Over the last couple of weekends, I was tasked with covering the Aviva Athletics Roadshows at the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield and the Bullring in Birmingham, respectively.
Each day, a number of athletes were in attendance – notably, world Junior Hammer champion Sophie Hitchon in Sheffield, and high jumper Tom Parsons and British record holding pole vaulter Holly Bleasdale (pictured below) in Birmingham – for Q&As, demonstrations and games led by Fuzz Ahmed, the UK Athletics High Jump coach – he’s surprisingly nimble for a 45-year-old.
This was one of the more fun things I’ve covered recently and I must admit, it got me thinking about back in the day when I was at school and athletics was one of my main interests, when I didn’t have a smartphone, games console, a computer or a TV in my room to distract me (and I wasn’t old enough to drink!). Good times, which I miss, but I wish we’d had a proper track and not had to run everything on grass.
These days, other than the gym, it’s just squash and football – neither of which I am particularly good at, although I do have a decent turn of pace in a straight line!
Oops – sorry, reading masses; I forgot to post ‘evidence’ that the team completed the National Three Peaks Challenge last month. My personal fundraising total reached a brilliant £481.81 and the team total was a massive £4374.82 – a BIG thank you goes out to everyone who supported us. We managed to complete the challenge in just over 24 hours, which was a shame, but still a massive achievement given the size of the team. We started at Ben Nevis in the dark and pouring rain just before 6am – look how happy we were:
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I covered a few events for Manchester International Festival in July – this included a number of interviews with notable industry types and live performances by artists and bands of all shapes and sizes. The highlight for me was Dave Haslam’s interview with Bernard Sumner, in which Bernie pulled no punches when describing his relationship with Peter Hook. Ain’t gonna be no reunion!
Evidence:
Sinead O’Connor!
Bernard
LoneLady
Snoooooooop D Oh double-G
Here are some images from the first Ben & Jerry’s Sundae in the Park at Heaton Park, Manchester, this July. It was another good selection of music and free ice cream. I’m not a massive fan of Gary Numan, but when I saw him walking round in the artists’ area in a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, I thought I would give it a chance. That was a good decision… Ash rocked, Fun Lovin’ Criminals grooved, Maximo Park bounced and Ocean Colour Scene took us back.
Evidence:
9 days to go and 91% on the way to the £250 fundraising target I set!
Another £23.19 and we’re there!!
Not long now – 12 days in fact, before I take on the National Three Peaks Challenge with a group of 8 others. Yesterday, we did Scafell Pike as a practice run. I’d been at my folks’ annual BBQ on Saturday, and the alcohol intake and subsequent dehydration made sure I hadn’t had much sleep – I saw this as a good thing, as it would make things a bit more difficult and hopefully a bit more like the real thing.
In all, it took us 4 hours and 15 minutes, with a few more breaks than we really needed, but that was a good time and should be a realistic target for the peak during the actual event.
Fund raising is going well, but much more can be raised – if you can spare anything at all, please use the button below to make a donation (not forgetting to add Gift Aid). Thanks!
Next month, I’ll be taking part in a group assault (crawl?) on the highest peaks in each of England, Scotland and Wales, respectively – the national Three Peaks Challenge. I’m serious – I bought a bright yellow waterproof jacket and everything!
This will be a group effort, in aid of Parkinson’s UK and will take place on Saturday 13th August at the very unsociable time of 6am, when we will begin our ascent of Ben Nevis in Scotland, which stands at 1,344 metres (4,409 ft). This will be followed by Scafell Pike in the Lake District at a height of 978 metres (3,209 ft) and finally, Snowdon in North Wales at an elevation of 1,085 metres (3,560 ft). We are aiming to complete the challenge in 24 hours (10 hours of driving, 14 hours of walking/climbing) before spending the next 24 hours sleeping.
For those of you who are able to donate (however small an amount), I have set up a JustGiving page HERE. Hopefully I will reach and breach my fundraising target of £250!
Thanks,
Andy
Gubbins from this year’s Manchester International Festival, some Rock Sound stuff and Ben and Jerry’s in the (hopefully sunny!) Park.
In other news, I went to the Tate Modern recently. It’s one of those places that helps take your mind of other things that you can’t get your head around, by making you concentrate on other stuff that you can’t work out either.
I didn’t ‘get’ most of what I saw, but some of it I liked, without knowing why. This is an example of something that fell into both categories – possibly because a decent string of words happened to flow by, just as I took the shot.
Geek stuff: taken with iPhone 3GS, processed in the Instagram app, with tilt-shift effect and Hefe filter.
Like most people, I like good weather over a bank holiday weekend, so this one was a good ‘un. The weekend started with a trip into Oldham on Thursday night, which naturally came free with a hangover on Friday. This was mostly cleared by a walk up in the hills with my mate’s dog, Bleu.
[Bleu]
The good weather continued until Sunday, when I got on the bike and had a ride down by the river up to Chorlton Water Park. Quite a few other people had had the same idea, too. This place is great when it’s sunny, but pretty grim when it’s dull.
[CWP]
I shot these three bands for Rock Sound on Wednesday:
Attack! Vipers!
Circa Survive
Thursday
It wasn’t as busy as I thought it would be, but that was probably because most of the styoodents have buggered off home for the Easter holidays.