Radical new haircut reflects my new resolutions I'm feeling energised! (note before and after photos!)

After running break in October, I'm back and heel pain is pretty much gone. As long as I keep a slow and steady increase in mileage, I think the plantar fasciitis problem is behind me.

1) I need to keep to the training plan on Buckeye outdoors for 24-week London Marathon training (FLM cashed my check - does that mean I have a place? Or do I need to get a charity place from Guide Dogs still?)

2) And I'm following Petra's lead and joining the P.O.M's Holiday Weightsloss Challenge with a goal of dropping from 128 to 120 lbs by Feb 1st 2008.

• Here are my rules (which I shamelessly canibalised from POM):
  1. Breakfast: oatmeal, yogurt/muesli or eggs (no toast!)
  2. Salad or veg for lunch, but cccasional whole grain bread if a sandwich is the only option.
  3. Protein and veg ONLY for dinner
  4. Wine - only once a week
  5. No white bread. Ever.
  6. No chocolate. No ice cream.
  7. Weigh self once a week only.
  8. Don't be psycho by talking about it all the time. Only blog about it. (I don' t think anyone reads this but me anyway!)

Hadrian's wall 22-27 October 2007

Roman emperor Hadrian ordered this 73 mile long, 10 ft wide wall to built across northern Britain more than 18 centuries ago (122-130AD) at the decline of the Roman empire. In hilly places it is remarkably well preserved, with linking forts and milecastles along the wall. In the valleys, the stones have migrated into farm building foundations and the only trace is a grassy lump. We enjoyed a glorious autumn day exploring after a sleepless night in a farm courtyard (right next to the dog's kennel, we discovered, who barked at a badger on the prowl all night).

The early morning mist burned off slowly as we made our way along the wall, carrying far too many warm clothes!

The next night we moved north of the tourist trail into the Northumberland National Park to the north and found a lovely campsite with a wind turbine powered hot bath - and we were the only campers there! Working out a circular walk for the next day on the computer, we printed out a map in black and white as an aide memoire, anticipating that the trails would be as well-marked as they were near Hadrian's wall.
However, the trail dissapeared in "Black Bog" and was not to be found even as we located ourselves with GPS on the suposed trail numerous times - finally we just gave up and bush-whacked on a 60 degree compass heading for miles, through bog, spongy mossy woods and recently harvested (destroyed!) forests finally coming to intersect the Pennine Way regional trail. Hard work for not much mileage - and then we still had the 5 miles to walk back to camp. We slept late the next morning in the gloriously quiet site with soft rain on the roof.

As the weather was changing, we decided to head south toward the Yorkshire Dales, which we've not yet explored, and stopped at Fountains Abbey, which has recently been made a World Heritage site. The Georgian grounds with lakes, canals, temples and formal gardens are huge and there is a spectacular ruin of a 13-century Cistercian (Benedictine offshoot) abbey, which was raided for sandstone to build the Elizabethan Fountains Hall. During the Second World War, the Hall and other estate buildings were used to house evacuee children, but, after the war, fell estate into a state of serious dilapidation and has only recently been restored.

To our suprise, dogs were allowed! We cut back to the car park skirting the deer park and watched as two magnificent stags faced off in the meadow - making really loud threatening noises at each other. One finally backed up and made his way away from the rest of the deer, complaining loudly.

My heel injury is much better and I'm back running again. Hurrah! Nick is enjoying bragging about his 10 mile runs when I'm back to cautious 2 mile runs, but slow and steady I'll be back running 10 again... someday.

Ali is back from her adventure in India, and I'm sleeping easier... I worried with her so far away! She was teaching English a Catholic university in Trichy, India called Holy Cross. She found the position through our friend from Bhimtal, Tagore, who's sister, Shanti, works there. Shanti proved to be a remarkable woman, surprisingly unconventional considering her professional success and inspiring in her commitment to her students and improving the lives of the orphans at Hope Home where she donates so much of her time and energy. Her frank and caring counsel was invaluable to Ali in making the cultural adjustments she needed to make to adapt to life in Trichy. (Restina, Shanti and Ali left to right). Ali helped Restina in the language lab. At first the girls were too shy to talk to her, but she lured them in with encouraging smiles and soon had a gaggle of girls who wanted to talk her all the time! The dress code was strict and Ali could not wear western clothes, (a likely excuse for an exotic new wardrobe!) so she learned how to wear a sari or traditional Indian trousers and a tunic. One of the highlights of her trip was an invitation to a wedding.

