Arcticterntalk.org

The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world

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Brighton Half Marathon Photos and Comment


Athletics and running generally are not things that run in our family. Indeed one might argue that we run away from such things. Hence some sort of surprise when eldest daughter announced that she was entering the Brighton half-marathon. We travelled down last night not really knowing what to expect. Stayed in the Holiday inn , which is not be recommended for reasons that are too multiple to mention, other than that the room was cold, with a kind of fashion that would not be out of place in a a medieval castle, and the bathroom was miniscule and looked like it retained all the charm of the 1950,s and much of the grime too.

Anyway, up bright and early. Stood by the beach along the promenade for 2 hours and it was an amazing experience. Very proud of said daughter who finished well within her time anticipated and was running just in front of Katie Price. Many of the runners just on with it but a certain amount of cabaret was there. Runners with strange expressions, reading maps as they ran along, but the most curious events came from folks who wanted to cross over sides. Now, let me paint the picture. The road was closed to stop cars for around 3 hours, thousands of runners and yet folks were crossing over the running “track”. Bizarre. This included multiple parents with buggys and a wheelchair. But to beat all this lot was a woman who pressed the pelican crossing button, not once but twice! What did she think was going to happen? 10,000 runners would career into each other to stop so that she might cross?

In terms of the runners, there were so many that it was difficult to see in detail in real time but on browsing through the photos, things that caught my eye, other than a range of strange expressions, were those runners wearing gloves, with sunglasses on head, in a kilt, a man running parallel to the running lane, running with eyes closed ,

We loved the event and will return next year for more cabaret. The only surprising thing was that there not more collectors for charity out with buckets, surely this is the optimal time and event to do it?

enjoy some of the photos below

Sarah running for a brave charity

A finishers medal

Map reading

Woking 1 Dartford 0


A top of the table clash in blue Square south meant a choice of game today was easy with Brentford not playing till monday night. Decent crowd of 2500 saw a tought game played mostly in drizzle but occasional downpours made conditions less than perfect. Woking is a nice place to watch a game. Entry is 12£, food is decent, certainly echelons above the rubbish served at Brentford. The last time I saw woking was the opening day of this season when they beat Sutton 5-0 at Sutton and it could have been far more, since then Woking have led the table and before todays game were 11 points clear of Dartford.

Woking scored early with a header from Trevor Inns and then mostly hung onto the lead. Dartford had a goal disaalowed for offside and contrived to miss at least 3 easy chances in the second half including missing ( well, hitting the post) when the keeper had been rounded. Both teams were actually good. Dartford played with more effort and were more physical, and maybe Woking had a little more style and skill. There would be no great surprise if Dartford also gained promotion and i would guess neither side would be the worst in the conference. The best player on the pitch was Kevin Betsy, who was making his second ( at least) debut for Woking. Good work rate, skilful. I have never been quite sure why he never made it at higher levels for any length of time and most recently was at Wycombe, maybe he is their loss?

Goal for Woking

Action Woking v Dartford

 

Rain at Kingfield

 

 

Why do Marriott hotels not give Wi-fi free? Selena Gomez


After 2 hours of an unspeakingly dreadful junior Disco, well for me not the children who shrieked their way through 2 hours of songs that bore no relationship to the term that I call music.  A cold walk home. Whatever they say the temperature is it feels like minus 10. Most lower league football has been called off tomorrow so no Brentford and yet another game to re-arrange. All kind of dull really.

So todays rant must be against hotels and in particular the Marriott hotel in Leicester. This place is not cheap. In fact bed and breakfast is 149£/night. The pleasures of wi-fi are only available in the ” bar and restaurant” areas. Otherwise broadband costs 15£/night. This is roughly what virginMedia charge me for a whole month of excellent connection. They then charge 5£ for parking and there is no other option so really the overnight cost becomes £154. There finally is the option to eat in the bar area and a sandwich will cost around 8£ and a burger around 14£. These are disgraceful prices. No room was also available for me when I arrived past the check-in time to compound matters. The hotel is also souless and the staff look like a dose of ECT ar around 4000 volts might be needed. End of rant. But there again, things might get worse and they did. Do not ever be tempted to eat or stop at Newport Pagnell services. They are well beyond awful. Sausages and mash, served to me who eats football ground fare , were appalling, served on a cold plate, the food looked like it might have been cooked this week, possibly. A dreadful waste of 7£. I make all these points and for me the cost is borne by my employer, but I would never spend my own money at either of these two establishmnets again. No camera with me so an old photo to keep you going today. So to finish the evening some music from one of my more unexpected artists, Selena Gomez. Very underated.

