Turning 40

On the 25th of Jan I turned 40. A traditional milestone but not one I'd given a huge amount of thought.

It is a time for reflection though. Leaving my 30's behind I can't help but look back on what was a pretty good 10 years for me.

Started off by getting married.

Shortly after which I ran my first marathon in Copenhagen.

Later that year ran my second marathon in Berlin, followed by a magical trip to Greece.

The next year involved a little bit of travel, Portugal for my 31st birthday, Paris to run a marathon with my dad.

Marathon number 4 in Nottingham

And then Baby #1.

don't I look young and slim. Oh yeah, and there's Theo :)

At some point along the way we finished walking the Thames Path which was a really special adventure for me and Jackie. (Note we've not yet finished blogging about the Thames path but will hopefully get that don'e at some point)

We really packed a lot in to 2010 and 2011!

With Theo the types of adventures we had were different. I started a blog about coffee shops in SW London, it gained a bit of traffic and was good fun.

We went to the 2012 London Olympics, I blogged about it quite a bit.

In 2013 I was offered a job back in NZ.We did one final European trip to Croatia, our first Europe trip with Theo.

We moved back to NZ, leaving on Theo's birthday, and the day after Jackie had submitted her UK citizenship application.

We bought a house before Christmas that year.

We had fund exploring NZ again, Waikato region, Coromandel, and Bay of Plenty locations mainly.

2015 bought baby #2, just as life was getting easier :) SO it was another couple of years of hard graft. Claudia was lovely but babies aren't easy.

Some great family holidays with extended family in Nelson, Mt Maunganui, Ohiwa, Otautu Bay, Rotorua, Taupo, Gisborne, Patumahoe and Waiu Pa.

Also great connecting with friends again around NZ.

A couple more years of hard graft, some decent job progress, another marathon and then an offer of a job in Newcastle, Australia in 2018. We were ready for another move so off we went.

Newcastle has been great, the kids have mainly loved it, it's been awesome to be living close to the beach, there's a bit more going on here, life is easy and Jackie has been able to get her art career underway with some great success. The job has been good too.

2019 brought another couple of marathons, one at Noosa where good friends from NZ joined us. We had a nice mini holiday there.

Noosa Marathon recovery

Second marathon was on Gold Coast. I drove there with both kids, it was about 8 hour drive, it was great to go on that road trip with them, just the three of us. Hard work though, Theo had a cold and it was a long way but helped develop me as a parent! My mum joined us on the GC which was awesome, we had a great support crew rewarded with a trip to Sea World after the marathon.

GC Marathon with support crew

Recently most of the highlights come from the family. Theo is enjoying and succeeding at school. Theo is so good at giving things a go, tennis, golf, nippers, drum corp, swimming. It is a shame his school doesn't have a proper playing field, that's one thing he definitely misses. We're pretty happy with the way Theo is turning out, so far.

Claudia is such a joy, loves kindy, has so much energy and emotion (mostly positive), is so thoughtful kind and caring.

The kids are at a great age, it might never be this good again.

It's not always this good.

With the kids going well, Jackie and I have more time together and also more time to ourselves which is healthy.

It makes me reflect that I really need to appreciate the role my parents had in making the person I am today. It wasn't always easy but in the end I'm happy with the person I've become and have my family to thank for giving me the opportunities I've had.

Thanks Mum and Dad.

So as I head in to my 40's I do wonder what the next 10 years might hold. I'd be very happy if it wasn't as eventful as my 30's but then I didn't set out to do all the stuff above in my 30's so I'm not going to rule anything out.

If I was to set myself a few goals for my 40's I've thought of a few, but then I'd like to think there are some things that'll I'll do in my 40's that I hadn't even thought of or considered.

