Walk in Winchester

This past Saturday we embarked on a 'training' walk of sorts in preparation for the 3 Peaks Challenge in June. Ten of us, eleven if you include the brown four legged companion, set off for a fourteen mile loop from Winchester.

Winchester is an historic city in Hampshire about one hour southwest of London. With a picturesque cathedral, high street and river flowing through, it provided a perfect starting point for our day out.

The original Westgate of the city walls is just visible in the distance of this photo

This being April in south England we had to dodge rain showers throughout the day. I say dodge, but really it was just potluck, and we lost three separate times! After getting stuck in rain soon after leaving Winchester, we enjoyed a short break in the sunshine on the South Downs.

Here we are perched on a horse steeple chase jump

Our main objective for the morning was the historic Ship Inn, a lovely English country pub in the village of Owelsbury. Here we spent a nice leisurely two hours eating, talking and generally relaxing before setting off for the return leg to Winchester.

Our pack leader was always ready to bring the group together and ensure that no one strayed too far off course!

The sky was always an interesting cauldron of storm clouds mixed with blue sky and passing white fluffy clouds. The rapeseed was freshly blooming which provided a glorious yellow palate to enjoy and regardless of the sporadic showers, the day was filled with rainbows, both literally and metaphorically.


Thanks again to everyone who came, it was a fantastic, memorable and relaxing day out with you all!

For more pictures of our day out, click here and type ship when it asks for a password.

Here's a map showing what we did...



Another walk is planned for Saturday, 3 May, so stay tuned for more of the English countryside!

71 days...

... until we set off at dawn with a group of about 20 other people to walk over 25 miles and ascend more than 1500 metres in the Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge

Why are we subjecting ourselves to this? Well, for a number of reasons.

• It's for a really good cause
• A bunch of us from Communicaid are all doing it
• It's really great exercise
• Yorkshire is supposed to be gorgeous
• We love walking
• Guinness loves walking
• It's a great way to enjoy the longest day of the year
• We love challenges!

As this is a charity event, please help us reach our target of £300 by donating a small (or large if you prefer) amount. Simply click on the link below and you'll be directed to our Just Giving website where you can make donations directly and easily online.

Tomorrow is our first long walk in preparation, it's been ages since we've been out properly. About ten of us are going down to Winchester where we will be doing about a 12 mile route. Weather forecast is looking typically English, so fingers crossed for relatively dry conditions!


UPDATE 15 April -- Thank you to everyone who has donated so far, you've all been extremely generous and we really appreciate it!! In light of this generosity, we have decided to increase our target to £500 in the hopes of now raising even more money for Heart Research UK

Mother Nature's Sense of Humour

Apparently Mother Nature has a sense of humour. A week after we set the clocks forward to British Summer Time, we awoke this morning to another nice dusting of snow! Never ones to spurn an opportunity, we headed out for our weekly walk with Marley, Guinness' new best friend, a 6 month old black labrador (and Jason of course). The two lads had a proper good time mucking about in the heavy wet inch of snow and we three humans enjoyed the peace and tranquillity of an early snowy Sunday morning.

This is our favourite one of the morning!

I somehow doubt the bluebells and rapeseed enjoyed the snow as much as we did. Nor I am sure did the poor flowers enjoy the dogs marauding through at high speeds! Another couple of days of wintry weather are forecast and then we will hopefully emerge into springtime, I hope for good.

For more pics from our walk click here (password labrador)

Penguins can fly!

Today was a fascinating day in the news so just wanted to share a few things...

CW forwarded me something earlier this morning from the BBC about an amazing recent discovery of a new colony of penguins who have learned to fly! Watch the footage here

For those in the US, I've just been informed you can't see this so here are a few shots from the video from the above BBC link


Then at work, my French colleague shared an article with me about how they plan to stretch French President Sarkozy so he's an inch taller than his model wife Carla. Amazing what the medical field can do now! Read the article here


And finally, BMW has just come out with the most amazing invention ever, though potentially slightly harmful towards domestic animals. Check out their new ad campaign here