Ali stayed in a hostel with post-grad students from Holy Cross, and shared a room with a woman from Assam, Debbie, and one from Tibet, Namshey. Although the accommodation and food were very basic by western standards, Ali said it did not take long before she felt comfortable with the different way of life. The three became very close and Ali loved travelling with Debbie, the teachers and some of the younger students to Kerala. Debbie is an accomplished dancer and henna painted Ali's hands and feet.

Just before she returned home, Ali and Namshey travelled to visit a Tibetan settlement and monastery in Bylakuppee.

She really had an experience she will treasure, and I don't think this will be the last time she visits Trichy.

Sadly, heel pain has stopped me from training for the Mendip Muddle and Nick has to go on a field trip to Transylvania on Sunday, so we won't be racing the Phedippidation World Wide Half Marathon this weekend. But we're looking at races in November, hoping that my plantar fasciitis situation improves. I'm sad to miss the virtual race, though. Best of luck to everyone running!!

Countdown 7 weeks to go for the WWH and Mendip Muddle. Gulp. I'm right on track with training, so I'm not that worried about 20K, but the 420m of climb has me pretty intimidated. I need to start adding more hill climbs into my training...and that means not WALKING them!

Trip to Snodonia was a bit of a wash-out. All the trees and boulders in the woods are covered with moss - a pretty good indication that it rains mostly all the time. Jep, it rained mostly all the time when we were there too, and I never did see Snowdon (the highest mountain in England and Wales) for the fog.

Italy, Switzerland and France -

6-24th July 2007

Arriving for a visit just weeks before Ali leaves for India, Arvind was brilliant at answering all our questions about Trichy, where Ali will be teaching this summer, and about Indian life and philosophy. He cooked a fantastic aubergine curry for us with homemade chipatis (with flour all over the kitchen!) and he and Nick stayed up late discussing academia, climate change and generally sharing stories. Billy and I only got to spend a day with Arvind before our channel tunnel departure to drive to the Italian Dolomites.

Why the socks? Well, Billy still has not let me drive the relatively new campervan... I'm a bit of a menace parking. So I had a good bit of free time on the French motorways, and finally finished these socks that I started with my Mom in Seattle three years ago! But they were cosy and appreciated at night before climbing up to into bed.

We made our way through France, first camping "wild" (not in a commercial campsite) beside this lighthouse at Cap Gris Nez and then at a campsite next to a lake, Lac de Marcenay, south of Troyes. I really enjoyed the run along the coastal path the first day and then an early jog around the lake on the second - but the shower afterwards was icy!

We took a detour to see stunning Lake Garda, but we were way too scruffy to fit in with the designer set. The first night in Italy, Billy was successful in broken French/Italian (with hand signals) to convince the hotel owner where we had dinner to let us stay the night in their car park after a walk up to a mountain lake.

The Italian Dolomites are spectacular, and we were able to take a gondola up 500m to start our first walk from Possa de Fasse ...cheating, I know, but breathtaking. After a long descent into the valley, we stopped at a tiny cafe and Billy made the mistake of having a nice cool huge beer, which he regretted in the 200m climb back up to the gondola.

After a day exploring the mountain passes, (with lunatics driving racing motorcycles!) we moved on to Campitello, and feeling a bit sheepish about taking the cable-car down on the previous walk, we decided to walk the whole way down. The descent along the mountain ridge was beautiful but clomping down the last of the 13 miles on a hot road in heavy boots was exhausting! Looking for more level terrain, the next day we started from the top of the Valparola pass and walked around the dramatic Settsas platform with 400m-thick Triassic carbonate sediments which were identified by Baron Von Richthofen as a reef in 1860, but I didn't find any coral or fossil evidence. And as we baked in the brutal heat of the day in this desert-like environment, I gave up looking. Nelly was miserable without any streams to drink from and I felt sorry for her carrying around a fur coat in the sweltering heat!

We hid in the shade in the heat of the day the next day, and Nelly even overheated when I took her for a run along the river at 8am. Later that afternoon Nick called to say that Ali's bag with her passport, money, mobile phone, and Billy's camera had been stolen in Serbia. We wired money to Nick to send her and tried to stay within mobile phone range so we could find out if she could get a replacement passport in time to make her flight home. Tired of the heat, we decided to head for Switzerland and higher elevations.

Driving through Liechtenstein we made a lucky back-roads detour around a nasty accident that could have meant a day in a traffic jam, and arrived late into a delightfully shady campsite in Lauterbrunnen where a awesome thunderstorm with hail cleared the air that night.

Walking down from Murren to the campsite the next day was beautiful, past swiss chalets with tidy gardens and woodpiles, waterfalls and cascades in the river- it was cool, green and peaceful.

