Aidan

Coventry Sport Tour Pt 4

The Grew/Jupp Sports tour of Coventry took in its forth leg yesterday. Following on from Ice Hockey, Rugby, and Dog Racing, the latest event was Basketball. Namely the Coventry Crusaders vs the London Leopards.



A reminder that a complex scoring system gives us a number between 6 and 13 where 13 is best. So far Ice Hockey scored 10 ish, Rugby 8 ish and the Dogs 6 ish.

Last nights offering was wonderful. With extroninarily low expectations of a sporting event hosted in the local sports centre with 50 people watching we were always likely to be plesantly surpirsed but it was way better than either of us had dared to dream. The Crusaders currently lie third bottom of the BBA (British Basketball assosiation) league 2 having lost all but one of their 11 games this season! However, a really close exiting game with lots of shouting at refs and exited players/ocoaches that Coventry won in overtime gave us a dead cert score of 5 for Quality of game. There was a hero's performance from Mark and I's man of the match "John" who neither of us had ever heard of before, crually sin binned for a soft foul with 8 mins to go, he came back on for the last 4 mins to inspire Coventry to an unlikely come back from 8 points down then push for the win in overtime.

As you can see the fans were exstatic!


Scores as follows: (All out of 5)
Refreshments - 1 (A packet of squares and some polos, although the laminated price list on the table did say "tuck prices" which was a point in it s favor)
Transport - 4 (50p to park next to the sports centre)
Merchandising - 1 (2 t-shirts on sale at the 'tuck table')
Quality of game - 5 (Outstanding, genuinely quite exciting)
Entertaining extras - 3 (Cheerleaders but I teach most of them and they were writhing around mildly inappropriately so that most of the crown tried their best not to look - scored very highly on volume of digital clocks and air horns, laminated arrows held up by one of the many many officials)
Value for money - 2.5 (£6 - very expensive but the game was good so almost worth it)
Springfield factor - 3 (should have been a 5 by rights because this is coventry and we were watching basketball, but the whole thing felt quite home grown so not terrible)
Fellow spectators - 5 (A real highlight, a very cross man from london shouting abuse, getting into arguments with refs, local children and berating players - excellent)

Overall then after some mathematical jiggery pokery we get an impressive score of 13.5173764. A comfortable leader so far. However, Mark and I have high hopes for the Coventry Jets (American Football) - if nothing else the Springfield Factor should be off the charts.

Something to aim for.

And something funny and Canadian - definitely makes me want to live in Canadia

Nerd it up

Loving my new t-shirt. 'geek-sheek'.

Tis the season.

We put the tree up a little earlier than is optimal this year due to Catherines work eating into potential tree putting up weekends. Still, nice to have it up and a cracking tree.

Wood shed

Despite some negative comments from catherine and some 'help' from owen thr woodshed is done. Happy days.

This is what I was aiming for...

This is really what the target of my failed Movember attempt was. One day...

Team Grew

Isaac and Tabitha were being very cute on the way over to Sunday school today. Mark said it doesn't happen very often and someone should take a picture, so I did, and here it is.

Mo-vember day 3

I have realised two things. 1) Movember does not make for interesting blogging. 2) My face is lopsided.

Mo-vember day 2

Mo-vember day 1

I'm using the Mo-vember (http://www.movember.com) excuse to experiment with beard growing. Here's me on day one. More details to follow when I'm at a proper keyboard, lengthy typing on iPhone I a little irritating.

Ground control to major Owen

Thanks to amazon and their love of comically oversized boxes we made a rocket. Owen dressed up as a spaceman complete with dressing gown, boots and tin foil helmet.









We painted the rocket later but I didn't get a picture.

Furniture made to scale

After an entire lifetime of Making do with furniture designed for poeple three times your size it's nice to find something made for you.

Excellent

On occasion the internet is used for things of great value, here is one.

Ultimate Cornflower

Morrisons sells and catherine buys the largest cornflower box known to man. We will not need more cornflower till 2013. (placed next to kitchen scissors for scale)

Cousins in town

Sarah popped in this afternoon with Harry and George. Here are the boys a biscuit o'clock...

