Travelling, Teaching and Training: Summer in the south.

With Christmas and New Year consigned to the history books for another year, and the summer holidays, for those of us south of the equator anyway, breathing it's final gasp of air, I thought it was about time I attempted to serve you all another sizzling blog entry. I have, however, found this particular installment very difficult to write. This is not due to a lack of possible content, far from it, but having received the terrible news of the passing of an old and dear friend at New Year, neither has it felt right nor have I had the positive drive to inject at least any semblance of entertainment into this read. Nevertheless, life and lives do go on, and I believe my old friend would want everyone to live them as fully as possible.

Where to begin then? Well, Christmas Day was unremarkable in the fact that it was simply a normal family Christmas Day. Father Christmas delivered so many presents for the girls that the front room was almost bursting at the seams. In fact I would like to apologise now for children who lost out this Christmas. I can only assume at this point that he either got lazy or ran out of time and decided to leave the presents intended for the whole of the South American zone with us. Olivia's bike has gone down especially well and she has been riding it almost every day. I would like to pride myself on the fact that my pre-festive prediction of over-consumption, followed by an attempted late-afternoon recovery on the sofa, were absolutely spot on! The Christmas morning started well, with an early and very peaceful run in relatively quiet conditions. However, it wasn't long before the front room resembled a mutlicoloured war zone of presents, savagely treated wrapping paper and over-excited children. And with hindsight, opening the rather rich and delicious chocolate-infused port, we had received as a gift, at 10 am, was possibly not the best idea; but hey, it was Christmas…

Sunny but cold.

Between Christmas and New Year there was plenty to keep us occupied. Boxing Day kicks off the annual summer/Christmas race meet in Stanley. Horse riding and racing is a tradition that has been part of the Falklands since its earliest history. For such a small place, it is amazing that Stanley has its own purpose built race course. It’s a straight line course, but has all the recognizable hallmarks of a normal racecourse. Personally, I have never been the biggest fan of racing, but we decided to go and experience at least some of the 3 day meeting. In the end we only stayed a few hours. We did manage to catch a few races, which due to the nature of the race course were more akin to car drag racing and I can see the potential of this event on a warm, sunny day. However, there were a number of factors conspiring against us: despite the sun, the wind made it really cold and the only places to go indoors were the bar (children prohibited) and the stables (Caz is allergic to horses!), I was suffering from a mild hangover so didn't really fancy drinking more alcohol, all Olivia and Evie wanted to do was go home and play with their Christmas profits, and as mentioned above, horse racing has never really fired my imagination. We decided to quit while we were ahead and return home - I had a chicken run to finish anyway…

Short, back and sides!

Next on the islands' cultural agenda for us to experience was the annual sheep shearing competition. Sheep farming is a major industry here, so a natural consequence of this is the tradition of shearing. This annual competition is also used to pick the team for the world championships, which are being held in Ireland this year. I have to say this was a wholly entertaining afternoon. It was a popular event with a laid-back and relaxed atmosphere, although competition was fierce. Shearers had to compete in heats, in which they were required to shear 4 sheep as quickly and cleanly as possible. The sheep arrive, resplendent in their rather thick and warm coat, are manhandled off the trucks and into the stalls to await their fate. I was amazed at the confident ease at which the shearers were able to restrain the sheep on their backs and then remove their skins in one whole piece. The sheep quite obviously knew the drill as it were, and didn't appear to struggle – in fact they looked altogether relaxed: another day at the salon for them I suppose. They left looking positively naked, many of them bearing some hefty shearing cuts, which at first made us softy non-farming types worry, but the sheep were obviously made of hardier stuff, as they appeared unaffected by these mere flesh wounds.

Wilderness...

Our trip out to 'Camp' was scheduled for New Year. We had booked the cabin at Elephant Beach Farm on the north coast of the island. We set off on the morning of New Year's Eve, as it was a good 2 hour drive to get there. Unfortunately, the news of the passing of Julian that morning had put rather a cloud on things, and we set out rather heavy of heart. Once you pass the boundaries of the sprawling metropolis that is Stanley, the roads are mostly gravel and track. Our path wound its way up, over and around a rather impressively barren, but rugged and beautiful landscape, that enticingly spread out in front of us, as far as the eye could see. Not having that much experience of driving in Camp, I admit to being slightly nervous at the prospect of the journey. This situation was not aided by the fact that we lost mobile phone and radio coverage after about an hour. Luckily, the weather held for the entire journey to Elephant Beach, the old Disco didn't break down and we didn't get lost. To be honest, opportunities to get lost are minimal in the Falklands, due to the fact there simply aren't many roads to get lost on and we were on the only road going to the North of the island. Once we arrived and settled into the rather cosy cabin, the weather decided it was not going to play ball. The wind strengthened and the rain started to fall. In fact the (torrential) rain didn't stop until about 5pm the following day, destroying any chance of getting out to the coast and beach. Oh well, there would be other opportunities to return. The visit was far from a right off however, as we enjoyed the New Year's Eve with some lovely company in the form of Mandy Macloed and friends in the next door farm. Being the party animal that I am nowadays, I was actually struggling to remain awake until midnight, but aided by the loyal allies of Tribute ale (reassuringly Cornish) and Baileys, I was able to bravely soldier on to 2014. We were confined to the cabin for much of New Year's Day, which did bring images of a caravan holiday in a wet UK summer into mind. When the rain finally did subside, late in the afternoon, we managed a short walk down the river; just to stretch our lazy legs and banish the vestiges of a New Year's hangover. This was also a chance to have a quick look for the barn owls reportedly hanging out in the farm buildings. Unfortunately, they were being rather elusive today, instead just teasing us with their presence, with a littering of pellets on the building floors.