Every town had fantastic watch shops so Billy shopped for watch to replace the one he lost (how lucky is that that?) and then we moved on to explore Grindlewald with a spectacular backdrop of the Eiger and other peaks. Expensive place - the cablecar up and the bus ride back 20k to town fom the end of our walk was 100 swiss francs (£20 or $40!). After more time in internet cafes talking to Nick and wiring more money home, we found a beautiful campsite overlooking the valley and perfect sauerbraten at the Hotel Aspen that night.

Making our way back to the English Channel was a bit of a chore - with a long drive and a busy municipal campsite in Chalons-en-Champagne, but it was fine compared with the horrible place we ended up in the next night in Rang du Fliers. The campsite we were assigned looked perfect on the little artist's rendition map they handed out at the office, but once we got inside we discovered how tight all the campsites were, and every one was full of what I can only describe as "white trash", with unsupervised kids and scary packs of teenagers prowling about. We tried to convince ourselves it would be OK for a night but when we discovered at 11pm that they had to keep two security guards on duty at the toilet block to break up fights and stop abuse we decided to make a run for it.... but they wouldn't open the gates! Finally Billy found a manager who would let us out. Sleeping in the car park of a nearby grocery store felt so much better!

We booked into a hotel in Wimereux the next night for the village fete des moules (Mussel festival and parade!) and enjoyed the fluffy towels and restaurant - a huge luxury after the nasty feeling of that campsite. After seeing the local vet for Nelly's pet passport, we explored the huge deserted beach at the Bay d'Authie and visited a WWII museum to wait out the rain. Scouting wild camping locations along the coast, we finally we found a perfect, isolated trailhead at Le Bois d'Harringzelles near Audingham and enjoyed a glorious walk on the beach the next day before heading home - and Ali had made it home, too! (Just in time to leave for India).

Mostly naked raku pots

We leave on Saturday for a three weeks holiday, driving through France in the camperan to the Italian Dolomites with Nelly to walk in the mountains. I'm taking my running shoes!

Last weekend Billy had set up a backdrop to do some macro photos and I convinced him to take photos of some of the pots I've made. I keep meaning to do it before I ship them out as gifts.

Some of the raku pots I won't give away, like the pumpkin pot (above) that won the craft show at work. They don't get many potters, so I was in the category with jam and dolls. How can they possibly judge a pot versus jam? But but to my suprise, I won the whole show and there were some really nice paintings and photos. Won a £10 book token and a rosette like a prize cow.

And here's the raku pot that Nick decorated - its pretty cool. I carved the geologic time scale in this stoneware bowl with cobalt slip for Nick.

I'm quite pleased with my very first teapot that I'm sending to Jewell for her birthday. The shape is perfect, I think, but it is pretty heavy stoneware, but it doesn't drip! And the little jar that Ali made (and I made a lid for) is the only thing she's ever thrown on the wheel.

These are both quite large t-material raku pots. The naked one one left has a lovely reddish stain from mahogany sawdust smoke.


These are little pencil jars out of porcelain that surived the thermal shock of raku.

I have to admit that I have not done much pottery since we got the campervan. I need to get back to it again this summer when it is warm to raku fire outside!

Cheddar Gorge, Sommerset 15-16 June 2007

Despite the dire weather prediction, we decided to head out to see the Mendips. We stayed the first night at a campground off the M5 that was nicely deserted, but as the background noise died down at night, we figured out why... the road noise was unbearable. Sleeping with the ipod on was the only recourse.

The next day we did a 10 mile walk looping around Cheddar Gorge. We managed to miss most of the rain sheltered under trees, but an ice cream/beer stop at the end was perfectly timed to poke around in the touristy shops in town while it rained. Scouting sites to camp wild up the canyon we chanced on a National Trust dead end property- perfect- rolling hills and quiet with only a few dog walkers for company.

I think this is the area where the Mendip Muddle is run in October, but the club website does not give a map. So the second day of the trip we tried to scout where Nick and I will run the World Wide Half - even if we don't know exactly where we will run. I assume it will be somewhere along the Mendip Way walking path? The last night we found a great place to stay - it felt like we had a secluded site on a golf course.

We'll come back here with Nick. Then we walked on the beach south of Weston-Sur- Mare before trying to have lunch with Ali for Father's day. A bit of a fiasco. We got to her place at 10am as planned, but no one answered the door. Finally Billy climbed in the window and spoke with one of her roommates who said she did not come home! Finally we located her and had lunch but she looked worse for wear after the Bristol end of year ball the night before... ah foolish youth - to plan to meet your parents the morning after a planned big night out!