P.C. Joe O'Brien

Dear Blog,

Today I was given the honour of starting the Joe O’Brien Memorial Race at the War Memorial Park in Coventry, and also of presenting the awards to the various winners afterwards. Nearly 100 police men and women from the local force turned out to honour the memory of Joe. Joe died 30 years ago while on duty.

Joe was a community policeman in Coventry and was knocked down and killed as he marshalled a Fun Run on his patch. The initial trial of the motorist who drove the car into Joe caused a stir at the time and was regarded as a disgrace, the motorist being found not guilty of careless driving but later, a different judge made the motorist pay damages to Joe’s widow. He had two children.

Joe was a member of my club Coventry Godiva Harriers. He must have joined a couple of years before me, roundabout 1965. He was a member of the walking section at a time when Godiva was indeed a very strong walking club. He was a regular member of the scoring team, walking at all distances, including competing in events such as the National 20 miles Championships. Usually about the 3:05:00 mark for the ‘20’, which means he was able to walk at a faster pace than I managed to trudge at the London Marathon last year ….. so if you are up there and watched this afternoons race, Joe, think about me in next year’s London and give us a few tips, please.

About 33 years ago, another Godiva Harrier, Jack Selby, who is about to celebrate his 95^th birthday was knocked down in a hit and run accident. It was a quiet Saturday morning. Luckily a policeman on his way to work, saw Jack on the ground and saved his life by administering CPR. When I went down to visit Jack in Hospital, walking along the ward to Jack’s bed, who should I pass in another bed, wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy, with eyes bulging and a face (what you could see of it), all the colours of the rainbow, was Joe; a victim of a violent affray in the City. I went to chat with him and he asked what I was doing there. I told him about Jack and said he was a couple of beds away. Not concerned for the state he was in, Joe got the nurses to push him along to see Jack and cheer him up …. It was a toss-up who was in a worse state. But that was the sort of bloke Joe was …  he cared about others.

                                                Colin

.... the Leicestershire County Track Championships at Saffron Lane May 13th 2012

Yesterday was another beautiful day Blog. One of the joys or trudging on an early Sunday morning is the peace and quiet. No one else was around on the deserted country lanes. Even the M6 which is a couple of miles away hardly creates a drone, the noise from the A45 over the hill is nothing but a slight hum which you would not notice if you were unaware of the road’s presence.

After a shower, it was over to the Saffron Lane Athletics Track in Leicester for the second part of the joint county championships; specifically I went over to watch my elder daughter run the 2000m steeplechase. She made a valid point about the event. A couple of years back, the steeple was accepted as an acceptable official recognised event for women, so why is it not part of the Midland Women’s Track League programme? Yes there is usually an open event, but not one where a club can gain points in the league competition. The pathetic excuse is that not many women run the event; tell me all about the chicken and egg please Blog. The League administrators quite happily let a pole vault competition take part for days never ending with a very few women competitors, many of a poor standard. It is quite acceptable for five officials to be occupied for hours and hours and hours while the event painfully proceeds through small centimetre increments as the bar creeps slowly skyward. But will they League administrators grasp the nettle and introduce the steeplechase into the league programme? Will they nelly!!! Another case of weak leadership from England Athletics or whoever implements such things. Anyway my daughter duly got a county medal. The same fate that befell one of the youngsters on Saturday at the water jump happened to the sole competitor in the younger age group race. She fell so badly that an official went to her aid. After a little reassurance to a great roar of encouragement from spectators and competitors, she picked herself up and completed the race. Well done to her. If you flick back through my correspondence to you Blog, you will find a photo of an incident at the Yorkshire Championships at the Huddersfield track the home of Longwood Harriers. The photo was featured in the News of the World, Blog, I kid you not.

Before I left the Leicester track, I went up to have a last look at the crater that was the velodrome to have a little cry by myself. So sad.

Playing roly-poly on the steep grass banking on the back straight, I noticed a red kite in the sky. Now if someone had told me they had seen a red kite in the sky above the city of Leicester, I would have said that they were telling me porkies. If I had told my son in law, who is a keen ornithologist that I had seen a red kite in the sky above the city of Leicester, there is no way that he would have believed me, Blog. A red kite in such circumstances is a nono, with a capital ‘N’. LUCKILY when I saw the red kite in the sky above the city of Leicester I was able to turn to my son in law who was photographing the kids roly-polying down the steep grass banking and say “Look there is a red kite in the sky above the city of Leicester.” My son in law who is a keen ornithologist looked up into the sky above the city of Leicester and confirmed that indeed the bird was a red kite. He told me that if he had he not been there to witness the bird himself, he would not have believed me when I told him that I had seen a red kite in the sky above the city of Leicester. Strange world we live in Bloggy.

