Day 218 Role models

After Team GB's performance on Saturday night I saw this posted on Facebook the other day. I wanted to share this to all my readers as I 100% agree with this. It was a fanatstic performance by our athletes at the weekend and they are all worthy rolemodels. I hope that there performances inspire not just the younger generations to particpate and more importantly continue to participate but also adults for the health of this nation.

Being a father of two fantastic girls I hope they decide to look up to people such as Jessica Ennis, instead of opting for the superfical idiots of Jordan and TOWIE people. I certainly as a father will be encouraging them to do so without putting too much pressure on sporting results....

Day 172 The Olympic Flame

Today the Olympic flame came past our house. Now I know many people are sick of hearing about the Olympic Flame, My mothers own words when I told her I and the children were going to see was, 'I wish the bugger would go out'. Obviously for those who aren't into their sports it's something that causes disturbance to their routine and lives in one way or another. However for me, being a keen sportsman it's an important symbol. The Olympics, ideally is all that's best with sports, traditionally, should I add, that it was about amateurs representing their countries, something that should be the proudest moment of any ones life.

Now I'm not defending the moder day Olympics, each Olympics is dogged by Political agendas, Governments seeming to use the games as an excuse to showcase their ideals of cause controversy, look back at the history of the games and this is intertwined. Also couple that with the fact that the games are sponsored by some of the worst companies in the world and it's clear to see that the Modern Day Olympics has come a long way from the traditional modern day Olympics set up by Pierre de Coubertin all those years ago.

But the games do bring out a lot of good, and I for one am proud we're hosting them in this country and looking forward to watching them, so the symbol of the Olympic flames represents to me all that is good with sport, bringing communities closer together and showing passion and pride in you country.

Come On Team GB.....

An Epic Week

This week is a week I d been looking forward to for quite sometime, and for quite a few reasons. Where to start? Well firstly I have a whole 8 days off work! Fantastic, what could be better no work, no meetings, no late finishes, or early starts (apart from getting up with the kids) just quality family time. Don't get me wrong, I like and enjoy my job but everyone needs a break at times and in the past I've been guilty of being on holiday but still working at home, but not in this case this is a 100% break.

So aside from that obvious reason why else have I been looking forward to this week for so long? Well, in fact it all started in November 2010. One of my favourite Bands had reformed, Blink 182. I had seen them earlier in the summer at Leeds festival, it was then announced that they would be touring the UK, do naturally as I always do when tickets went on sale I bought some, the ticket was originally for June 2011 but a few months before the gig the band postponed the gig as there album wouldn't be ready in time and only wanted to tour with a new album, fair does I can wait, it'll be awesome.

 The day of the Blink 182 gig the Olympic torch goes by our house too. Now being a keen sports fan and working in the fitness industry this is something I really want to take my kids along to as I am well aware that this is a lifetime opportunity, it definitely won't happen again in my lifetime and probably not in my daughters, is the fact it passes our house is great and something we will definitely see before heading north. I only wish I was lucky enough to run with it myself, big I'm not so seeing it will be great in its own right.

Little did I know however how the rescheduled show would be joined with other events in the week. In October 2011 it was announced that the Red Hot Chilli Peppers would play in Sunderland on Sunday 24th June. At the time I thought great, nice easy present for the OH, I like them but she loves them do there's a Christmas present and well go together, as well as many of my good school friends going it'll be a good day out.

Then in November the big announcement came that took this week from being a great week off to being and epic, spectacular, one if the best weeks of my life event, to join seeing Blink 182 and the Chilli Peppers, on Thursday 21st June at Sunderland none other than The Boss, Bruce Springsteen is playing. My mam bought me tickets for Christmas, and since this was announced I've been counting down the weeks the days and into hours now. I've already seen the Boss live once and it was the best gig I've been too, I can't wait it's gonna awesome.

I guess what's best as well is free childcare and accommodation this is all happening in my native north raft do we are travelling up and staying at my mams, she gets time with the grab kids and me and OH get time together and I also get time with my mates. It's all a win win.

So to quote the awesome Barney Stinson, this week is gonna be Legendary.....

A Grand Weekend

This past weekend had seen a nice family orientated activity filled one. To start with we had to pick both girls up from great grandpa's as me and OH went out to celebrate one of her friends birthdays on Friday night. After picking up the girls and realising that I had had no breakfast which subsequently meant I needed to pull the car over so I could be sick we found a coffee shop in a small nearby village. There we sat and ate some breakfast/lunch before heading off to our days activities.

Every year Knaresborough have a bed race. This is an event where the streets get closed off to traffic and instead people push 'beds' through the streets in a time trial race.We only moved to the area last year and heard of the race but missed it. So this year I was quite excited to go and thought it would be quite fun. Each year there is a theme. This years theme was of course the Olympics, each team would represent a country and with close to 100 teams there would be a fair representation of the world. Unfortunately due to us typically running late we didn't manage to see any of the 'beds' decorated. We arrived as the race had started. All the beds were stripped off of their decorations and everyone was in the competitive spirit. The beds were racing down the hill which was our vantage point. The atmosphere was nice, everyone clapping each team of contestants spurring them on to the finish line...

Once the race had finished we popped for a bite to eat and a drink, We were told by an old woman about the story of why there was a statue of a cat on top of the local pub the Market Tavern, saying that the cat had a crooked tail and the cat spirit could often be seen at night. The weather started turning cold so eldest child borrowed my coat and anyone could have mistaken her for a mini grim reaper how it sat on her.....

The next day we popped into town, we had seen that in Valley Gardens there was a family fun day themed in the 1940's. We went along taking the children with us. Many people were dressed up as soldiers or wearing styles of the 40's. We saw some steam engines and children's rides from the 40's. Eldest has never been one for rides but today saw her change her mind and actually she wanted to go on the see saw swings, so we paid the £1 entry fee for her to decide 30 seconds later that shes in fact didn't want to be on it....

We sat in the park and took in the view of the surrounding area, as we sat and ate out very typically British lunch of ham and cheese toasties with a spot of tea a marching band went past playing music to entertain us, it was very loud but fun to see...

 After a spot of lunch we walked around.Valley gardens is a very pretty park in the middle of the town. It has a stream with ducks in it, which made eldest child happy as we had finally found some ducks after our failed attempt early this year on our duck hunt, unfortunately this time we forgot the bread...

 After the 40's themed day in the park we decided to walk home, we walked past the stray in Harrogate which over the last week has had a fun fair on it. We stopped by to walk around it, Eldest decided she was going to be daring again and wanted to go on the rides. So she was told that if she went on a ride she wouldn't be able to get off and would have to stay on until the ride ends. She agreed and was allowed on the rides, as she went on her first, she grew more and more daring enjoying more and more daring rides....

 And it wasn't just eldest who had fun, I saw a football game where you had the option to kick a football at either Rooney or Messi and try to knock them over. I thought this was a great opportunity for myself to smack Rooney square in the head....

 Which I successfully managed....

Meaning a prize for daughters....

After all this fun it was time to go home and rest. It's been a long weekend, but also a fun weekend. We have seen lots and it's been nice weather. Hopefully this is just the start of many more great events this summer