Full circle

Second child, same set of amusing photos. It's Aidans turn to have a stab a eating a yoghurt with a spoon unaided.

Inapropriate names

If I owned a stationary company I probably wouldn't call it this:



(especially if I was supplying equipment to schools)

And there was light, and it was good

First one. Exciting (and warm) times.

Isn't it ironic

Unlike many of the things listed by Miss Morisett which are just unlucky or unfortunate, this is really really ironic. It's in our church on the organ speakers if you want to take a closer look. I would imagine that following a brief spell of Internet celebrity it might become a genuine site for ironic pilgrims.



(quality of picture irritatingly poor... I'd like to appologise on behalf of Steve Jobs)

Aidan

Nothing of note to write, here's Aidan at the park yesterday.

Surviving a beasting

Mark and I went on a weekend playing in the mountains, given to us a birthday present by our good wives, and kindly arranged by Jon Burgess of hannahburgess.com fame. (A mountain rescue type and all round Ray Mears alike).

We did some hiking (and by some I mean alot):


We also did some camping:


Followed by a rather wonderful midnight Canoe along the length of Coniston Water to bivvy on Peel Island (the island Arthur Ransom based Swallows and Amazons on). Here's the bivvy spot and the breakfast spot on the island.



I learnt that I had forgotten how great the great outdoors is, and resolve to get out and play more.
I learnt that mountain rescue drill into your shin to inject heroine to deal with pain
I learnt that Tom and Anna are lovely people. (Canoe instructors - see last photo)
I learnt that Jon Burgess knows a lot about outdoor stuff
I learnt that navigation is better with contours
I learnt that I need to move further north
I learnt that 1:40000 is the new 1:25000 (important to keep up with trends I think)
I learnt that £30 does not buy a good pair of walking boots
I reaffirmed the fact that North Face kit is great
I learnt that I want a 'jet boil' (www.jetboil.com)

A huge thanks to Jon for the photos - I was not brave enough to get out my i-phone in extremely damp conditions!

Basic physics

Head to big, bars to small...

My son the 'Howies' model...

(NB: all clothes actually from Tesco's)

Problems with solutions

The problem:
We live in the midlands, three hours from the nearest beach.

The solution:
Build a massive artificial lake, dump 50 tonnes of sand round it, add other stuff for kids to do and charge entry.

I can't claim to have built it, thought of the idea, found out tat it was there, or deciding to go. But I did drive there.

It was really really great. Well thought out, good faculties, good price. Highly recommended and well worth a visit.

Our new boat

Here's a couple of shots of our new boat. It's moored in Southampton marina.






We havnt actaully bought it yet, or earned the money to pay for it, or approached the current owners about a sale, but other than that the deal is done.

Sad face, happy face

Self reliance

Sometimes insisting on doing things yourself can leave you in a bit of a pickle...

TV watching

Important to experiment with watching positions.

1) The default position. Both boys, one seat each.


2) Upside down, in pants.



4) Upside down in pants while Aidan hits the wall



However, all position have their hazards, the upside down one results in static hair...

Big Axe, little axe

I bought an axe earlier this week. Wildly exciting.
Unbelievably you can buy an axe from eBay, with no checks whatsoever on age, mental state or intentions. So it arived by royal mail today. Helpfully in terms of reducing risk of youth crime the postman left it on the door step where it sat all day until we got back from the zoo (see previous post). For the record I shall be using it to spit wood for our new stove, I am saving up for a larger felling axe for splitting logs. All you axe geeks out there will want to know that it is a 1.1/4lb hickory shafted hatchet...


Anyone fancy a game of 'Axe Tag' I am now fully equiped, let me know.

Whipsnade Zoo

Day trip to whipsnade zoo today, we met Team Brandt there. A superb day out, highly recommended (although driving through Dunstable town centre to get there in not). Here's an obligatory animal photo:



The lunch spot looking out over the south downs was prety spectacular.






Good times, flippin' hot too.

Walk in the woods

The whole team took a walk in the woods today. Here's the evidence.