Tag Archives: Sun

At my parents

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Here is Todd. Todd is a dog. See Todd run, run Todd, run!

From Random

Except earlier on today Todd couldn’t run in the sun, he had to wait, which was no fun. No fun at all. He was stuck in the kitchen with nothing to do.

OK, enough of that before it turns into a warped version of The Cat in the Hat ;)

I’d been asked by my parents, who are off in Spain at the moment being rained on (the rain in Spain falls mainly on the tourists), to look after the dog for two days while my sister was at work doing long shifts. They’d agreed to leave me a key so I could get in. This suited me, I needed to visit Steve, who I used to work with and he lives down the road from my parents. So off I set.

I arrived at my parents and obtained the key. Then things went a bit pear-shaped as I discovered the back door was bolted from the inside, and I only had a back door key. Oh dear. The irony of this situation was not lost on me – here I was on the wrong side of a locked back door contemplating whether I could break in – not to steal laptops and Xbox 360s but to let out a by now rather wound up dog.

I texted my parents to let them know I was at home, but locked out. I also texted my sister asking where she worked so I could call her a moron in person, and maybe get the front door key. Making it fully clear that any dog mess found in the house was her problem to deal with.

She rang me back and gave me directions. We’ll skip the driving to her work and collecting the key, it was as boring as it sounds and contained no interesting drama. I came home and let myself in.

Wanting to get off to Steve’s to do some important stuff I let the dog out so it could have a crap. Only it wasn’t interested, and after five minutes of being prompted to go and pee, I put it back in the kitchen and said I’d be back later.

Off I went to Steve’s, I showed off my Macbook and we did some work. It got dark and I came home about six pm. It’s quite fun walking a black dog in the dark, it wanders off and waits for you to catch up. If you’re not paying attention it’ll remind you by nipping at your kneecaps.

I will take it out for a proper walk tomorrow to make up for being stuffed in the kitchen all day.

Writeup of my holiday in Spain is complete

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As some of you might remember, I went on holiday to my parents’ apartment in Spain during the beginning of August (which doesn’t feel like a month ago!) and have just finished collecting the diary entries and photos that I took. Follow the link below to begin reading. It has been split into several pages, one per day with a few pictures in each. I’ve done it as pages, rather than diary entries so that it doesn’t get lost.

Last year my parents bought an apartment outside Orihuela in Spain. It’s now finished and they have been going out to it every few months, bringing back photos. During the summer I also went out there for just over two weeks with my dad to see what it was like. We also went into the Sierra Nevada mountains to do some walking. In keeping with the last time I went to Spain – when I was about six – I wrote a diary and took some photos.

Spain 2007

It's holiday time

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Tomorrow, at around 4pm I will be sat on a plane heading towards Spain. This will be the first proper holiday I’ve had for about six years. During my 16 days of sunshine absorbtion me and my dad are off walking for five days, there will be some swimming in the sea and general holiday stuff.

When I return I’ll upload some photos.

Crinkle Crags in the sun

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Last weekend I went to the Lake District with my dad. We stayed at the rather nice Langdale Youth Hostel where I discovered my camera’s batteries hadn’t charged; I managed to get about three pictures before they died. The Post Office just down the road sold non-rechargeables and I’m going to get my money’s worth out of them.

On Saturday we went up The Band and along Crinkle Crags. The last time I did this we got to see a helicopter rescue, but this time the only things in the sky were flies and gliders circling in the thermals. It was very warm and the walk up The Band wasn’t so pleasant, neither was the walk back down from Red Tarn. The scrambling over Crinkle Crags was fun though but I can’t work out why I find it so tiring to walk up and down a hill, but scrambling and climbing about on bits of rock isn’t a problem.

Hemel

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This was the week when our largest single group came to visit. Hemel Hempstead School send 120 of their year 9′s to us for a week of activities. Fifteen groups of eight children plus six teachers. The place becomes rather full and noisy.

Like last year though, it went well. I had two full day mountain walks and this time I actually went on a proper mountain walk with the first group – over Cat Bells towards Dale Head Tarn and back down the valley. Nobody moaned about the walk. The other activities went equally well. I had three mountain bike sessions and the only eventful things that happened was that someone got the beginnings of heatstroke so we came back, then on another ride neither me nor my group could be bothered cycling in the baking midday sun so we went to the bottom of our ghyll and paddled in the water for half an hour.

I could do that all the time if it wasn’t for the evening activities that don’t finish until nine PM, or for the way there’s not a minute’s peace and quiet. By the end of the week my tolerance for shouting children was completely non existant.

Oh, and one evening when I wasn’t on duty I got woken up by the person who was on duty because our chef had fallen down the stairs and cut himself on a picture frame. He was in a right mess, lying in a drunken heap with blood all over his face. Took me a while to work out where it was all coming from, eventually I found a few cuts under his chin and tried my best to stick them closed. A tricky task made even harder by having to stop while he spewed into a bucket.

The next morning was funny, he said he’d woken up covered in dry blood with a sore chin and couldn’t work out why. It wasn’t until I filled him in that he managed to work it out :-) His chin was better looking and I replaced the dressing with something that would actually hold the wounds together. He’ll have a few scars but nothing too severe. An interesting way to celebrate his 26th Birthday.