Rosedawn Ramblings

Greetings from 40000ft All too soon, we are on our way home from our adventures in New Zealand. We finished our whistle stop tour back in Auckland, after travelling by train up through the North Island on Friday. It's been on our to do list for a while... and didn't disappoint, especially as we got to see snow-capped volcanoes.   It rained as we passed through Hamilton - pretty much the only clouds we have since the day we arrived - but the sun was shining again by the time we reached our final destination, a lovely apartment in the suburb of Ponsonby. The tricky journey through Friday-night traffic was worth it for the views... Saturday was an early start as we made our way up to Western Springs Park for one more internation parkrunning adventure - 8am starts in the summer in NZ. It was a twisty course with 3 laps of the lake, with a couple of sneaky little uphill thrown in. But it was a good run and I managed to go a few seconds faster than last week in Taura...

Waiting. I'm usually not very good at waiting. The countdown to big races is always a testing time. This week has involved a lot of waiting... Waiting for the end of each day at work... will Friday ever arrive? Waiting for sleep to come... a sore throat, cough and fuzzy head have made sleep a precocious commodity this week... when will it be Friday morning? Waiting for the train to arrive... only a couple of minutes late in the end... but when will we get to London? Waiting to collect the tickets... but the queue moves quickly... but when will the show start? And then suddenly it's showtime, the familiar opening refrain... we bought the tickets for the special performances of Les Miserables' anniversary concert months ago and now the waiting is over. And it was worth the wait. I loved every second and realised I know the words to the whole show... fortunately for those sitting near me, my sore throat now means a lost voice, so I couldn't sing alon...

Saturday mornings are generally all about parkrun - more often than not, I'll be at Hanley parkrun, running or run directing and then enjoying a good catch-up in the parkrun café afterwards. But this week, we took the opportunity of a couple of days off work to spread our wings and headed off to Cheadle Hulme parkrun, which is definitely a hidden gem in a hidden park by the A34 It was a chance to catch up with fellow parkrun ambassador Sam, who was looking after the event on Saturday, and also gave us the opportunity to try something different - the route is entirely on grass, involing one small loop of the top field, three bigger loops of the bottom field then one final loop of the top field to finish.  The general consensus from the regulars was that the course was muddy - most of the volunteer team were in wellies - but nowhere near as muddy as it can be... but it was still going to be much more like a cross-country run than my normal Saturday experience on the ...

Where running and music meet... Seven years ago in January 2012,  I had my first taste of parkrun tourism, completing Pollok parkrun on a very cold and icy morning in Glasgow. The bus ride from the city centre out to Pollok Country Park was an adventure and we were really pleased to find ourselves in the right place at the right time (9.30am starts in Scotland thankfully). The ice on the normal parkrun route meant an alternative route, which essentially involved running through icy puddles round a muddy rugby field, but that didn't stop me enjoying the experience, We were in Glasgow to see Snow Patrol at the SECC and it was an amazing night. Seven years later, almost to the day, we were down in Birmingham to see Snow Patrol on their comeback tour at the Birmingham Arena. Still amazing, it was a fantastic gig and there was something infectiously joyful about the big smile on lead singer Gary Lightbody's face - it looked like they were glad to be back and the crowd certain...

The last couple of weeks have flown by in a wave of nostalgia for our return to Wellington, some long journeys as we've traveled from the North Island to South Island and a very hectic schedule of sporting events - 4 cricket matches, 2 parkruns, a super 15 rugby match and a highly contested round of crazy golf thrown in for good measure. Late last Wednesday we arrived in Porirua, just north of Wellington, and on Th ursday, we traveled by train into NZ's capital to go on a nostalgic tour of the places special to us from when we met seven years ago in the city... We went back to the Basin Reserve Cricket Ground and tried to find the seats we were sitting in when we met. We couldn't quite have a picture taken there, as the England team were training at the ground and some sections were closed off, but we got close enough. We went back to Burger King, walked along the waterfront, wandered through the Botanical Gardens, visited a museum and art gallery and reminisced. Sadly, the...

The last 7 days feel like we've had a holiday within our holiday and, at the same time, like we've traveled through space and time! Our base has been the very lovely City Centre B&B in Hamilton, with our very friendly hosts Ann and Pete. Hamilton isn't really one of those places that draws in the tourists, not for a week anyway. If you do visit, it's probably for a couple of hours on your way south from Auckland. Strangely, though, it is somewhere Jon and I have both visited before. I first came here in 2000 and returned in 2004 and 2008. Jon was also here in 2008, but about 10 days before me (and we didn't know each other then). My friend Anna lives here - I met her her when we both lived in London in 2000 (after my first visit to Hamilton) and my last visit was timed for her wedding to Andrew. This visit was all about catching up... Anna and her family all wanted to meet Jon for the first time and we got to meet Shanae and Tamara too, Anna and Andrew's two...

On Sunday, we said a sad farewell to Western Australia, as we flew from Perth to Auckland to begin the next part of our adventure. We've really enjoyed the three weeks spent in WA and packed quite a lot into our last weekend too. We had a day at the WACA, watching England against India in a one day international. Strangely for us, we actually got to see England win a cricket match... that didn't happen at all on our last trip to Australia in 2011. It was a steaming hot day on Perth for our cricket visit... The humidity was making it feel more like Columbo (according to Jon anyway, I've never been to Sri Lanka). I just knew it was hot. Our booked seats were in an uncovered stand but we managed to sneak our way undercover after about an hour of play. We were still hot but at least avoided sunstroke! Before play started, we were able to seek shelter from the heat with a vist to the cricket museum, a rabbit warren of a building that used to a private house. Each room was a trea...

When you're travelling for an extended period of time, there are some days when you feel like you're doing something incredibly different from the normal, exotic even. And there are other days where the everyday routines of life take over and it feels just like being at home. We've had a real mix over the last few days... On Saturday, our day was pretty much like most other Saturdays. We started the day with parkrun, lingered in the cafe long after the run was finished, had bacon butties for lunch, did two loads of laundry, read books (The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie), watched some cricket on TV and went to the chip shop for our tea. The only significant differences to home were the location of the parkrun (Canning River instead of Hanley) and the temperature... peaking at about 37C and feeling far too hot to do much of anything. Our accommodation made it feel even more like home; although it was a B&B, we basically had the house to ourselves. Even the TV ...