our friends, Al, has created a problem for himself tho'; unable to do the race due to man flu, he gave his race number to another friend who is a fair bit younger and happens to be extremely fast, unsuprisingly he came in pretty quickly so Al is now recorded in his age category as coming in second!

The Halloween theme was continued as we fetched all of the pumpkins from the allotment, and later when we went to a Halloween dinner party  where we had numerous lovely treats including brown bread icecream which sounds strange but is thoroughly recommended, its lovely.  Interestingly and suprisingly we discovered that everyone sitting around the table was TV less  - so maybe we're not as strange as we thought!  -  it was quite funny to hear the conversation about the moment of deciding to get rid of the TV and life afterward being TV free, to anyone overhearing us it must have sounded like an AA meeting!