From what I said to you last week Blog about the iniquities of some of the mobile home site owners, I was interested to see a huge bill board at the side of the M69 advertising ‘Retirement Homes in a Leisure Park’, sounds so much better than a ‘mobile home park’? Let us hope that the tenents are treated better!

                            Colin

Warwickshire County Track Championships, May 12th 2012

Dear Blog,

           Nice weather for a trudge today, methinks. I am now trudging so slow that my wife has hired a bloke to walk in front of me with a red flag while I trudge. I told her that I am not an old crock, a veteran car … in the early days of the automobile, a red flag bearing gentleman in front of said car was a legal requirement for safety reasons! She said that that was the reason she had hired the bloke … for safety reasons. My safety. If I fell over and did some damage, he could summon help if it was serious; if it wasn’t, he could have a rest until I had recovered enough to trudge on. I do think the old gentleman appreciates the employment, however. It may be only an hour or so a day but it gives him a focus in his life. And the small fee my wife pays him goes towards supplementing his old age pension. I must confess that I find it most annoying on the frequent occasions I have to tell him to slow down. Each time it happens, I think his fee should be reduced pro rata.

It was the first part of the country track championships today Blog. Warwickshire County combines with Leicestershire and Rutland to hold a joint Championships with medals awarded to each separate county winner. The meeting was held at the track in Leicester, Saffron Lane. Did you know Blog that the first all-weather track in this country was built at Saffron Lane? The porous surface that was laid down turned out to be too thin and, because it was such a novelty, no one knew for certain what size spikes to wear. In reality, no spikes were really suitable. The result was that athletes ended up either blistered or with seriously aching feet from the pressure of the spikes. Too often the spikes were too long and the track got ripped! The first appointed manager was a Godiva club mate, European and Commonwealth Marathon Champion and Olympic marathon fourth placer, Brian Kilby. The complex also included a velodrome, with spectator stand and state of the art surface. What a state it was in on my last visit; neglected infield, ruined stand, wrecked surface, the whole area debris strewn. Clearly unused for years. Today, all that exists is an enormous weed covered hole, the concrete steps which linked both sporting venues stand in splendid isolation, the flight of steps lead to nowhere, a pointless climb to view nothing. Sad. Really sad, Blog. An unusual feature of the stadium was the building of the steeplechase water jump on the outside of the track rather than the more usual siting on the inside top bend. Alexander Stadium, the home of Birchfield Harriers in Birmingham, has a similar arrangement. A couple of years ago I had an on-going discussion with a senior member of NUTS about the water jump in steeplechases. YAWN. As I started in athletics as a steeplechaser, I claimed that the distribution of effort in a race would be different for the different sitings of the water jump. And because the spacing of hurdles would be different, records for an inside / outside jump should be considered separately, because the events were not the same. YAWN. He disagreed. YAWN. I pointed out the case of the water jump in Eugene, USA, where the barrier is basically just off the end of the back straight. What would happen if a world or national record was set on such a track? Would it count as valid?? YAWN. I do believe a book is to be published on the steeplechase very soon by the NUT. Note Blog, I TOLD YOU FIRST. I kid you not. Make a note of the date!!!!Yawn.  Sorry Blog, my apologies … NUTS is an acronym for National Union of Track Statisticians. An association of anoraks to you Blog!! A dedicated band of athletic enthusiasts to me, Blog.

The senior steeplechase at the county championships had only one competitor. He bravely ran the race by himself. Do you know Blog, the finish for both steeplechases was in the back straight. The officials forgot to take the bell with them across the track from the usual finish. The bell is rung to signal the start of the last lap. Although they had time to rectify the situation before the race started, they couldn’t be arsed. An official shouted “tingalingaling” as the runners passed for the final 4oom. Blog, I kid you not!!  Watching the 1500m steeplechase for youngsters …. The lead runner came to the water jump on his penultimate lap, his spikes caught on the top of the barrier as he went over and he belly flopped face down into the water. All due credit to him, undeterred he bravely sprang up and continued his race. On the last lap he showed no hesitation as he approached the final water jump, his spikes caught on the top of the barrier as he went over and he belly flopped face down into the water. All due credit to him, undeterred he bravely sprang up and continued his race. Blog I kid you not. I don’t think I would have showed the same degree of aplomb as he did.

