marathon man

3.50.57 is the official time. VERY impressive. And he made it look so easy!

the beginning

2/3 of the way through (or so)

the finish line!

And I got a kiss everytime I saw him (5 times!) Well done J-Dubh!!

As you can see from the photos the weather wasn’t nearly as bad as forecast – there were sporadic hail/sleet showers and it was a bit windy and cold but totally bearable!

Beki and Bryony were excellent supporters too and cheered loudly with Beki shouting ‘run faster Jon’ – I’m sure that spurred him on! Incidentally I found the book below in a second hand bookshop and both Beki and I are finding it very interesting! It’s about Beki and J’s great great uncle (great-grandfather’s brother).

So, that’s one challenge down, what’s next J?!

PS Thanks for all the texts and encouraging words and sponsorship – he definitely appreciated it!!

full house

Well, it was a lovely day today – warm (I was wearing summer clothes which I know doesn’t mean much to ‘normal’ people but still!), sunny, blue skies. Surely it can’t turn so horrible overnight… We’ll wait and see, it is a lot colder already!

And now we have a full house! The girls are back (yeah!) full of stories and smiles and Sam R and his friend Andy are staying overnight before flying to Oz tomorrow. We all carbo-loaded for dinner (in sympathy with J!) and then had a fun evening of card games. It’s good when random people that we know from different situations get together and get on!

Sam isn’t exactly the speediest dealer!

And now off to bed. The boys are getting picked up at 3:45AM!!! And hopefully the rest of us will sleep a little beyond that. J’s marathon starts at 9am (10pm Saturday evening UK time, 5pm Saturday evening NYC time). Will keep you posted…

final call for sponsorship – guest blog

OK get your wallets out before Sunday. All for a good cause!

Thanks to all those who already made a donation. Now that you’ve heard the weather forcast feel free to treble it!!

click here to give!

J

the Rocky post below really takes on a new meaning now that snow is forecast!

marathon prep

As part of J’s final marathon preparation we cycled round the course today (you go round the course twice for the full marathon so we only cycled the half marathon technically). He now knows exactly where he’s going and I’ve found a Holiday Inn which has comfy chairs and is in an excellent location for me to stay warm for most of the race but I can easily head out and cheer J on as he passes – on both sides of the river (therefore seeing him 4 times!) Having cycled only half of what he has to run I am even more impressed by what he is going to do on Sunday!!

We also picked up his race number and the timing chip to be worn on his shoes. It all suddenly seems very real!

A big happy birthday shout out to my mum – I am so thankful for you!!!! Have a great day!

weather update

The full article is here but the highlights are:

• Blizzards and extreme wind chill will hit the South Island on Sunday
• MetService and Blue Skies Weather issued warnings of snow as low as sea level from Sunday morning
• Runners in the Christchurch Marathon events would need to take care, he said. “It is going to be a very cold, very windy and unpleasant day. It could be potentially quite dangerous conditions for runners. Given we will have strong winds, the wind chill will be significant on Sunday.”
• MetService spokesman Bob McDavitt said wind-chill temperatures could plummet as low as -10C in exposed places on Sunday.

Not exactly perfect running conditions for J!!

Taylor’s Mistake

Early start to the day today – again just five hours or so after we’d gone to bed. A certain football game was on and we were keen to feel the connection with home (and I’ve just plain missed watching football!) Two pubs in town were showing it and were opening at 6am. I expected a handful of people to attend. Oh boy was I wrong!! They were PACKED (a couple of hundred in each at least!!) and the only reason I got a seat was because J found a dusty broken one hidden somewhere and he sat on the steps. I’ll spare you a match commentary but it would appear only one team turned up for the game. Anyway, it was great to be out watching football again!!

We then came home for a smashing breakfast – pancakes, delicious bacon, maple syrup, golden kiwi fruit and pears. And then decided that rather than going back to bed we’d make the most of the first day in ages where it either hasn’t rained or hasn’t been threatening to rain and headed to the coast and to Taylor’s Mistake…. I now have a new favourite walk! It was awesome!

(that’s me on the bench and probably South America somewhere in the distance!)

There were great wee holiday shacks aong the beach that were SO Kiwi…

So a great walk and one to remember! Lewis and Louise we’ll be taking you here for sure!!

sweepstake

J and I started a sweepstake today and I wanted to give you the opportunity to join in!