The rain finally stopped.

Our New Year retreat.

And so onto marathon talk. Apologies now, to those who would probably stick sharp implements into their legs than read about running. (And yes, I did google the correct spellings of the African names below!) The men's elite line up for the London marathon was released this week and what a line up it is. Obviously, the big draw for the home crowd is our own conquering hero, Mo Farah, competing at the distance for the first time. However, it appears he will not have everything his own way. Also in the line-up is the current Olympic and World marathon champion (Stephen Kiprotich), the current marathon world record holder (Wilson Kipseng), the current London marathon champion (Tsegaye Kebede), and current London marathon course record holder (Emmanual Mutai). Add to this rather fleet bunch, the last man to beat Mo Farah at 10 000m, Ibrahim Jeilan, also making his marathon debut, and you potentially have one of the most competitive marathons ever raced! The only omission is that of the legendary distance runner, Kenenisa Bekele, who has opted to run his marathon debut in Paris (probably wisely). The prospect of this race has me jumping around the living room like an overexcited puppy. Needless to say, I will be watching the BBC coverage of the event in April with a greater than passing interest. By that time, I will hopefully have successfully run the Stanley marathon at the end of March. Although not quite as famous a race as London, and I am not expecting to face quite the same line-up as Mo, it promises to present me with a suitably epic challenge. I hope to do well and have already completed more than a few miles in training, which, so far, has gone well and barring injuries I am hoping for a reasonable time. Time will certainly be hugely dependent on the weather on the day, mind you. The course itself, while not flat, is not particularly hilly, but the weather will be a massive factor. Much of the course is on the exposed Stanley By-pass and if it is windy and wet (probability = highly likely!), then the race promises to be a rather desperate and demoralising slog! I have tried to inject some structure to my training. Although not following any specific plan, the mileage has been increasing week by week, including that of the long run at the weekend, and I have included a mid-week marathon pace interval session. The length of intervals in the latter has been steadily increasing over the weeks, with an underlying premise of being able to steadily sustain longer periods holding this pace. I am also planning to include a tempo run of about 8 miles (with an aim to maintain at least a 6 minute mile pace – probably ambitious considering the amount of miles my legs are being subjected to over the week), which will give me a grand total of 3 critical training sessions per week. The rest of the weekly sessions will be easier running, as well as a bit of core. The old body just has to stay in one piece now.

It appears we are heading into the field of poultry farming, or you would think so if you looked at the back garden. As mentioned above, I did build a chicken run over the Christmas. I rate my talents in the realms of carpentry as low, and my inclination to do any carpentry is usually less than this, so the fact the run is still up is a major achievement. Although our intention is to let the birds have free range of the back garden as much as possible, we wanted somewhere to keep the birds safe when we are away, and ducks are now banned from the coop at night, so they need a safe area to sleep in. The current bird count stands at 4 ducks (including 1 possible drake – another reason the ducks are not sleeping in the coop anymore!), 3 adult chickens and 4 pullets, of which one is a suspected cockerel. The chickens have been laying eggs for us already and I have been enjoying their tasty, yellow parcels in some rather nice omelets. The ducks have an almost Keystone Cop-like personality about them, which makes them highly amusing to watch. One of them has a conspicuously absent quack, which apparently is a sure sign of a drake. Caz has become extremely fond of our 'Quackers', which means I have been prohibited from transforming the drake into a nice succulent roast. Unfortunately for the cockerel, this is not the case. If it does turn out that he is indeed of the male persuasion, then he will be definitely walking the green mile.

News now that may (or maybe not) surprise you. Caz has started training to be a retained fire fighter. She started her training last Wednesday evening, which included issue of uniform and kit, a health and safety briefing and she got to touch some hoses apparently :D. I have to say I am more than a little jealous (not of touching hoses), as it all sounds wholly exciting. I am also convinced controlling a fire will be easier than controlling my class of children, although you could argue my job is to light the fires of their imagination rather than put them out. The islands are serviced by 4 full-time and about 30 retained fire fighters, which is not the biggest number, when you consider they will cover an area of about the size of Wales. The majority of the fire brigade's work on the islands is to attend road traffic accidents and with her experience, it looks like Caz will be also trained as one of the medical technicians. To be honest the whole thing sounds brilliant and is something I feel Caz has a lot to offer. I will keep you posted with her progress.

I cannot end this blog entry without mentioning again, my dear old friend Julian. His 18 month battle with cancer sadly ended this New Year, with his passing. I was unfortunately unable to attend his memorial in the UK, but we held our own day of reflection for him here in the Falklands. My thoughts go out to his family, Sallyan, Emily and Carys, as well as his parents and sister at this sad time. Rest in peace Julian.

And finally... here are a few wildlife shots we have taken while out and about.