Thirty Years!

Thirty years is a long time to be married.  Ask me.  I know.  When we celebrated our twenty-ninth wedding anniversary, Jessica declared that steps must be taken for our thirtieth.  Helen demurred.  No one, she said, celebrates their thirtieth.  Forty, yes.  Jessica disagreed.  After all, she said, by the time Mum and Dad get to their fortieth, they’ll be too old to enjoy it.  Yeah, right.  Watch this space, is all I can say!

So The Party was organised.  Jessica took charge and did a brilliant job, booking the hall, sending out the invitations, arranging the buffet, organising the DJ (our old mate, Keith) and his pal, Archie and keeping me and Peter firmly away from any knowledge whatsoever of the party, apart from telling us when we had to turn up.

And it was wonderful.  There were balloons and cakes and dancing and, best of all, lots and lots of friends who turned up for a really brilliant evening.  Elspeth did a fantastic presentation summing up what you can actually achieve in thirty years – watch it here on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyTaQJ2A0lk&feature=youtu.be

The title is "Dolores and Peter - This is your life!" and it was great to see what a warm reaction it got.

It was one of those evenings where you truly felt that it couldn’t have been better.  So, if you were there on Saturday – didn’t we have a good time!  And if you weren’t – well, I wish you’d been there.

Weirdly Great

Writing is a sedentary occupation.  That, in a way, is one of its chief attractions.  So why, when Jessica, my beloved eldest and very sporty daughter said, “Mum!  You need to come running!” I didn’t promptly run in the opposite direction, I don’t know. 

She took me running.

It was awful.

My legs hurt, my knees hurt and I breathed like a leaky bellows.

“It’ll be better next time!” said Jessica brightly. 

OMG, next time????

Now one of my shiny new toys this year was an iphone.  “Perfect!” said Jessica, taking the phone from my nerveless fingers.  “You can download a running app.”

From Couch to 5K.  Okay....

It starts off all right, I suppose, and is full of pleasantly affirmative messages, but to someone who thought that lycra was something that other people wore, it’s all very odd.

“You need,” said Jessica brightly, “a goal,” and promptly signed me and her poor father up for a 5K run.

And so last Sunday I walked, ran and walked some more round Heaton Park.  I’ve got a medal that says I’ve done a 5K and – weirdly – it feels great. 

“Now,” said Jessica, “let’s do a mud run....”