We have six close friends and family members due to give birth between June and October and so we’ve started guessing the babies gender, name and whether they will be early, late or on time. The exact prize hasn’t been worked out yet but surely will be spectacular!

The couples are:

• Kate and Phil (J’s sister and brother-in-law)
• Hannah and Scott (Hannah is a good friend of mine from my NYC days)
• Amanda and Matt (Matt is my brother’s best friend from Perth)
• Jo and Andy (Jo is my former flatmate and sang at our wedding)
• Rachel and Steph (Rachel is another former flatmate from Aberdeen – now living in Germany so maybe a German name?)
• Katy and Tim (J’s brother and sister-in-law)

Any guesses submitted will be added to our chart but won’t be revealed to the people concerned in case it influences the outcome!! (Incidentally we already know Matt and Amanda and Hannah and Scott are having boys and Hannah has told me the names they’re thinking about so I have a slight advantage!)

Even if you don’t know the people have a guess!!!

On another subject, I had a touch of the green monster today. I went to the airport to say hello to Rach as she was flying through on her way to NYC. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE living in New Zealand but the thought of getting on a plane and heading to the big apple was oh so enticing!!

not boring!

Well I thought today might be another boring day so I started taking random pictures of what I was doing to try and spice it up…

we played cards…

and had lunch which was acutally breakfast for me. Our day started five hours after we’d gone to bed when there was some speedy dialing from Scotland before the maths of time difference had been fully worked out! Lovely to chat though and so we slept in a bit this morning to compensate!

and then I hung out the washing which totally didn’t dry!! We’re getting into that season again!!

But then things actually got a bit more exciting (mind you, what’s more exciting than pictures of clothes drying on a line?!?) Well, I took our car in for a service and went to the library while I was waiting where I read the New Yorker (what a treat) which had some great articles – one funny one about Texas separating from the US and another (unfunny!) one about Rwanda. Very pleasant time!

and then on the way back to the car I saw someone being ARRESTED (almost took a photo but didn’t think it was probably appropriate!) You don’t see that everyday (well I guess you maybe do if you’re a policeman!?)

And then I did a few other wee practical things (including going to a second hand Christian bookshop which has SEVEN rooms of books – you’d love it mum!) before rushing home to get picked up to go to home group which was very good! And now I have two hours or so until Jonathan comes home and I have series one of Heroes to start!!! (I don’t know much about the show but I remember Richie doing a children’s talk on it once!!)

Who says my life is boring and monotonous?!?

sunday and monday stories!!!

It’s difficult to know what to blog when not much is happening (some of you might say that I manage to blog every other time when not much is happening!) The Jowseys left yesterday after a relaxing chilled out weekend. We now have 5 days until Beki and Bryony are back and, in fact, on Saturday (the night before J’s marathon) we’ll have six of us staying in our wee house! J spent a  while speaking with Randal on skype last night. Randal has some ace jokes and ways of saying things and at one point we were three were laughing so hard we couldn’t talk – it’s good to have chats like that!  And then today has been pretty quiet, J is working the evening shift and I have just pottered about doing practical things and thinking. So it’s all quiet on the southern front!

Maybe I’ll do a photo diary of all I do tomorrow… It might be more interesting!!

saturday stories

This photo about sums up the weather today! We did venture down to the beach but mostly just to have a coffee in the cafe overlooking the ocean.

(Jonathan assures me that NZ coffee is the best in the world)

Mike and Catherine squeezed in a trip to Bethlehem Bryndwr to visit Mary and Joseph Lesley and Joseph. We also fitted in a game of Settlers, reading the paper, chatting, cups of tea, three meals and a whole disc of our wedding DVD!! (Be warned anyone who is thinking about visiting us – it’s almost compulsory viewing!!) It was nice just to chill out and catch up!

And so it’s the end of the day, we’re just about to go to bed when Jonathan says ‘I’ve just realised that I’m still wearing my pajama bottoms UNDER my jeans!’ All day my husband had been wearing jeans and pj bottoms!!! Seriously, I’m not sure what’s worse – that he was wearing them or that he hadn’t realised!!

Oh and this made us smile.

PS Have a great trip to Chicago Jude!!