Local History Month

I live in Chorlton, a suburb of South Manchester. It's very nice and I feel extremely fortunate to live here.
A few groovy things about Chorlton - Cosgrove Hall used to be based here and I know a couple of people who worked there on various animations, notably the lovely Andrea Lord of &made and Luke Marsh.
I once queued up behind Bez at the fishmongers. He was buying salmon. Badly Drawn Boy once nearly mowed me and my friend down in his car.

Aside from that, I don't really know that much about the history of the area. There's a really beautiful park about 10 minutes away from my house called Longford Park, which was founded by John Rylands of John Rylands Library fame. He used to live in a big old grand house which he built, it's no longer there, just an archway remains. I like to go running there, it's so pretty, birds a-plently to be spotted. There's also a gym and athletics track, where I have spent many a painful hour being shouted at and doing multiple weak lunges. My house is very close to Chorlton Ees too, great for walking, running and cycling. You can get to Dunham Massey and Lymm via the Trans Pennine Trail, it's flipping great!

 The canal at Stretford.

River Mersey.

Chorlton Water Park last Summer.

Busting out some speed and witnessing some bumcheeks.

Had a great run at run club tonight. Did a slightly unexpected 10k, including last-man sprints, which I only agreed to do because of the rest of the group said they were doing them! It’s a conditioning exercise, where a group of runners jog single file at a steady pace, and then the last runner in line sprints to the front of the line, taking the place of the first runner, and so on. I surprised myself by actually really enjoying them and getting a pretty good pace on. I finished feeling strong and came home to so some yoga stretches for my hips and legs. Hopefully won't be in pain tomorrow.
Earlier I went out on my bike to do a reccy of the canal to see if I would be able to do a nice run to work down there. I was disturbed to see a man with his shorts down past his bumcheeks, so I'm putting that plan on ice! 

Lovely shiny, but ultimately disappointing, avocado.

Longford Park in bloom.

Juneathon No. 1!

 Good morning! Today is the 1st of June and thus the beggining of Juneathon. I saw it mentioned on Twitter and thought it seemed like a bit of fun (?!). Maybe I was still on a high after the Great Manchester 10k. Basically you do some form of exercise everyday in June and blog about it. I'm training for the Great North Run in September so it will hopefully spur me on for my first ever half marathon and also breathe a bit of life back into my poor old bloggy.

Beautiful day for it! I got up early and set out for my 5k route - walking 5 minutes from my flat to Longford Park. Not a cloud in the sky! I decided to run free and easy, with no headphones so I could enjoy the birdsong.

If only my legs were this long in real life. I headed up towards Streford to get onto the canal.

I didn't see my old pals/arch enemies the Canada geese this morning, so didn't have to fear ending up in the canal.

I always think this looks very British! Anyways, I popped off the canal onto Hawthorne Lane and through the ees then back home. An enjoyable 30 minute jog.

If you would like to sponsor me for the Great North Run, my Just Giving page is here. I'm raising money for Diabetes UK.

Off to Darlo today, as my Auntie and Uncle are visiting from Mexico! They only come over about once a decade, so I'm very excited.