Marathon Man

Image courtesy Marathon-Photos.com

Today I ran my first half marathon. The months of training around the streets of Westleigh must have paid off, as it didn't seem nearly as arduous as I thought it might.

It was another fabulous blue sky Sydney day, and most of the 8400 runners had the time of their lives. Some of them collapsed and got taken away by ambulances, so they probably didn't, come to think of it.

This was a much more serious event than the City to Surf though, with no gorillas, dogs, babies in pushchairs or belly dancers. A sole lap dancer lured a few to an unplanned delay, but most of us resisted her charms and just kept on running. My half marathon time was about that achieved by serious full marathon runners when they run their particular race, so I was well satisfied with myself.

Fenella was on photography duties, and kept an eye out for our fellow bushwalker Alison. There was a bit of a contest on between Alison and me. Mere slip of a girl, I'd thrashed her by a full five minutes in last year's City to Surf! She'd gone on to hire a personal trainer though. For months now the tension has been rising. Surely I had nothing to fear. We fed each other misleading bulletins about our training progress, as you do. A lot was at stake.

I didn't set eyes on her at all, and was feeling rather confident. That was until Fenella reported to me that she'd seen Alison racing up Art Gallery Road about three minutes ahead of me! There was still hope. It takes several minutes to get everyone started after the gun sounds, and the corrected time adjusts for this. I'd started 4 minutes back, so I was still in contention. But no, today's paper confirmed that she beat me by 40 seconds! I've challenged her to a full marathon next time.

N

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day was celebrated in traditional Walter family style: with gifts of flowers and of pictures of daughters changing the toilet paper!

N

The Story of India

We've been enjoying very much the British TV production The Story of India for the last few weeks, and our house guest, Yvonne, is very much part of that story.

Yvonne is of Anglo-Indian heritage, and as well as British doctors, lawyers and engineers, her ancestry goes right back to Indian royalty. Her great great great great grandfather may well have been the Nawab of Oudh, central figure in the Great Indian Mutiny of 1857.

There again, that's only the family mythology, and only one version of it. It hasn't been standing up all that well to the cold light of the research that Fenella and others have been doing on the internet recently. "We don't really know which nawab we are descended from - we've seen reference to our great great great grandmother being a 'noble woman from Cochin' whose father was a Muslim Christian convert", she said, "and a German missionary seems to have had a major role as well".

So who knows. Whatever the true story, we hope to have a good time and shed a little more light on it all when we visit India ourselves early next year.

N

Sold up and Sydney bound!

Mum has finally sold her Brisbane home after what seemed like an eternity. Following several failed negotiations and a nail-biting 'contract crash', a new buyer quickly emerged and all was well.

Mum is now in Sydney hoping to find a place quickly so that she can return to Brisbane, pack up and leave within the settlement period of 45 days. This is going to be an exciting ride, but if anyone can manage it, Mum can.

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Bushwalking the Bushland Shire

Hornsby (our local Government area) proudly uses the slogan The Bushland Shire. And the bushwalking opportunities are indeed considerable. You can stroll out of Hornsby station, and spend the day happily exploring a host of really nice bush tracks.

Last Sunday I took the bushwalkers on the route I mapped out in December, to the Fishponds, Tunks Ridge, a lookout over Galston Gorge, and then back along the Great North Walk and up the big steep steps to Hornsby again. It all worked out well. The rain held off, and the new member and the visitor seemed to have a good time and fitted in well.

Highlights included (a) dodging the bullets from the rifle range above (not really - I think they'd have a hard time hitting us even if they tried), (b) proving that you can walk in no time from Hornsby to Dural if you take the short cut through the bush, and (c) crossing the historic Steele Bridge Over The River Berowra. Must check out what's so historic about it. We also passed Old Man's Valley, site of one of the world's early radio astronomy research field stations.

N

Bin 2009

Yesterday we went on a little wine tasting bike ride expedition with the bushwalkers in the Hunter Valley. Tasted lots of rather fine drops, managed to stay on the bikes, but as usual promptly forgot which ones were which and therefore which ones to buy. On a completely unrelated topic though, I want to tell you about our own latest fermentations.

It'll be quite a vintage, the 2009 compost harvest, by the looks of this fabulous new compost bin. Borrowing from the age old intuitive skills of traditional Kushan Empire boat builders, I crafted it entirely without sketches or design calculations, and it looks all set to sail the Arabian Sea.

Or at least all set to treble our composting capacity. No need now to stuff all the garden waste into the green council bins for their compost heap. It's good too, to have a warm steamy pile to stick your arm into in winter, like Peter Cundall would. The plants are going to love it too, and I can even feel a herb and/or small vegie garden coming on....

N

(Fenella says I must have come across some very special spices on my voyage!)

Trash and treasure

There's something irresistible about foraging in second-hand shops, and in our neck of the woods we're a bit spoilt for choice. My favourites are Michelle's Vintage at Hornsby, the Curiosity Shop at Waitara and the Salvo Stores at Westleigh. It's easy to pick up a bit of trash and with a bit of work, turn it into a piece of treasure. Nick is usually sceptical about my acquisitions but these days makes all the right noises of approval when he sees the end result. This particular table was picked up at Michelle's Vintage, which also offers my other favourite indulgence - coffee.

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