A FIRST for team STIX & STONES

It’s official…

As a challenge to get me fit again after injuries (ankle, back, and recently cellulitis in the elbow – yay me!), me and my physical trainer cousin Wendy are going to be taking part in the Grim Challenge at the very end of November.

The Woo: Tougher than the Grim Challenge itself.

The Return of the Black: What doesn’t kill me better be able to outrun me…

Dirt, rocky roads, gravel, mud, man made mounds, obstacles, water holes, more mud, more hills, ditches, more muddy wet holes… 8 miles of tough challenge. She’s not used to the Nordic style which I really enjoy, and I’m not used to straight running… Hopefully we’ll learn the right things from each other…

We’re doing it for Cancer Research UK, and just to make it interesting we thought we’d attempt to do it using Nordic X-country poles.

Like it wasn’t going to be tough enough in the first place…

The thing is, the Grim is technically a run, although some folk do end up walking as it is a very tough course. We didn’t know if actually starting out ‘walking‘ was going to be a problem (albeit Nordic Walking, which is a different ball park to hiking or normal walking – especially how I do it…).

The organiser is not in favour of people who turn up just to walk the route… but in the organiser’s own words when I suggested about us using Nordic X-Country poles: “… I know all about Nordic walking and suspect you guys are not the strolling type!”

Team Stix & Stones.

Our TEAM PAGE is STIX & STONES – (Stix due to the poles and x-country, and stones, because it’s both off-road, and you need figuratively two of them to do the challenge…). Please visit it to make donations.

It turns out that we are officially the first people to attempt the Grim Challenge using the Nordic method. I wonder why?

Course (taken from the Grim web page):

This land is used to test Army vehicles so expect it to be interesting!

You will reach a long hill shortly after the start before descending again eventually reaching a water filled ravine.

You will run on over puddle-strewn paths before having to crawl under camouflage netting.

You’ll eventually reach some man-made mounds before arriving at and running through some rather large puddles.

Expect to get very wet!

You’ll run on to the fast vehicle driving circuit where it is rocky underfoot.

This brings you to some more large areas of water and the finish area.

Sounds delightful!

Goodwood Breakfast Club November 2011…

Goodwood Breakfast Club November 2011… Mostly 4×4 trucks, sports, classics… & our Landy. PHOTOS HERE.

This was our Series Land Rover’s first time on the Goodwood Circuit for all to see…. and old Frank got a lot of interest. I was surprised at how many people stopped to look over the 1977 88″ Landy, and how many questions people had.

It made our day that ‘he‘ had so much attention and praise… and many photo’s taken!

A quick review…

Right…by popular demand here is a run down of the last few months…well…yearish…
I had a plan. Chris and I wanted kids, and I wanted that to happen away from Portsmouth. I wanted to move to my home town area (Fleet/Farnborough), as it has better schools, hospitals and general environment (like TREES and OPEN SPACE!!!!).

The plan was that we move to Farnborough, I carry on working in Portsmouth (travel daily) until I get a job up in Farnborough area. Once we were settled, we would try for a baby.

What happened was this: Whilst still living in Portsmouth I was doing some work for my then employer at Southampton Airport. An aircraft had some propeller damage and I was sent to assess it. I got chatting with the guy who was there with the aeroplane and mentioned my plan. He said his company was hiring, and mentioned that another company (based on Farnborough Airport) was also hiring. I arranged an interview at the Farnborough company. 1 month late and I was working on Farnborough Airport (working on Air Ambulance aircraft and Executive light aircraft).

Right…so the plan was working, but a little bit out of order, but hey…living in Portsmouth and traveling to Farnborough would just be like living in Farnborough and traveling to Portsmouth. It wouldn’t be for long anyway….we’d have a house soon, and then start the family.

After 3 months I had passed my probation period, so put our house on the market, as the job was now solid. After getting some interest in our house we started trying for a family. It only takes a few months to buy and sell a house, so there was no issue with timing.

Some light hearted inflight entertainment to take the edge off of this blog post. One of my early photoshops.

BEALES estate agents and Country Wide Property solicitors….LEAVE WELL ALONE….The house move was taking far too long…we lost the first house we wanted to move into back in November as our chain was taking too long. Back in November we were told…TWO WEEKS AND YOU’LL BE IN. It took so long that we lost that first house. Luckily we found a second one within a week. REMEMBER, they said it would only take a couple of weeks to sort everything out, well it is now March….we don’t have a clue as to what is going on.

We were told in January that we would complete the sale on the end of the week. As such, I bought new beds and furniture to be delivered to our new house for mid January. I also bought a futon for the spare room, which I took straight away, as we would use this for few days until the move.

Nearer to the move date I cut up the old bed and gave my brother in law the furniture (still no thanks there, but that’s another story). Directly after cutting the bed up I received a phone call…The move was off. Lies down the chain. The move was pushed on a few days…then a week…then weeks. We have now had to re-advertise the house as Chris is now 33 weeks pregnant, and we still have no idea of a move date. Worse still, since Jan, we have been sleeping on nothing but a small futon, living in a house of boxes.

Other news….It looks as if baby was conceived on the Bisley weekend where we both won trophies for our shooting. A good weekend all round then!!!

Now I find myself still in Portsmouth, sleeping on a rock hard futon with my 33 week pregnant wife. I drive on average 3 hours a day, spending over £300 per month on things I wouldn’t need if we had moved already (Fuel, storage bills etc). Chris is tired because of the pregnancy, and I am tired due to the hours I work and the commute. We wake at 5am to feed the pets, eat breakfast and get me out of the door for a 7am start in Farnborough. I get home (on a good day) at around 7pm…so we don’t get to spend a lot of time together awake.