I only hope my elder daughter doesn’t have the same problem tomorrow when she runs the steeplechase at the same county championships.

                           Colin

Here comes summer ...

So Blog, that’s the cross country out of the way for another six months or so. And now to the track and road ….

You probably are aware that, until a few years ago, the men and women’s competitions on both track and over the country were kept apart, never the twain to meet. Each year, one week my wife would race the Midland Women’s Cross Country Championships and I used to run around cheering her on – the following week I would ran the Midland Men’s Cross Country Championships and she used to run around and cheer me on. Two weeks later we repeated the process; one week she would run in the Women’s National Cross Country Championships and I cheered her on and the following week I would run in the Men’s National Cross Country Championships and she used to cheer me on!!! One particular year, presumably because of the way the calendar panned out, we ran on the same day miles apart in our respective National Championships …. It was complicated but we met up to travel home together. The meeting place was a service station somewhere on the M6, quite romantic!!!!!! She was dropped off and I picked her up!!!!!!!!!

One of the features of all road and cross country races in those far off days, was the sale of athletic kit and running shoes from the backs of a cars by several different runners all vying for custom. The car boot grew into a small van, the small van into large van, the large van then got a trestle table, the trestle table then moved indoors, the indoors moves to mail order and finally, the retail sector was born healthy when the first joggers shuffled down the streets with quids jangling in their lycra bottoms.

So, let us imagine … turn the clock back to a time when the men’s league and the women’s leagues took place at different times in different places, sometimes on the same day sometimes on different days …. But the kit cars were there!!! The only difference was that the women had to put up with some appalling courses …. Read on  ………….

1990 or sometime thereabouts … two men deep in conversation on a Friday afternoon in the gathering gloom of a winter’s day.…….

“LOOK, if the ladies are racing here tomorrow we have got to get this course sorted out today. Agreed?”

“Agreed”.

“Right then. I suggest that we have the ‘Start’ here, which means that they can use the two miles from the school they are using for changing, as a warm up …”

“….and the two miles back as a warm down-brilliant”.

“Have you checked with the caretaker about using the school?”

“Yes – we can have the one small changing room. You know, that grubby smelly one where the showers don’t work.”

“I know, the one we tried to give to the men last month and we nearly got lynched until we agreed to open up both gyms and the new shower block. Lucky we could use the sports hall as well or they’d probably have killed us.”

“Thank goodness, we won’t have that expense this time. You know, thinking about it, if we shift the start line a little this way, the field will head straight from the start for those big oak trees after about 50 metres, it will split the field right apart. Those that go to the left go through that gorse while the others will have to be careful going overs those broken house bricks. The rubble is from that other small changing-room, you know, the one that was blown down in that gale. After the storm, the council never did repair the roof properly on the one we’re using, did they? Can be right draughty at times.”

 If we send the field through that narrow gateway just past the oaks, it will funnel the field back together again. It’ll also give those that don’t get a fast start a chance to get their breath back while they wait to get through …”

 “… and the very slow ones that got left at the start will have time to catch up. Brilliant.”

“We must be careful which marshal we put by the gate. Some of the words the women use – can’t half swear some of them y’know.”

“Sending them through the gateway will save us knocking down the fence like we had to do for the men.”

“We could send them along that narrow concrete path next to the barbed wire fence… they shouldn’t damage their spikes too much on the concrete. Better warn them to look out for the electric fence though; health and safety and all that. Anyway we don’t want too much torn kit, do we?”

“Or torn flesh … can’t stand the sight of blood myself. Nor young girls crying.”

“After the path, let them wade through that stream. It’s not too muddy and anyway, the water should’ve gone down a bit by tomorrow if we don’t get any more rain.”

“I wanted to send the men through there you know, but they reckoned it was too dangerous, not being able to see the rocks under the water. In the end, it was easier to miss it out ‘cos they weren’t too happy about the concrete path either. They finished up just running around the school playing fields and the parkland. Anyway, if we bring the girls along that shale roadway, across those ditches, through the small gap in the hawthorne hedge, down the wet part of the plough and back up this side of the hill, it means they can have a fast downhill run along this road side verge before they cross back over the tarmac to the start/finish area.”

