I got an email from Chris showing pictures of some amazing northern lights taken only a few miles form home. I was pissed!!!! I have signed up to about 4 websites that are suppose to email you when there should be some activity in the atmosphere, and I had received nothing! It has always been one of my life ambitions to see the aurora borealis, and to be able to see it so close to home was too good to miss. I spent the next hour or so going to all the forecast sites I know and it was forecasted for more activity that evening and the sky was suppose to be clear.

I arranged with Chris Fryer to go to Clachnaben that night,  a local hill that I thought should be clear enough of Aberdeen’s light pollution.  We set off around 10pm with our cameras and loads of warm clothing. We got to the top after about and hour and to amuse ourselves we took pictures of star trails etc. We both excitedly scanned the sky pretty frequently. After about two hours of being up there I looked up and the cloud was doing strange things. I looked again and it was not cloud!!!!!! It was the northern lights!!!!!!! Not the bright greens you normally see, but more greyish green.

I was mid way taking a star trail, so the camera was quickly snatched from that and I tried to take a picture of it – not the most succesful attempt but you can get an idea.  The lights danced and flickered above our selves as chris andIi watched, was very cool indeed.  It wasn’t a massive show but it was still amazing to see and wetted the appetite for more!

After it disappeared back to star trails.  The pic above chris was very decent and decided to walk down the path with his head torch on…….  again you can see some green in it ( aurora borealis), this was not visible to the human eye, the shutter speed here is about 7 minutes. 

We then sat down for a bit in sleeping bags for warmth and watched the sky hoping for more, it started to cloud over and at 2:30am we called it a night and wondered down back to the cars – home – and bed by 4.  Was a long day at work the next day!

So poor Lara is now full term as of last Friday. (37 weeks) the baby is due on the 29th but it is able to be born any time from now!  Oh sh*t!!!!!!

Lara is praying for the baby to come and join us in the outside world ASAP!  She is now pretty much over this being pregnant malarkey and is look forward to playing mummy.

We took thess picture last Wednesday and she has a bump diameter of 39″ (as seen below)

Tonight we remeasured as I swear she looked bigger, and she is 40″!!!!!  So an inch in 5 days.  I think Lara is now super desperate to get the baby out before it grows to very painful proportions!

Will keep you all updated, but my forecast is the 23rd of January and 7lbs 8onzs and obviously male.  Email me your guestimates and we will see who is closest!

Must fly, as I have to go cook Lara a hot curry and chop up a pineapple!

With ‘Mini M’ fast approaching, Lara is too far gone through her pregnancy to be able to fly.  So this meant that everyone came up to us!  This was out first family Xmas in our house.  Probably as we never had a house big enough to fit the family in.

We had Frank, Caryn, Tallie and Chester up.  New years eve was spent with some more friends Euan, Lainie and Rich coming around, we played a few games of articulate with boys versus girls, we found that the girls were far more articulate than us,  even with our powers of cheating the blokes could still not win!  We also did the old wife’s tale of the gold ring and a piece of string dangled over Lara’s head then the bump.  Well I can tell you that this test does nto work, it showed us that it was going to be a girl….. and we all know it is going to be a boy!  So anyone out there who is thinking about trying to determine their baby’s gender don’t bother with this technique.

Xmas day came, and I thought that I was a child again as I was up at silly oclock to go for my xmas morning bike ride before everyone else go up.  Chester and Rich came along as well.  There is still loads of snow at the moment so it was quite fun and a unique bike ride for a xmas morning.  It was -8 and for some reason lovely. It was only a short ride around the woods behind out our house for a few laps to make sure we got home before everyone else stirred.  We started off in darkness and the sun rose as we went around.  We nearly had to stop and hold hands at one point.  Below is Chester ‘enduring’.

When we got home no one was up yet……  I think this could have something to do with the previous nights over endulgance!  Lara was up first and we set about getting the turkey in the oven.  Lara had great fun getting the stuffing up the poor turkey!  She was not gentle.

Then came the various others coming down in assorted xmas gear…..

I felt under dressed in my traditional Xmas day shorts.  We soon all had breakfast and set about the presents.  I got a great presents this year, thank you all for your generous gifts.  But I think Lara was the clear winner this year!  Just look at it all!!!!!

Then we started drinking and it all got a bit fuzzy.  What I do know was it was as always a great day and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  I love xmas and look forward to the next one already!

The day finally came around after entering this race 8 weeks ago.  Since entering my training plan has never really gone to plan, in fact it has never really gone at all.  I have been plagued by injury, illness and hangovers that have all stopped me from doing what I should have in preparation for this race.

Lining up on the start line all three of us (Emma, Frank and I) all shared the same “what the hell are we doing here” expression.  Nothing we could do but wait for the whistle and get on with it.

This is nothing like any of the bigger half marathons / marathons you see with thousands of folk running, this is a fairy low key event.  A small field of 200 runners, later we find out that this is seen as one of the hardest halves in the country due to it being so hilly……. great!

The running itself for the first half was fine, just steady away, try and keep your mind occupied and away from thinking about small pains and aches starting to appear.  That I think is the biggest difference of this race to any other I have down.   Running is automatic, especially on road.  there is no real thought behind it you just do it.  With cycling there is always something to think about, corrections, changes so the mind is kept busy, where as here, I felt myself having to try and think of things to take the focus of the inner demons telling you “it hurts” “I think i can feel a blister forming” “energy is low” etc.

