January 2017

[Sweder]

There have been a number of outings so far this year.
NYD Twittens wasn't too terrible, despite the NYE 7 Course Taster (with a different, delicious wine with each course) at Limetree Kitchen and a late, bubbles-fuelled night with Mr Jools Holland and local Blues Fusion sensation, Rag and Bone Man.

I also ventured into the world of off-road mountain biking. I picked the muddiest day in history, as evidenced by the state of my brand new bike - and me - after an hour of thrashing through thick porridge last Thursday.

         

Since then I've managed various plods in the local hills. I dodged Parkrun today, opting to volunteer. I wanted to see how these events operate 'from the inside', as OATR, CC5 and I are looking into launching a ParkRun in Lewes. I ended up spending three hours with the organisers, going through every step of the process including the data capture, merge and upload. My head's still spinning. My role on the day was Time Keeper, an alltogether far too responsible position for a man of my, ah, proclivities.

It's VERY early days. We'll need volunteers and at least 4 or 5 locals who will step into fairly committed roles. The course would be two laps of Landport Bottom, the sheep field behind my house. This was the scene of the Battle of Lewes (1264) when De Montfort's men rousted and chased the King's men down into the town ... I digress. There are all sorts of reasons why this won't come about, as there were with the Moyleman, initially. We recently topped 250 entrants for the 2017 Moyleman, and that's all I have to say about that.

It'll be hilly, off-road, adjacent to Bevendean ParkRun in terms of effort and degree of difficulty. I completed two (clockwise) circuits this week. The views are spectacular, the undulations unforgiving. There is, apparently, plenty of local appetite. We'll have to see if that extends to people stepping up to get involved. We'll also need to raise around 3.5 grand, get local authority permission, go through the whole ParkRun franchise process ...

There's a long way to go. But hey, you only live once, and this is a really, really good thing to do.
On, on.