“Having the start and finish in the same place?”

“Oh yes, I think so. Don’t you? We don’t want to make things too difficult for the officials. It’ll mean that they can drive from the school and park their cars here alongside the road. Which reminds me of two more things. Number one - parking is for officials only. Number two. Must remember to ask the farmer to shift his cows.”

“Three laps for the seniors?”

“Yes, three laps should be about right, I reckon.”

“Oh we must try to remember to see the police about stopping the traffic while the race is in progress. It might be a bit difficult because the City have a cup match on their ground just over there and all the supporters come this way to get to the ground. But we had better try I suppose.”

“First Aid?”

“No not really … we already have our permit and if there is a problem, there’s usually somebody about to help.”

“We have got all the jobs allocated then?”

“Yes, I think so. What are you doing?”

 “Oh I’ll be selling my kit as usual. And you?”

“Me … I told you. City have a cup match on their own ground over there.”

      Nowt changes Blog. Nowt.

Midland Track League May 5th May 2012

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 98:- So who is this lookalike? Or is it a lookalike? Is it my bruv??

Dear Blog,

               And today we have no track meeting!!! I did introduce a ‘MayDay 5’ a few years ago to be held on May Day. It was a 5 mile race around the War Memorial Park in Coventry at a time when no one used the paths for running races; on the Jubilee Anniversary of the opening of the War Memorial Park, the Council offered a small sum in sponsorship and gave medals and certificates for a Fun Run for kids. The War Memorial Park has the large War Memorial in the formally laid out section of the park, and most trees have a plaque at the base of the trunk dedicated to the fallen in the two World Wars, including more than one Godiva member. Latterly, this exclusivity to the fallen of the two great wars has given way to plaques commemorating particular ex-service men in general; the club member who help reform the Ladies Section of Godiva harriers and who was instrumental in organising the Warwickshire Track activities for a number of years, has a tree dedicated to his memory; his ashes are scattered at the start of the 100m straight at the running track, a fitting place considering the time he spent coaching the sprinters at the club at the Butts Stadium. The May Day race was not held this year, partly as a consequence of the never ending weekly series of 5 kilometre fun runs held every Saturday around the War Memorial Park …. and of course, not to forget the free entry the fun run offers.      

                  Saturday was the first Midland Counties Track League for men and women at Stoke-on-Trent. Freezing cold, but there was the consolation of the Stoke club having the use of a grandstand; needless to say, it was built mainly for the local amateur football club that plays their games inside the track arena. A sign of the times when the local athletics club has just had its yearly rent increased 300%. THREE HUNDRED PERCENT; which is slightly more than that nice Mr Cameroon’s rate of inflation? It is a good job that Stoke is a city of high wages and full employment; otherwise the club might find it difficult to pay. Sunday was the occasion of the Young Athletes League at Coventry; I changed into kit there before I went for a trudge in the sunshine. It was worth noting that (1) the changing rooms were filthy following a football match from the previous afternoon. What is it about footballers? Run round any park after a game and you see piles of litter; contrast that with the leagues at both Stoke and Coventry where there was the minimum amount of debris left, certainly nothing excessive. (2) At Coventry the parking was chaotic; on the roadside verges, on the pavement and worst of all, in the dedicated reserved spaces for ‘Disable Parking’. Now that is plain rude; downright inconsiderate. I could manage by using the car park at the back of the track for my grandson who uses a chair; but supposing I couldn’t? Suppose I was disabled? This car park was free to everyone, plenty of spaces and about 100m from the track, certainly a shorter walk than the idle individuals who were double parked at the bottom of the car park adjacent to the track, or those parked out on the public highway. (3) The number of kids who were filling in events ‘just for a point’ seemed considerable. I could see the kids were keen on their competition and did it for their club as a club event and some didn’t mind filling in; other clearly did, and I regarded that as a mild form of bullying. The day before, the same thing happened. For adults I cannot condone ‘filling in for a point’ when the time /distance / height achieved is pathetic; pathetic Blog, with a capital ‘P’. How can someone justify their endeavour as an athletic performance when they just manage to get the hammer onto the grass to record a distance, or someone who has to ask for the high jump bar to be lowered at the start of competition so that a height can be recorded, is beyond me. Take for example when I have filled in for the hammer, the high jump, the javelin, the shot in Midland Leagues …. obviously I was the ‘B’ string (but only just, sometimes), but ironically although I was only ‘doing it for a point’, I was achieving more points than a good class track runner, so poor was my opposition; how can this be considered to be valid league competition?? I was embarrassed to perform at such a level and be rewarded for so doing. Pathetic. And it goes on in every league competition at every age group up and down the country. Is this really what athletics should be about? UK Athletics or whoever is in charge, (England Athletics?) should grasp the nettle for a change, show a bit of leadership and introduce a minimum standard for a point(s) scored to be valid; it need not be Olympic Qualifying Standard, but at least it would make competition more meaningful than at present.  I went to a committee meeting sometime back, full of important people … and me. A motion was passed giving a grant of £9000, I am pretty sure that that was the amount granted  though I stand to be corrected, for a handicap system to be developed and run out across the country.(no pun intended Blog.) I assumed it was to be based on the old fashioned handicap racing system f yesteryear, the one used when I started. But it looks as if it metamorphosed into this strange hybrid that is ‘runbritain’ which fails to inspire? Ok if you are interested, but it is impassive, not a handicap on the ground in real time that inspires competitive competition as it happens. What a wasted opportunity????