Anyway, so possible goals for my 40's:

- end my 40's with a wife and 2 kids - the same ones I have now :)
- complete a master's degree
- have run 30 marathons (23 more than what I finished my 30's with)
- have a go at starting a company

What's interesting about a lot of what I remember about my 30's and what I want to achieve in my 40's is that work and my job really aren't at the centre of it. I enjoy my job, I'm quite good at it which helps but it really is just an enabler to me spending quality time with my family. I think I'm very luck to be in that position nd suspect at some point I won't always be so fortunate, but in the meantime I'm happy to make hay while the sun shines.

Kirikiriroa Marathon 2018

Given a goal for this year is marathon related I thought I should catch-up on my  marathon posts.

In the UK I did 4 marathons, I think I blogged the other ones (Just checked, no think I started blogging after the first 2.

Anyway, marathon V was Kirikiriroa, my home town at the time in Hamilton, 2018.

It had been 7 years since my last marathon, Nottingham and while I'd tried to stay fit I had a long road to go to get marathon ready. Marathon training with young children was not so easy. Not least because a 3 hour training run means 3 hours of time missed with the kids. So my training was no where near as intense as when I was in London without kids.

But I was determined to get back to running so slow and steady I got in to it. I was only doing 2-3 proper runs in a week, with quite a few very short runs to work in the meantime.

A new development for my training was that I had a GPS watch, a standard Garmin watch which not only kept my time but how far I ran and mapped my runs for me. I'd resisted getting a Garmin for a while but actually really appreciated having it as it helped with motivation.

The Kirikiriroa marathon runs along the banks of the Waikato River, which is a relatively narrow, quite undulating path. I did all my long runs along here so knew what I was getting myself in for.

I was training to be able to do the marathon in under 6min/ks.

Another thing I tried for this marathon was energy gels. It was hard to know if they were helping but it seems it's the standard thing to do now so I figure it must be the right thing to do.

On the day, our friend Ann picked me up, she was also running the marathon. It was dark when we arrived. The crowds were minimal, unlike any of the previous four marathons, really just a couple of hundred people maybe.

We were quite early, so a fair bit of standing around.

The start was cool, they had a Maori challenge to get us underway which was great. The sun was beginning to rise as we took off.

Hills right from the start, a very slow first km. Slowly in to a rhythm. Hopefully the Strava frame below works which shows the map, time etc. If you're on Strava you should be able to see more details via the link


I made it under 4h 12m which was my goal, I was fading real fast towards the end but was happy in the end.

So I was back on the running wagon, no more marathons in 2018 but two in 2019 which I'll write up soonish, hopefully before I get on to #VIII.

2020

New Year Resolutions for 2020

1. Run 4 marathons
2. Run a marathon under 3h 50m
3. Do some study (maybe a few MOOCs, possible Google Digital Marketing Cert). I really should do a masters given work would pay but just not sure what.
4. Get back in to blogging

So, last resolution first and here we are. I figure blogging will be a good distraction from work and I'm keen to ensure that our adventures are recorded because I'll forget them all by the time the kids are actually interested.  Need to catch-up on the past 6 years to start with. I noticed I still have some blogs in drafts from years ago.

Oh yeah, and looking at the stats for our blog, we were still getting plenty of traffic to our blog last year, even though we hadn't posted for 6 years. I'm sure you're dying to know, most popular blog was about Lisbon. and second was one of my blogs about shoes, I can see a follow up to that coming up soon.

So hopefully more to come this year.

Father's day 2014

Not sure about the apostrophe, sure someone will correct me.

I was lucky to be treated to a special father's day this year.

I was woken up by Theo wishing me happy father's day and giving me cards and gifts.

I was allowed to go for a jog which I haven't had time to do for a while.

Then home to a delicious home made breakfast.

We then packed up the car and headed off to Pukemiro Junction. Jackie had sussed out a day at Pukemiro junction which is an old train station, they have restored steam and diesel engines, a quaint old station and some picnic areas.

The train runs once an hour and just runs along about 5km of line. It's pretty old and rickety and so takes a while.

The train tickets are valid all day.

The first time we went on the train Theo was quite scared. He sat quietly and held Jackie and my hand. He sat up to the window a couple of times but mainly just sat on his seat and held our hands, it was quite cute.

