Last 48 hours

Colin Halsall (above), with wife Margaret and three of their five grandchildren the day after returning from watching the European Athletic Championships live in Helsinki, was one of many from the athletics fraternity attending Tynwald yesterday.

Because I have been involved in so many social events this week in support of Marie, which came "back to back" with so many other things that I have been involved with, I resigned myself to just one meaningful run this week and had to miss a couple of races. Tynwald involved driving a couple of people to the ceremony and joining the guests for coffee before being set free with the masses to take masses of photos around the fair field. I made a brief exit from the fair field to do what I always used to do with Robbie when Tynwald got a bit much f or him and walked to the top of the hill and took some photos looking down.

I then rejoined the official part of proceedings and took plenty of photos of the Tynwald members and guests. My full collection of photos is at http://isleofman.in/tynwald

We had a good scoff at the Methodist Church Hall before we left St Johns and after a brief trip into town it was an airport run, well drive really, before attending an official dinner last night.

Events of last night resulted in something I had not achieved before. My only proper run this week was a long one, the full marathon distance at 7 am this morning, which meant that I completed a marathon within 11 hours of completing more than a bottle of wine. That was followed by a "mother-in-law" drive less than an hour later when she was able to see the sights of the Isle of Man on what (for what non Manx residents might not realise) was our Queen's Jubilee Holiday - well apart from about half of the trip when we could barely see in front of ourselves due to rain and mist.

I promised myself that I would indulge in some TV sport this afternoon and not worry if the websites were not updated. I saw about five minutes of the TV before my body demanded abot three hours of sleep as compensation for the way that I have been treating it.

I saw the last part of Andy Murray's match though and kept an eye on the Diamond League match whilst trying to filter down an ever growing pile of newspapers and magazines gathered over the past few weeks.

I was trying to think of a story about interest being artificially high for the Diamond League but I thought that might produce cries of "what a load of bankers".

Not seen much of the house today

Out to two functions after work tonight and only just back in. Have updated the links for events held this week but that is about all. Might get a few minutes to do something in the morning before heading for Tynwald. Just thought of something I can put on the PW blog before I quit now.

Manx National Market Day

I had a Victor Meldrew moment under my breath as I reached Douglas Promenade on my morning run today. "I don't believe it" I thought as on the day before the Manx National Day, Douglas Promenade had been invaded by white vans and what looked like tacky market stalls. My enquiries since I got back reveal that it is to be a European food market.

Well I'm going to get my breakfast with Manx milk and butter. And Marie's home made bread using Manx flour will be consumed for breakfast and lunch along with Manx cheese. 

Something has gone horribly wrong when we are promoting foreign food instead of our own during Manx National week. 

I'd like to say

...but I would be lying if I said that I had spent all evening editing the video below. In fact it was only after a nice dinner and a few glasses of wine that I was able to sneak away from Marie and our guests when they started talking about Tynwald arrangements to do a very quick video of the Great South Run. My rush to and from the race to the airport (and the bad light) told on the quality of my photos and most of them are not worth publishing. I see from Graham's site that Mike Garrett won but the link to the results does not work for me. Gail Grifffiths (above) was flying in the 5km.

Triple figures

I thought that an hour or so on my own in the office this evening would allow me to catch up a bit on my emails. Alas, although I responded to a few (I hope that yours was one of them) I found some more in my junkmail so I am still have more than 100 pending.

Results and photos

The results for Laa Columb Killey have been updated to include two runners who had been missed off.

I'm staying in the south tonight as I am meeting someone at the airport at 7.30. So I can't take part but I have brought my cameras with the intention of slipping down to see the early stages.

Still blogging about the Parish Walk. If you hear stories of people being delayed by "at least 30 minutes" check the facts here http://manxtelecomparishwalk.blogspot.com/2012/07/some-facts-about-delays-at-braddan.html


Why were there delays at all? Well that is still quite a puzzle if you watch the video http://manxtelecomparishwalk.blogspot.com/2012/07/can-somebody-explain.html   

Walkers eat and greet

I undertook one of my favourite tasks this morning when I drove our Swiss work guests around the Island for a couple of hours before their flight. What was so different to anytime during the past six months was the absence of people training for the Parish Walk. So where had they all gone too?

Well judging by the difficulty we encountered booking a table at a restaurant last night, they were all celebrating their success. We met one such table in the Harbour Lights in Peel.

And there were a few at the Tynwald Garden Party this afternoon  although of the three Parish Walkers featured in the first two photos below 10 times finisher Roey Crellin has retired, and David Cain didn't enter this year. Caroline made it to Andreas (55 miles) despite a fall in the wet the day before which affected her performance. 

Middle distance star Kevin Loundes was also at St Johns and I was glad that it was me who was in control of the camera as I passed him with two plates of food. One was for Marie - honestly! My support for her Tynwald involvement means that I might not make it to the Great South Run and definitely won't be at the veterans mile. 

I don't think I have ever had 10 days with so many things on and running has moved ever earlier in the morning to fit it all in. At the very time when I needed energy I lost it at Port Soderick yesterday - we had a power cut. Not the way to impress the visitors especially when the power returns but not the heating.

Inconvenient but hardly life threatening we should remember. As with the poor soul who couldn't read the Parish Walk results on their mobile phone last week and had to get their laptop out. Neither does eating too much this week really fit into the hardship category. But more time with knife and fork in hand means less time with hands on keyboard.