 I saw a case of adult bullying at the running club a few weeks ago and when intervention took place, the person doing the bullying was clearly oblivious of what was being done, was a real case of bullying and certainly not just a case of micky taking. It was cruel, pure and simple.  Did you see the conclusion of the case concerning the old people who were harassed into selling their mobile homes for £1 in the newspaper reports of last week? With no home, the pensioners had to be rehoused by the local authority because the old people had no money left, having been swindled out of their life savings and sole investment. The perpetrators were jailed after a two year long investigation by the police. I thought that sort of criminal activity had ceased long ago. In another life, a long time ago, when I lived in a caravan, I was involved with the activities which site owners employed to get rid of tenants. (N.B. I lived in a caravan not a mobile home; in a caravan you froze to death in winter and suffered heat stroke in summer; you didn’t in a mobile home which enjoyed the benefits of a ‘normal’ house!!) The mobile home owners of the late 60s still suffered from Rachmanism. Legislation had been passed in Parliament earlier in the decade which purported to curb the worst excesses of landlords of the Peter Rachman ilk, but the act did not include anyone who lived on a mobile home site. An attempt (a private members bill?) was made to broaden the legislation to include mobile home dwellers, but the only way to ensure success was to adopt a Liberal Party amendment which included a clause to provide added security for travellers and the need for local authorities to provide sites where travellers could camp. Because the parliamentary majority was wafer thin for the ruling party, the backing of the Liberals was a requirement for the Bill to pass through both Houses of Parliament. The fact that people who lived in mobile homes paid their taxes, paid their rates and obeyed the law of the land while travellers might not do any of these three, did not seem to matter to our political masters. The law was enacted but the owners of mobile parks did exactly what Rachman did to his tenants; found new subtle ways of harassing and in some cases terrorising them. The National Mobile Homes Residents Association did what it could to protect vulnerable tenants, but the tenants lived on private sites and were more than reluctant to put their head above the parapet for fear of further victimisation. Many site owners retailed electricity at an inflated price (illegal), they made tenants pay local rates (illegal until 1973), they made tenants pay excessive ground rent which increased uncontrollably year on year eventually forcing tenants to sell up when fees exceeded income; and because second hand homes had little actual value as new sites were unavailable for resiting, the homes fetched a paltry amount, scrap value. The vacated site was soon filled with a brand new home, the site owner receiving a fat fee from the manufacturer as well as another substantial payment from the new gullible tenant. If an old home was sold on site a huge percentage was demanded from the seller to facilitate the deal to go through. Gas had to be bought from the site owner, again at an inflated price (illegal). Although against the law, the tenants were at the mercy of the site owners who were nearly all members of an Association, the name of which escapes me. They policed themselves and went through the motions of legal operation!! I was a member of the executive which tried to sort problems of site tenants. Our hands were tied. Tenants were too scared to complain for fear of reprisals and we couldn’t act without their backing. Meetings could not be held on site as it was private owed land. If a local hall was hired for a meeting for tenants to discuss their predicament near one of the troublesome sites, the sight of the site-security guard seated with a clip board recording names of residents attending, did nothing to boost attendance. When an individual or group complaint came in, an increase in site membership of the NMHRA was a requirement if any meaningful action was to be attempted.  A successful outcome of that action meant solidarity amongst site residents. To gain more members on a site, we had to try a recruitment campaign, achieved by means of a leaflet drop; the sites were privately owned, our presence on site would be deemed as trespass. So a Sunday morning was always chosen for obvious reasons. Early on a Sunday morning, usually with the aid of a member living on site, a group would enter the site and target as many homes as possible, posting information on leaflets shoved as fast as possible into as many letterboxes as possible before the site guard with his dogs invariably came on the scene. No mobile phones in those days, so, being a Sunday morning, the guard had to cope on his own until reinforcements had time to assemble. And my job? A decoy who had to coax the guard into believing he could catch me, leaving the others free for a few more valuable minutes to get rid of more leaflets. It was never too long before the guard got fed up and released the dogs. It was common knowledge that the doge had to be well trained to be released otherwise the site owners would have been in serious trouble if injury was caused by the dogs, trespass or not. Once the dogs were unleashed, you had to stop still, put your arms by your sides and not look at the dogs. Was that scary, Blog, or was that scary Blog??? S**t scary, believe you me Blog, with a capital ‘S’. In fact, two capital ‘S’s!!!! We were escorted off the site. Not once was action pursued in the courts against us for trespass, as it was not in the site owners’ interest to arouse public interest into what was taking place on their sites, what tricks they were up to. I was the decoy because I was the fittest and perhaps could maintain the guard’s interest longest!!! With hind sight, we achieved very little in the time I was involved. When such events did get into the press, everything was watered down and interest focused on the travelling communities who took over the agenda. And just think Blog, if I was stuck in the rates scam, the gas scam and the electricity scam, what chance had a poor old lady have who was terrorised by the agents of an unscrupulous site owner?

