Oscar and Collett Park

With our new routine, Nicky goes to an exercise boot camp on Monday's and Wednesday's in the morning at Collett Park, Oscar and I meet Nicky at 7:45 and we all walk to Oscar's Nursery.  Oscar loves Collett Park.

For the record Oscar hooked himself up to the tree and thought it was hilarious...

Chesil Beach

When visiting a friend near Weymouth we stopped off at Chesil Beach between the mainland and Portland.

Lacock Abbey 10k

One of the races we've entered this year was Lacock 10k.  It was fairly flat but surprisingly challenging, with a number of styles, a waterlocked section right at the start but next to no hills.  I managed to get back in just over 50 minutes... still some way to go to get back to my 43min 10k from 2009...

Nicky took other photos on the day but I wasn't in any of them, just some other bloke in a red and white top

Olympics Triathlon in Hyde Park

With all the Olympics activity I decided to go and see a bit of the triathlon as it was in Hyde Park and tickets weren't required for most of the route.  The atmosphere was amazing but it was pretty hard to see anything.  Stupidly I walked past the best place to watch on my way there when walking round the route as got there early (from the Serpentine bridge you could have seen all three disciplines.)

This was about the best spot for the start of the swim.

I spent a lot of the time by the big screen where I could run to the road to catch a glance of the cycling in action...

Harridge Wood Revisited

Another nice place worthy of a return visit!

Trouble with going to places with Oscar is that you end up carrying all his stuff....

A visit to the Clements

We paid a visit to Justin and Jenny in their new house in Kings Stanley.

Corfe Castle

As I had to work on a Sunday, Nicky decided, spur of the moment, that a trip to Corfe Castle would be fun for Oscar.

Oscar's (pre)school trip to Tropiquaria

Each year Oscar's Nursery and Preschool (Willow) go on an trip, this year they went to Tropiquaria but as it was rather rainy I only took one photo.  It's was good fun, they have a number of animals outdoors in the zoo area and inside there's a reptile area and aquarium.  While the whole place felt like it could do with a lick of paint it was a really entertaining day.  As well as the animal attractions there was a fantastic outdoor pair of wooden pirate ships and a lovely indoor wooden play fort; probably the best play areas I've come across when taking Oscar out instead of those nasty soft play areas (like Puxton) that you have to try and avoid as kids do like them....

Exmoor Owl & Hawk Centre

On the way home from our summer break in Woolacombe we went via Exmoor and into Allerford to visit the Exmoor Owl & Hawk Centre.

Oscar thought the Goat's climbing area was for him...

Nearby Allerford forge had lovely iron work and was well worth stopping off for a look.

Our Summer Holiday in Woolacombe and thereabouts

For my birthday we had a nice summer break in Woolacombe where, on my birthday itself, I ran the Woolacombe half marathon.
We stayed at some holiday cottages nearby in Swimbridge called Hearson Cottages.

That's Nicky running up the hill for no reason

Yep, nearly at the top.

Haha, she's the king of the castle etc.... what to do now?

Charge down the hill of course

I was shattered but at least I got a fancy medal

Woolacombe is very nice...

The half marathon was great but really tough, it was quite undulating for the first 7 miles which really took it's toll and then at about 9 miles you had to run up steps for what seemed like an age as you came away from the coast.  It was looking like a sub two hour run at first but in the end I had to slow right down to a crawl to get up the hill and settled for 2hours and 14minutes.

The weather was a bit hit and miss, it didn't rain on my birthday but the next day was quite wet.  It didn't bother Oscar who was just happy to run around on the beach looking for shells and jelly fish.  He really liked Saunton beach.

We were close enough to pay a visit to Exmoor and the Exmoor Forest Inn in Simonsbath for lunch.

One of the highlights of staying at Lowerhearson was feeding time for the pigs, chickens and sheep.

We visited the odd town Clovelly, it is famous for it's steep decent into the port, donkeys and cobbles.

Oscar got really stubborn and wouldn't walk so I charged up the hill with him in the buggy, for some reason it seemed easier that going up slowly.

Charge!!!

Next to the cottages was a lovely little vineyard, we picked up a couple of bottles of Rose which was very pleasant.

One of the pigs had recently had piglets.

Despite the changeable weather we made one last trip to Woolacombe beach, the dogs and Oscar discovered running into the sea was fun and not scary.

On the way back from Woolacombe beach we followed the coast round Croyde and stopped off for some tasty take away from a seaside chippy... yum!
On the final morning Oscar said goodbye to the animals and off we went taking a scenic route through Exmoor via the Own and Hawk Centre.