Thankfully the scenery was great, we were surrounded by snow capped mountains and a good bit of my time was spent just admiring the view.

The first 10km came and went pretty quick, the next 3km after that even faster, but after that each km felt like it needed to be earned, I spent more time checking my GPS for how far I had gone, each time disappointed with how slow my progress was.

The last 3km was hard, but in the same time, the closer I got to the finish, the better I felt, not physically, but mentally.  It was like a count down to the end of the constant sound of my heavy breathing, achy legs and pounding of my shoes on the tarmac.  This feeling it was soon to be over kept me going.

I had always in my mind thought of a sprint finish, in reality – forget it!

The feeling of finishing was fantastic.  2:07:08.  Which I was happy with, it is not fast in comparison to most but for my first go with very little training and hilly course I am happy with it.  Frank did a fantastic job with 1:54 and Emma was an utter hero with 2:13 (she had done even less training than me and had never run more than 12km before, a bloody good effort on her behalf).  Below is the three of us at the finish line.

This race has confirmed that I have no desire to runa  marathon, this was long enough for me, i found the road running a little boring, not involved if get where I am coming from.  Think next running challenge will be some form of off road run?  TBC

A stark realisation has hit me recently.  A life changing event, a massive responsibility and as everyone say the best thing you will ever do.  Lara and I are going to become parents.  Lara is now 29 weeks pregnant and is really starting to show it.

This was taken last night.  So from going from hardly being able to tell she is pregnant a month ago to this is quite a step!  Lara is very good spirited and is happy and keeps smiling, but I can tell she is a bit bored of being tired and restricted on what she can do.  I think she looks awesome (there is the bit where I get brownie points)

All the normal parent stuff is starting with us, the bits we need to go out and buy, booking nurseries and kissing good buy to a large chunk of our spare time.  But as everyone says it will be worth it.  I think I am going a bit mental as I find myself talking to the bump about the correct tyre choice for conditions and lecturing it on snow pack analysis.

We talk alot about how we want to raise the child, what we do and don’t want to do with him / her (we don’t know what sex it is yet).  I mainly look at baby bikes and try and work out how soon till i can teach them to bike!

I saw this picture and it made me smile, I wonder if this is how I will be with my child????!!!!!???????

Don’t ask me why but I decided to give surfing a bit more effort.  I love the idea of getting in water and catching a ride with mother nature.  The only problem I have is that mother nature usually throws me off and tumbles me pretty hard into the sea bed and then dumps another wave on top of me just as I surface.  But the good thing about starting a new sport is that you can only get better! 

This is Aberdeen beach last Sunday morning,  Pretty nice huh.  It  was a beautiful morning.  Chris, Vic, Martin and I all squeezed into our rubber suits and went in.  I know you are all thinking it is mad going surfing in the north sea in November, but honestly, it really isn’t that cold if you have a decent wet suit on.

Obviously I got no pictures of us actually surfing, but I am tempted to get a waterproof casing or new water proof camera…. watch this space.  Hang ten dudes.

More running!  Seem to be doing a lot of it, the more I do the more Ienjoy it.  Still not fast, but it is getting less painful.

Must remember to get out on my bike though!

Dad has always talked about wanting to walk the Pennine way, with him retiring this year it has given him the time to do it.  So I thought it would be a great thing to do together as I would not mind doing this as well.  In total it is 450 odd kms.  Far to much to do one a oner.  We decided to break it down smaller chunks to do at different weekends over the next year or so.

So here we are at the start of the trail in Edale in the Peak District out side the Nag’s Head.  Dad and I about to set off.  The forecast was pretty grim, wind and rain all day.  But we are walking so shouldn’t be too bad!  so off we went.

I have not really been to the Peak District since my uni days when Mr Raven and I used to come up here alot to bike, and I used to come up to climb with Raymond, so was great to see some of the old places and it certainly brought back some great memories of days we had up there.

We set off down the Vale of Edale and up Jacobs Ladder to Kinder Scout and to Kinder Low(633m)  this is the highest hill in the peak district so nothing like breaking the old boy in gently!  Dad actually did fine, after he stopped his interval walking (sprint then stop for a puff and set off sprinting again)  he got into a rhythm and had no issues.

The weather forecast had it correct, but did not quite get the extent right.  When it said rain – it was understating it.  A more accurate description would have been biblical “quick all animals in pairs to the big boat” rain.  With the rain was also 50mph winds.  It was not pleasant but it was bearable.  Above is just before Kinder Downfall, a strange waterfall which was going uphill due to the wind blowing the water up!

Soon dads boots started to pack in the notion that they are water proof and dad started a comical noise of  ‘sloshing’  every foot step he took as his boots had puddles in them!  we got just over half way and were faced with a choice. up and over Bleaklow which is another high exposed couple of hours or retreat down the William Clough gully to Hayfield.

We decided that we actually were not having a great deal of fun and this was suppose to be done for pleasure and it was not really ticking those boxes.  We didn’t have any views all day and were drenched.  On the OS map Hayfield had a pub on it…. easy choice really.  We did just under 20km of the trail and was a good day and taught us a few things

We will be back next spring to carry on the trial.  We know dad needs new boots and there is a mean curry house in Glossop!

The rest of the Photos can be seen if you CLICK HERE