Still in Wales! Here’s another phone box from Mum and Dad’s trip.
(Coordinates 51°94’63.8″N, 3°38’94.6″W.)
There’s no phone in this one (it appears to be next to a pub so would have been a useful location back in the day), but it does have a sign on saying ‘This kiosk is protected for future generations’. This is great and hopefully we’ll see more phone box protection! It would also be nice to see a re-use for this one.
It has taken me a long time to get round to posting all my gig reviews from the last few years. This one is from 2021 – at the time I reviewed the gig for both Cherry Lipstick and Daily Duranie. The latter is no longer online so I will post a modified version of that review here!
While the Duran gig on Tuesday 14th September was more fabulous than I could ever have expected, I had a very good reason for being unable to stick around for the second night – I already had tickets for another exciting show! I made a quick train journey from Birmingham back home to Newcastle, ready for the long-awaited return of Andy Taylor to the North East of England. Duran one night and Andy the next… quite possibly the closest I’ll ever get to seeing the classic lineup! Wonderful that they were both hometown gigs too.
Andy’s gig was a charity show titled ‘Rock ‘N’ Raise’, with the aim of raising money for charities including the Sir Graham Wylie Foundation and Teenage Cancer Trust. As such, it was a bit of a festival atmosphere with various support acts, all with links to the area. My favourite was North East singer Lorraine Crosby, who is most well-known for singing the female vocal on Meat Loaf’s ‘I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)’ and these days performs a Queen tribute act. She has a brilliant voice and would later join Andy for his big finale.
There was also a charity raffle and auction just before Andy came on, with the auctioned items being a bracelet made specially out of the guitar strings Andy was using that night (to be made after the gig, obviously!) and a signed poster. The two items went for £1,000 each, and I believe were bought by the same person! Great news for the charity and I hope the buyer enjoys them – the bracelet especially would be a very special souvenir!
Andy and the band played a brilliant mix of Duran tracks (including ‘What Happens Tomorrow’, which Andy described as ‘the Duran song that got away’, and ‘Careless Memories’, which I adored), Power Station tracks, tracks off the 1987 Thunder album, and a few Robert Palmer and Rod Stewart tracks with which Andy had originally been involved. It occurs to me that seeing an Andy Taylor gig must be the only way now to see Power Station songs performed by a Power Station member, unless John and the rest of Duran ever decide to throw a few into a set! There were no tracks played from Andy’s new album, so it felt like quite a different show to his last gig at the 100 Club, but that also felt right for the type of show it was. There’ll be plenty of time to hear the new stuff when Andy’s ready for us to hear it. (Note from 2025: and we now can!)
Just like Duran the night before, Andy closed his finale with ‘Rio’. Andy’s version was a bit of a party, with support acts joining him on stage and the glorious surprise of Si King from the Hairy Bikers playing the bongos!
Because it was a local-to-me gig I dragged Geth out with me. He really enjoyed it and was able to share my excitement when Andy played ‘What Happens Tomorrow’ as I’d recently been playing Astronaut a lot in the car! He said he’d like to see Andy again so I’ll be buying two tickets for the Cullercoats gig if/when that COVID-cancelled UK tour finally gets rescheduled… Fingers crossed that Andy will eventually make it out there to see all the international fans too – because everybody deserves to see this show. It was a cracker!
(Note from 2025 – no more Andy gigs as of yet due to his ongoing cancer treatment. This Classic Pop interview from earlier this year is a great, positive read!)
As was my habit in those days, I livetweeted during the gig: 1, 2, 3, 4.
It’s been a couple of months since I was last on the Moor for parkrun. December is mapped out as a very easy-paced month running-wise (I’m doing Marcothon again as there’s no race training getting in the way this year, so keeping everything easy and not doing any speedwork!). Geth and I had a nice trot round in just under 30 minutes. Nice to have a brass band playing Christmas tunes at the start/finish!
A little further afield next week.
Moving up through Wales again.
(Coordinates 51°92’35.3″N, 3°46’30.2″W.)
No phone in this one but it appears to be in use as an unofficial book exchange.
I wasn’t really feeling this one going in!
Geth and I booked it in May after feeling a tiny bit disappointed with our Sunderland times (I was still of the belief at that point that I would be getting a PB at every distance in 2025 like I did last year… I have since been roundly disabused of that notion!). After a hectic autumn, heading off to Leeds to race a 10k in the cold was the last thing we wanted to do. Nevertheless, we decided to make a weekend of it – there was a Christmas market, after all, and we seem to be collecting those this year.
Despite the forecast, I didn’t feel as cold on the start line as I did when we last raced this one in 2023. I was in a vest last time, mind, whereas this year I went for a longsleeve. It used to be a mid-October race but Run For All have taken it over this year and moved it to the end of November. This did result in an improved course by our standards (the start was right outside our usual hotel and there was no hill towards the end) as the route had to avoid the Christmas market.
It was one of those races where I chose not to look at my watch at any point, ran the whole thing on feel, and tried not to second-guess myself by looking at the pacers. The result was a fairly steady run, a negative split according to the results, and a consistent 50:25. Three seconds slower than Sunderland, which is a bit annoying, but I honestly didn’t expect to be anywhere near 50 minutes. I have found it really hard to recover from Amsterdam over the last month, and I’ve been suffering a bit in the colder weather with my asthma – my interval paces have been much, much slower than usual – so I just didn’t think I’d be able to run at a faster pace. Apparently I was wrong.
The fact that I can pull out a 50ish minute 10k after far-from-ideal training has given me a lot of confidence for next year. Overall I’m really happy with that race. Not at all what I expected!
Here’s one that Mum and Dad found in the Brecon Beacons.
(Coordinates 51°87’22.5″N, 3°47’97.2″W.)
There’s still a phone in this one, presumably because it’s quite remote!
I had been planning and looking forward to this parkrun for ages!
I knew I would be in Oslo this weekend and so I had selected Ekebergsletta early this year (having previously done Tøyen when I last visited), but it was only a couple of months ago that I realised it would be a good place to do my 50th different parkrun location (something that I have been working towards all year with a target of hitting it by the end of 2025).
I knew late November would be cold in Oslo but I was still fairly surprised to see a forecast of minus 5 degrees and snow for this weekend! In my experience, Nordic parkruns don’t tend to cancel for winter weather, but I was still a tiny bit nervous and checking the Facebook page constantly for about a fortnight beforehand.
We ran the two miles there and back to make it a nice seven-mile morning. A small event and very friendly as small events tend to be! It wasn’t wintry enough for the winter course so they were still on the summer one 😃
Loved this parkrun and delighted to celebrate my 50th location here.
Here’s a fairly festive one that Mum and Dad found, again in Geth’s old neck of the woods.
(Coordinates 51°67’37.0″N, 3°53’40.9″W.)
Not sure what the occasion was but it looks quite nice in its flowers and hat.
Just a lovely easy run round the Dene again this morning. It’s getting cold and damp but I loved it.
Further afield again next week.
