So… I went on a holiday last month to San Francisco. I’d been planning on a return to the west coast of America since a trip to Vancouver for a conference in summer 2012, and San Francisco is one of those places I’d seen a lot about but never actually visited. The excuse to finally […]
Category Archives: Leisure
Walthamstow Reservoirs
The Walthamstow Reservoirs are a true London secret, a huge area of lakes, trees and paths, which is publically accessible but largely unknown. The only people you are likely to meet in it are anglers and birdwatchers, both groups that thrive in a quiet environment and so I’m sure would rather the secret remained! But […]
Montrose to Mount Keen – Journey to Munro #200
A week up in Scotland, with my road bike, and settled weather, was the ideal chance to pick off some slightly more inaccessible Munros. Mount Keen is the most easterly of all the Munros, and well isolated from the other multi-Munro ranges around Glensheet and Cairngorm. It’s firmly in the middle of the Angus glens […]
North Downs Way Relay
I ran in the annual North Downs Way Relay for the third time, last Saturday, covering the leg from Charing to Hollingbourne. This year’s race was in very hot weather and the team suffered injuries, hospitalisations and several people getting lost – however somehow we still managed to get the win – albeit in one […]
The Micrarium at the Grant Museum
I was at the Grant Museum of Zoology, one of UCL’s public museums in Bloomsbury, last week, helping install a new set of iPads for some interactive exhibits in there. The museum a small but fascinating space, it has been around since the 1820s but recently moved into a, larger space, although it still has […]
On Social Race Maps
I’ve been looking for a while for an online service that would post my recent race routes to Facebook, for my friends to see when I’ve been running, orienteering or cycling. This proved to be surprisingly difficult to do, but I have finally found a service that meets my specific requirements, Endomondo. My requirements are: […]
The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park – A Tangible Legacy
The London Legacy Development Corporation, who have the job of turning the Olympic Park into a public park post-games, have released a tantalising artist’s impression of the Olympic Park as it might look in Spring 2014, when much of it will have opened to the public as a public park. Here’s a recent view, taken […]
Orienteering Update
My autumn went roughly as planned, in terms of orienteering races, until early December where I got the first in a number of very minor injuries that were nonetheless enough to keep me from running. However I was still able to walk so made it up a number of Munros during a new year trip […]
The Contour Road Book of Scotland
I’m up in Oban in the Western Highlands for the next week or so, competing in the Scottish 6 Days international orienteering races. I’ll be cycling between the venues each day – with a single gear, as both my shifters have failed in the last couple of weeks. I was a bit worried about the […]
The Loire
Back from a proper holiday – not one involving running around forests or walking up hills, rather one visiting castles and vineyards, and even a bit of fine dining. It was a trip to the Loire with a friend, Nick. We got the Eurostar from London and then the TGV from Paris to Tours. The […]