29 November to 7 December - Diary Update

De Quincey Park on a sunny day

29 November

A Princess came for lunch.

1 December

The Dixie Beats came to Eagley Jazz Club, performing in front of an audience of 100 who had just enjoyed an excellent Christmas dinner.

Magnificent hampers for the raffle

A guest vocalist performed 'When I'm 64' for his partner (wife?) who was enjoying her 64th birthday

 

After the raffle

2 December

This is the first time that we've noticed parakeets in the garden. They were on the washing line by the feeder before being pictured on a tree next door.

I enjoyed a walk through Wythenshawe Park, then across the Mersey and through Fletcher Moss Park to collect my car that had been lent to Sarah.

Wythenshawe Park

Simon's Bridge - look carefully and you'll see that the Mersey was quite full

A typical view in Fletcher Moss Park

4 December

A Christmas Dinner menu at the Aspire restaurant, with Paul and Jeanette.

We always start with a cocktail here, then we share a bottle of wine

Click on the image to see it properly
In addition to the above, the £25 meal includes bread on arrival
and coffee and chocolates after the dessert

The salmon starter featured a huge portion of smoked salmon

Pan fried seabass fillet (mine - delicious)

Roast rump of lamb - others enjoyed a large and very tasty portion of lamb

Chocolate Macaron

Lemon scented creme brulee

Raspberry Frangipane tart

5 December

Back to De Quincey Park.

A visit to Wythenshawe Park's courtyard tearoom saw me meeting up with Fechin and Keith, two of the other 'Oldies' who try to meet up every month. Much of the hour was spent reminiscing about my backpacking in the Pyrenees. Happy Days.

6 December

En route to Sue's family Christmas meal in Hinckley, a rendezvous with Mick and Gayle at Sence Valley Forest Park parkrun. Sue and Mick had a chatty 5km run in under 33 minutes, and Gayle and I did the same in under 40 minutes. Here we are at the start.

It was great to catch up, and enjoy the pleasant woodland through which the undulating run passes.

The full results are here.

7 December

The Tatton Yule Yomp, which for a change wasn't cancelled! Sue and I were joined by Paul, Greg and Jan. Sue's number was concealed, so there are no official photos of her, but here are four of us near the start.

I stayed back to start slowly, and when the others moved forward they found Jan, another parkrunner friend.

I took a few pictures before and shortly after the start (before everyone got too far ahead)

The official pictures (download for free) show four of us at the finish.

Martin

Jan

Greg (6291) [No comment!]

Grandad Paul, the Elf

Jeanette had kindly stayed at home and supplied post race coffee and bacon butties.

Here are our results. We were lucky in that the rain stayed away. The others did really well but I took it very gently, as is my wont these days. It's good just to take part, and I was happy to speed up to a 1 hour pace at the end.

A quick turnaround at home was followed by a visit to Sale Conservative Club to enjoy a Christmas themed performance by Hootin' Annies Big Band, where my son Mike is the current guitarist. He seems to have been promoted to a place where we can see him, his usual place having been usurped by a Christmas tree.

Dave is a resident vocalist, and he did well. A lady called Jo also performed excellently, and the two of them sang a lovely duet. 

And that just about brings the diary up to date.

Rosliston parkrun #331, and the Tatton Yule Yomp

On a trip to a family lunch in Hinkley, Sue and I stopped off on Saturday morning at Rosliston to take part in their 331st parkrun. The rain that had accompanied us all morning persisted as we jogged around the course. There were some deep puddles.

I was 88th out of 105 finishers. The marshals at the finish had a long wait for some of those finishing after me...

Full results are here. We were slow, but despite that I came first in my age category, and Sue was second female (out of 35).

Mick and Gayle, TGO Challenge stalwarts who live nearby, were at the finish to greet us, and spend a quality hour of catching up in the adjoining cafe. Great coffee and cake - thank you Mick.

As you can see, it was a day of full waterproofs - not the most appropriate clothing for a fast run!

The 5km route is somewhat convoluted. We kept coming across familiar looking marshals from different directions. Not to mention the familiar water features.

Sunday morning: drive through heavy rain to Knutsford for the Tatton Yule Yomp that was cancelled last year due to icy conditions. It was raining, mostly lightly, for this 10km cross country yomp.

Jan joined us at the start, and I won a dog in a raffle.

Fancy dress was the order of the day. 

I left my fancy dress at home as it gets very heavy in rain and I find 10km quite hard anyway these days. There were over 1800 entries, of whom 1141 turned up and finished. Here we are at the start.

I started at the back and took it easy as we jogged along in slippery grass and mud beside the lake.

I while later, the runners got very spread out. I chatted with Ian Blakebrough for a while. He's a Hash House Harrier so I thought he might know our friend JJ. But he didn't. We passed a very jolly marshal, resting happily on her prosthetic legs.

A rather cumbersome Christmas cracker was outpacing me at this point, but I'm told by Louise (Practice Manager at my dentists) that they had the misfortune of falling over in a swamp a bit further on. All, including Louise, were apparently traumatised by the whole experience and will stick to road events in the future!

Here's the swamp...

Just 2km to the finish, and my quickest kilometre of the event.

Sue was nearly half an hour ahead of me.

We were joined by Alister Pooler in the cafe, as well as Jan and his friends who kindly adopted my newly acquired dog.

Jan had been rather careless on the way around. His knee was dripping, but at least he didn't damage any trousers. 

The following screen dumps show our results, which are also here, and the route. Note that the figure of 1832 participants is misleading, as only 1141 of them actually took part and finished.

Great fun! (But not for Louise!)

Nice medal...