I did meet an old friend yesterday who I had not seen for some time … he reminded me of the race on cinders at Nuneaton when he just beat me on the dip in a half mile race; the race he said had been won by my son in law …. But he has no recollection of the event when I asked him when the family came to dinner tonight; it was pleasing because, not keeping a record of my own times, he was able to tell me the finishing time, which was notably quicker than I thought I had ever run a half mile!!! Then I was reminded of a half mile run the Butts Stadium in Coventry in a ‘bob-a-nob’, again on cinders, when I was just beaten by another fellow club mate in an even faster time. The way my times were coming down, I was wishing it hadn’t been a club reunion ….

                                                              Colin 

Round and round and round we go ...

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 97:- Dead easy. Ebenezer Square. But which was the house in which I spent the first decade plus of my life? What was this area of the town called? What was the mill in the foreground called? What did it make? What was the name of the Chapel  … and why does the second building (just visible on the left), actually the chapel, stand back from the other? What has the Worth Valley Railway to do with it???

Deja vu, Blog, deja vu.

Boyho, boyho  …. Around and around we go and get nowhere ……………… Fall over October, crack a collarbone??? Possible. The pain, the pain. Trudging but going nowhere fast.

Marchish, put on spikes to try a few strides, fall over, crack a couple of ribs???? Possible. The pain, the pain. Trudging after a time but going nowhere slowly.

Yesterday. Been here before Blog??? Put on spikes to try a few strides and set a Personal Best ……A personal best at my time of life? Possible. The pain, the pain.

The session:- couple of miles warm up to track. Put on spikes. 10 laps strides. Couple of miles warm down. And the Personal Best you ask Blog??

Well the good news is … I did not fall over once.

The bad news is … I fell over twice.

Did I fall over or did I fall over. Yes I did. Yes I did. Twice. Blog I kid you not. Crashing to the track TWICE. The pain, the pain.

The good news is …. Did not crack a single thing.

The bad news is ….. I can hardly move my neck.

The good news is … I could not spend the rest of the day in bed, recovering.

The bad news is …    I could not spend the rest of the day in bed, recovering.

The good news is that Hercules was only busy for a day

The bad news is that I’ve been shovelling away since last October and trudging nowhere. But you wait Blog. Wait till I get cracking … just you wait.

                       Colin

A Greek Tragedy??

Dear Blog,

What a day I’ve had?

What a day!

          …………. Spent all my time helping out at the horse livery down the Lane, shovelling s**t out of the ‘Augean Stables’.

                                                                  Colin

P.S. The time of twenty one minutes past two in the morning is fast approaching??