Holme Pierrepont National Water Sports Centre

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no 27. Why should a cyclist feature in an athletics blog, Blog?? Who is it?? Who is the official doing the pushing and why was he so important to sport in the Coventry area??

Dear Blog,

Now look here Blog, I can tell you that there is no need to be jealous. Of course I have a few, a very few, friends here, there and everywhere. If you must know, I have regular mates in New Zealand, France, Germany, Russia, Singapore, Brazil, Ireland, Australia, Norway, Ukraine, China, Belorussia, Denmark, Canada, US, Switzerland, Italy, Israel, India, as well as a couple in the UK! They salivate at the thought of my next blog to you, Blog. My pearls of comfort circum navigate the globe many times before they are washed out to the Sea of Indifference and are lost forever. So don’t go thinking that you are so special, matey boy!

The answers to the May’s quiz are:-

1. No            2. No           3. No            4. No            5. No            6. No           7. No            8. No             9. No            10. Only when you tie your shoe laces with a reef knot and the drinks station runs out of water.

How many did you get right, Blog? Of all the entries I received, there was just one all correct entry. So well done, Mother. Your prize, a cheque for £150, is in the post.

I mentioned in past correspondence to you that I had an outstanding interest in taking part in the Notts ‘10’ (as a past winner). The race is held around the Holme Pierrepont National Water Sports Centre. I was running around there this morning in glorious sunshine and clear blue skies before God started to water his plants. It was only when I had finished my gentle trudge that it was pointed out to me that the race had been held a couple f weeks previously!!! ‘It was in Athletics Weekly’!!! Well some of us don’t read Athletics weekly thank you very much, not since it has started its spiral down into tabloid tittle tattle. The intellectual content is slowly reaching the depths of the 90s publication when readers left the magazine in droves and took out subscriptions to ‘Athletics Today’ which was written by knowledgeable athletic writers with athletes the target readership, not pandering to the mass commercial market, with pseudo product testing and spurious repetitive advice about diet and schedules. Not that I am too concerned about the deterioration except that it does leave an interested athletics reader with little of interest to read. As a kid, we often picnicked below the weir at the Sports Centre; this was years before it was built, sand and gravel extraction occupied the site then, the industry at least leaving a wasteland which Nottinghamshire County Council have done a brilliant job in reclaiming and utilising. If only more local authorities had similar vision. One not a million miles from where I live could take a note or two. I did do a bit of binocularing over the weekend as some interesting birds nest around the lakes. I saw an exciting confrontation between a couple of crows and a heron. Crows are so protective. Any bird that comes near their nesting site, watch out!!! From the garden, I often see crows dive bombing buzzards, the latter continuing to wheel on the thermals only occasionally reacting to one of the attacks.

 Any time you get fed up with me communicating with you Blog, please say so. I don’t want to bore you or waste your time. I am quite happy listening to the grass grow and watch the paint dry, any time. Can’t beat either if you ask me. Not that you ever do!! Still collecting the odd thrupenny bit or two for my two charities Tiny Tims Children’s Centre and Newlife.

                 Sumotmore tomorrow,Colin