The ups and downs

Sorry. Not Sorry…

…I took a whole load of other beach pics while on holiday in Norfolk last week which I shall now bore you with briefly and then I would like to tell you about Child 1’s dramatic tennis tournament victory and Child 2’s first junior parkrun.

But first those pics…

   
   
Hey, it isn’t just all sunrises, you know! Oh no, no, not at all… there were sunsets too… 

  
  

…but, mostly, to be honest, it was indeed frosty, sandy beaches and sunrises/nuclear explosions in the distance while I ran serenely by (after setting the camera on timer and sprinting away like Billy-o first)

    

 

Moving on from the beach… I said I’d like to tell you about my son’s tennis victories… well I would like to…but I can’t… because unforunately he lost three of his four games and was a bit disappointed in himself, bless him. To be honest, he wasn’t playing his best at all so the results were fair, but I’ll tell you what else, he lost far better than I have seen him lose before. Even when he lost agsinst a lad half his size (after being a set to the good up and having three match points in the second) he shook the lad’s hand and gave him an Andy Murray style bloke-hug as they walked off court. He saved the tears for us later.

Child 2 was all up for completing a junior parkrun while we were away so, having been organised for once in my life and having registered and pre-printed her barcode before we left home, we headed to Norwich.

She was excited.
Too excited.
Is it possible for a five year old to be too excited?
Yes it is.
She was too excited.

By the time the 2km junior parkrun started, she and her brother had probably run that distance already, chasing each other around the courtyard! Child 1 for some reason did not want to run the parkrun, though (probably because he was tired out!) so became 50% of the family cheering squad.

We ran. We walked. We ran. We talked. We saw a volunteer and sprinted. We stopped. We walked. We saw mummy. We ran. We walked… you get the idea… and we finished! Yay!

And she is instantly a ‘proper runner’ too because when mummy asked her if she wanted to do another, she replied, “Never again!” …but we all know what that means, don’t we, folks?

  
In other news…

My parents currently live in Devon, but not for long. They have been trying for a while to sell up, downsize, and move to be a little closer to me (Nottinghamish), my brother (Cambridgeish), and our families. They’ve recently had an offer and all parties want it to happen within a month!

I love visiting Devon and the house is the one I literally grew up in. I’m not sure that I’m ‘grown up’, however but nonetheless I have very fond memories of my childhood there and I will be sad to leave it now (even though I left it really when I went to University). Any sadness is outweighed by the fact that we will see far more of my parents, who will be less than two hours drive away rather than over four hours currently.

I have come to help mum and dad sort stuff out, break stuff up, take stuff to the tip/dump this weekend which has also been good because on the way I’ve been able to visit an old school friend and his newly born child, and it also means I can run the killer – Parke parkrun (which will clearly be very muddy and I’ll never make it up that steep first hill if I don’t right away buy some decent new trail shoes immediately, right guys?!*).

It’s also good to be here with my folks because my dad’s mother, a thoroughly independant, self-sufficient 90+ year old, had a stroke a few days ago. It is serious and will be life-changing but she seems to be out of immediate danger. Family are really supportive and are taking it in turns to be a physical presence with her. My Granny is an amazingly strong woman and we’ll have to see how that impacts on her recovery over the coming weeks/months.

So without the excuse of visiting my parents here, this might be my last Devon trip for a while 😦

To make the most of it, I got up early yesterday and went for a 5 mile run up another huge hill (there are lots of those in Devon!) to this forest…

  

So… yeah… it’s all quite up and down at the moment.

I have the literal trail shoes
(* yes, I did need to right away buy some decent new trail shoes immediately )…

Let’s hope I have the metaphorical ones too.