After our first ride we went and had a picnic which Jackie had prepared the day before. Theo and I also had a sausage in bread from the sausage sizzle.

After lunch Theo and I went for another ride on the train. Theo was much more comfortable this time, chatting away to other passengers, leaning up on the window and moving from one carriage to another.

As well as the train they had a 'jigger', we didn't go for  ride.

On the drive home Theo crashed out

Settling in

We've had a busy month settling in to our new home and exploring our new country

Theo continues to develop his domestic skills, he's probably due for a haircut soon though, don't you think?

As with last year, Theo and I made hot cross buns for Easter. They weren't that flash this year, flavour was a bit bland and they were a bit solid. Apricot jam glaze made them yummy though. 

For Easter we rented a bach in Pauanui, it was a last minute decision and thankfully the flooding had subsided by the time we left on Saturday

The bach was really nice, it looked out on to the golf course. There were rabbits runnin around, which tied in nicely with the Easter theme. 

We didn't get a chance to use the bbq. We did play a bit of table tennis though. 

Theo loved running around on the sand dunes and particularly enjoyed picking flowers for mummy. 

Theo's bedroom had a cool door which you could open half of. 

Back in Hamilton, I had Tuesday off work but Theo's pre-school was open so I did the drop off and then walked down the road for brunch with Jackie. As I walked a bus with my work's advertising drove past, underneath one of our street banners, next to one of our street flags, I took a photo and the dude on the bike got a great photo bomb. 

For ANZAC weekend we went to Taupo with mum and dad. Dad and I played golf at Wairakei, it was a great day. The swim in the hot pool at the end of the day was another highlight. 

Before leaving Taupo we stopped in for a nice coffee

Back home for some painting...

... and gardening

Today, Theo and I went to the Waikato University community day, even though I studied there and work there we went on a campus tour which included a tour of the secret tunnel that goes underneath a couple of buildings, there was also horses, science stuff, music, theatre and other fun stuff.

Theo rode his bike all the way to the uni and most of the way home, he didn't have a nap today so went to sleep pretty easily even without his mummy

I'm drinking my coffee nicely

A couple of weeks ago Jackie went to London to become a British citizen.

Theo and I held the fort here in Hamilton New Zealand. In the mornings Theo went to preschool while I went to work. In the afternoons we had fun.

Something we did quite a bit of was visiting cafes. Theo enjoyed this and was very good at drinking his coffee nicely...

Some other stuff we did included...

Saying goodbye to mum at the airport

Doing the vacuuming, dishes and cooking dinner

Having coffees with marshmallows

Falling asleep at lunch

Cycling around the lake

Having a well earned smoothie after some off road biking

Running around the wide open spaces of Hamilton Gardens with bike helmet

Playing in the Hamilton Gardens playground with bike helmet

Crashing out yoga styles

Eating home made chicken and chips

Drinking my coffee nicely

Watching uncle Zane play hockey... while eating a sausage roll

Eating daddy's ice cream to celebrate being a good boy all week.

The weekend after mum got home we went to the Balloons Over Waikato nightglow

Back on the blog wagon

It's been a long time between blogs, we keep meaning to get back in to it to tidy up a few stories from London and to document our transition to Hamilton but we've been so busy it just hasn't happened.

So today Jackie flew back to London to pick up her British Citizenship. It was a big decision to go through the process of applying for citizenship for Jackie and to fly her back to do the ceremony but it give us so many more options for our future.

Of course, with Jackie being away for ten days I'm a solo dad. Day one has gone well, Theo seemed to understand that mummy has gone away but will be back soon. This afternoon, after we'd got back to Hamilton Theo would point at planes that flew past as say that mummy is in there. He's also been saying that mummy is going to visit Jo and Marsh and Fi and Baby Ally.

We had home made fish and chips for dinner and Theo went through his normal routine of bath, teeth, books and bed, he was asleep before 8.30 and is still asleep a couple of hours later. Let's hope he has a good night sleep because I'm under the weather and could do with a rest.