Currently up in Northern WA for work, have brought my shoes, hopefully won’t get lost……

Not sure where the time has gone but Squeaker has turned three!  The good thing about living here in Perth is that you just go to the local park and have the party there.  Lara did a great job making the cake, jelly and sausage rolls.  We decided that it would be too hard to keep ice cream solid so missed it out all together.  It was a lovely afternoon filled with trying to herd 3 year olds, something that can only be a likened to herding cats.

I simply cannot believe that it is over already… On Tuesday the 17th Ellis and I were driven by Dave to Marseille airport to begin the journey to Australia.

We landed in Stanstead where Sue very kindly collected us.  Dave arrived to Stoke-Holy-Cross the following evening in Gruber with all our Gaply belongings.  A very good job driving in one day (and there was still some Redbull left in the van!).

Ellis made biscuits with Granny “Sniff” and did puzzles with Grandpops and baked a lovely cake for Great Grandpa Bill.  Unfortunately, although everyone else enjoyed the Lemon Drizzle Cake, Ellis still prefers a Victoria Sponge!

On Thursday Dave headed off to Peterborough to renew his now expired passport… well it expired a few days before he left France to be precise.  Despite the expired passport he managed to persuade customs in Calais that he was not an Eastern European immigrant and was granted access.

While Dave was sorting out his passport Ellis and I headed over to Surrey to visit Nanny Caryn, Grumpsy and of course Rommel!  We celebrated being back in the UK with a lovely dinner in the White Hart where Ellis enjoyed showing the other diners her tummy.

On Friday we headed to Peppa Pig World.  Finally!  It was certainly worth the 2 hours to get there and back.  Ellis had a fabulous time on Windy Castle and all the other rides!  Dinosaurs, helicopters, cars and trains!  She even got to talk to Peppa and George and stroke them in their furry extra large forms.  Photos to follow!

On Sunday Ellis went to the Children’s club at Mum’s church which she loved! We had a pre-existing engagement to visit Louise and her brood so I had to drag her away early.  She was not impressed but once she realised that she had more children to play with she was beyond happy again!  We had a lovely time at the Ross Clan’s house – thank you for a lovely lunch, playtime and the fabulous catch up.  Their newest edition, one very cute Jasper, was a delight to cuddle!

Next stop: Cosford for some time with Aunty Natalie!

We knew of a place that the marmottes where suppose to be pretty used to humans and decidedto take a walk up there with Ellis to try and show her the wonders of the animal kingdom that are Marmottes.

When we got to the area which we heard was popular we were not disappointed.  A local friend gave us a tip that they love carrots and they were not wrong.

After waving carrots at a few, a couple of them found their balls and came and said hello and were rewarded with a share in a bag of the carrots we had lugged up with us.

I have to admit, they are very cool animals.  I tried to give this one a hi5 after we had shared a carrot together but he left me hanging……

Ellis was a little scared of them at first but after having a brief chat with one she decided she liked them and then just sat there smiling at them and throwing carrots to them.

More clicks are in the gallery by clicking here

Lara wanted a target to aim for and three months ago she decided a half marathon was a good challenge.  I had done the Glen Clova half 2 years previously and she decided it was a good one to as it was in a pretty place and not being the competitive type, meant she could race against my time exactly at the same place so I had no excuse if she was faster.  Rich being the good bloke he is decided he would be stupid enough to keep Lara company on the challenge.

It was a cold morning, and the nerves were high.  Lara worked herself up into a tither and spent most of the morning making fast trips to the toilet with a ‘nervous tummy’  The race was set to start at 11, it soon came about, no more procrastinating – time to put your money where your mouth is!  Off they went with the 300 other runners.

Glen Clova is a hard course, Lara had it in her head that she was aiming for a 1hr 45min finish time.  This is pretty fast for your first 1/2, let alone your first half on this course!  Well, she was off and Ellis and I had some time to kill,  we went for a walk up to Loch Brandy on the north side of valley.

She was really good, we sang songs all the way up.  Lorraine was with us to give moral support to Lara and Rich and administer any first aid required at the end.

Ellis not sure about this way to go, so she decided it was back down.  The Valley below is where the race was being fought out.  We decided we would go back down for about 1hr 20 to make sure we caught them and get a bit of the race atmosphere.  We lined the finish line and clapped on the truly talented fast runner ( first place was 1hr 14min!!) we were checking our watches thinking we had quite a while to go until Lara arrived, in the distance I saw what looked liked to be Lara, I checked my watch and it was 1hr 37mins, wholly cow the women was flying!!!!!

By the time she crossed the line she had finished in 1hr 39mins!  She had run a stormer and I was carrying serious egg on my face as she utterly smashed my time from two years ago.  I think I will just have to be a man and admit it, my wife is a better runner than me.  There, I said it.  ( kinda hurt).  She wasn’t too burst either, she went through her race with us and she said she thoroughly enjoyed it and wants more!!!! Oh I think we have created a monster!

Rich Finished in a very respectable 1hr45min taking 8 minutes of his previous PB, so another great effort on the day.

Well done to you both!

With Ben over from OZ it was a great excuse to go and get up into the big hills again, he doesn’t have many big hills in Perth so figured he would love to get back to some good old fashioned big mountain riding.

The plan was to set off from Loch Muick with the girls, ride to the end and then we would separate and go on our own ways.

We turned North by Glas-Alt-Sheil and headed up the steep path to the water fall. Most of this path for half an hour was pushing or carrying the bike.  Pretty hard work but the sun and the scenery made the time pass quickly.

Once at the waterfall, we stopped, dunked our heads in and topped up our water levels, it was a hot day, amazingly hot for March, this time last year we were skiing in deep snow.  There was virtually no snow left up there.

With our water levels topped up we continued on up, we could at least ride our bikes now up into Corrie an Daimh Mhoile ( non of us could pronounce this apart from Scott).  From here we skirted to the left and toward the direction of the Stuic.  Mainly riding in our granny ring(easiest gear) going off piste and it was slow going but at least we could ride our bikes again.  We Finally reached the path and the progress got faster

Above is Scott and the Stuic in the background.  We followed the path and then descended down Carn a’Choire Bhoidheach which was brilliant, was a relief to not be going up and at last feel some rewards of our hard efforts.  A fantastic descent I had not done before.  Once at the bottom smiling like idiots is was another small push up and around Carn an t-Sagairt Mor ( why can’t they have easier names?!?!?!  I have had to look each one up!)

From here I had done the descent before and this was really what we had come for.  My memory had forgotten a little of the decent and it was better than I remembered.  Truly superb.  It was late afternoon, with a golden light and a superb technical descent in front off us.

As always it soon turned into a race.  All three of us pushing to be first.  Scott was the first to puncture…..  After having a small blonde moment with my pump he worked it out and we were back on our way.  It is a long descent losing around 600m vertical and about 3.5km long.  At the bottom we all had arm pump but one hell of a good descent in the bank.  All there was to do now was ride along the glen and get to the bothy were we were to spend the night.

Once there we were happy to find that we were the only ones there that night, we changed and decided to go and go cook dinner by the loch

Ben had carried a bottle of Glaver (whisky liqueur) with him so that managed to loosen the muscles and soon we went to bed tired and happy.  The rest of the pics can bee seen by clicking here