Even the heat of a candle is welcome tonight

A Painting of the Snow


Whilst it was snowing I sat out in the cold with my waterpaints to paint this. Or did I?

The Mona Lisa or Snow Moaner

Painshill Park, Cobham


Painshill is a place that I have been coming to for over 10 years. It may be my  favourite place in  the United kingdom. Each season makes it seem so different. I am guessing here but if you look back through this blog over the last 8 months there will be a fair few hits about Painshill. Sunday as the ice and snow was melting on the paths i captured the bleak side of Painshill. The lake was frozen with slush on the top and hence the “geeseprints”. enjoy and do please visit.

Birdprints mean bird was here

Geeseprints on the lake

Cold Goose

A bleak wintry Painshill

Snow in UK. Not so bad in the south as they say


Despite warnings of snow related doom in the south it seems we got off mildly. Which means the understanding of the chaos at Heathrow with two thirds of flights cancelled, or diverted to Prestwick, complex to understand. Essentially we had maybe 1-2 inches of snow saturday night which has all melted either sunday or monday. anyway rather than wittering a few photos to remind us of the weather as it was. I wish it all had stayed longer but then I am biased as wanted the photos.

Snow falling saturday night at its heaviest

Night shot using long exposure

The following morning

Breakfast From the Co-op New Malden


A very cold day in UK. About freezing all day and will fall later with promises of snow even to reach London. All football locally cancelled. The only option was a trip to wycombe v Tranmere. This I declined for various reasons that include, all games usually get called off at Adams Park , not exciting opponents and the nonsense trying to park near the ground at Wycombe. So stuck watching TV and being grateful to Sky. So not much to blog about today. The only real news is that i bought tickets and booked hotel to visit Cayman Islands later this year and bought also a nice breakfast from the Co-op. the latter sounds strange but trust me their bread is better than all other supermarkets and their rolls are delicious. they now do tiger bread rolls, which all three of us consume rapidly. My only other sensible comment today is that blueberries are a very underrated fruit.

Breakfast selection from the New Malden Co-op

Breakfast

Frosty Car

Cold day in UK


Even the warmth of a few candles makes things seems a little warmer. What is interesting is the colour sequences that exist in the flame of a single candle. The glass of red wine did help but be warned. The wine is good but anyone buying The Forefather, an argentinian shiraz malbec will find that the corks are appalling.

Butterflies at Wisley RHS


Until Feb 26th in the large glasshouse at Wisley there are butterflies, hundreds maybe thousands of them flying and flapping around. a suggestion would be to avoid weekends as there was also a queue of 45 minutes to get in when we arrived and a queue of over 60 minutes by the time we left. An amazing sight it is though. It seemed everyone had cameras. Would thoroughly recommedn a visit. Here are a few photos to show you what you might see.

A painting of the Glasshouse at Wisley

Travel in UK


This morning it took me 47 minutes to travel 3 miles down the A3. Reason? A broken down coach blocking one lane of a two lane underpass at Hook in Surrey. Judging by the amount of traffic this has happened some time before. So, what Herculean efforts were going on? after all this was the rush hour on a wednesday morning. Well, one bored looking man standing next to the coach with a truck that looked like it would struggle to transport a small car let alone a coach. The coach had emblazoned on the back Oak Coache. I thought I would type into google the company name to see if there was anything interesting. a search revealed potentially there were 41.1 million interesting things. On narrowing things down and looking for Oak Coaches, there is such a company based in New Malden and the website invites folks to ” write a review”.  However on maybe 10 minutes searching, it seemed no website and no e-mail address could be found. Unusual for a business?

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