Sigh.

3 and a bit years ago I bemoaned the lack of excitement in Formula One, and offered a few ideas to jazz things up a bit. Maybe someone read my blog back then afterall, as most of my ideas seem to have found their way into the rulebook (except the reverse grids… is that just BTCC?) Bernie even stole my ‘one point for a win’ idea and rebadged it ‘medals’, before he ran out of brave pills. And it got better. The racing did seem to improve. There were proper exciting races and tight championships going down to the last corner of the last lap of the last race of the season.

And now they’ve gone and broken it again. Just one race into the new season, Alonso says races are going to be decided in qualifying and on the first lap of the race. Schumacher says the first race was fun but dull, and he’s right about the dull part.  Apart from a couple of glimmers of overtaking from the new boys, Webber’s overfilled oil tank, and Vettel’s cracked exhaust, nothing happened. The Ferraris held together, Hamilton picked off the lame Vettel, and 49 laps of mediocrity passed in a little under 100 minutes.

So, what to do?  Well, I’m afraid I’m out of ideas (sorry Bernie).  I suppose things might get better in Australia – at least there might be some discernible crowd in attendance to give things a sense of occasion.  Maybe a shorter track will mean more racing opportunities.  Maybe Webber will put a show on for his fairdinkum mates.  Maybe Lewis and Schumacher will get to go at it hammer and tongs, wheel to wheel.

I remain hopeful, but can’t help feeling that we’re in for a pretty yawnful year on the track.  It’s a sad state of affairs when you find yourself hoping for some off-track scandals just to keep the interest levels up.

So, come on you clever F1 guys.  Please think of something to keep us watching.

Saturday was the usual mix of swimming, shopping and a little housework. Oh, with a certain 9-year-old’s birthday party thrown in for good measure. I’m not particularly secretive about the fact that I dislike these events, but this one wasn’t really that bad. The kids all behaved themselves, and I actually managed to learn a few of their names and have something approaching conversations with them. Well, OK, it was food time and they told me what sandwich they wanted, but that’s progress for me.

Today was time for more shopping (for Mrs H anyway, I stayed home and marshalled our little darlings), a walk, and then (a delectable) Sunday Roast with the in-laws.

Oh yes – these walks. We’re surprising ourselves with this. Since our trip to the Lake District, we’ve been taking ourselves off for weekly walks. We’ve invested in 3 Landranger OS maps (178, 179 and 189, fact fans), and spend 5 minutes on Saturday evening deciding on a suitable spot, and then 2 or 3 hours on Sunday walking. Surprisingly, we’re enjoying it. More surprisingly, with the weather not looking too promising this morning, we still headed out, and we still had fun. Who’d a thunk it?

If you want to keep tabs on where we’ve been and what we’ve seen, there’s a new link over there on the right with the oh-so-imaginative title of ‘Walks‘. It takes you to a section of this site where I’m trying to record where we go along with any notes and comments and so on. The Google maps with overlays of our routes are nothing clever on my part – they come from Everytrail.com, a site that lets you upload GPS tracks from a variety of sources (I use my lovely phone).

Now… I’m being told I’m only typing here to avoid jumping on the Wii Fit thingie to be told how fat I am.  It’s true, but I can delay no longer…

1 very tight gate for the pushchair, and 3 locked gates requiring lifts. Horses on the bridleway must be good jumpers…

Leysdown Loop at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail: Share GPS Tracks

Passable with a pushchair, but only with a few lifts over fences where the pedestrian gates are too small. Quite hard going with the pushchair in places as the track can get quite narrow so you’re pushing through long grass and over rubble etc.

Harty Ferry towards Conyer (and back) at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail: GPS Trip Sharing with Google Maps

6.2 miles in 2 hours 39 minutes – 2.3mph (time includes the cake and tea stop…)

Fowlmead Country Park to Deal (and back) at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail: Share GPS Tracks

(Click for full size, or here’s an iPhone version)

The clifftops between Bishopstone and Reculver have a footpath and a cyclepath. It seems that cyclists get cross at walkers walking on the cyclepath (even though it’s signposted as a footpath).

Herne Bay to Reculver (and back) at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail: GPS Community

• Hair.  Enough to go curly when it gets long, and to look worryingly ‘Hawaiian Sunset’ in the right light.  Or should that be the wrong light?
• Teeth.  3 at the last count, with more coming.  He’s had 2 for what seems like an age, but the telltale signs of proper teething started about a week ago and he’s now sporting a nice big upper incisor to go with his 2 lowers.  The scarcity of teeth hasn’t really stood in his way though, as he half-munches & half-gums more or less anything we give him, including apple, raw carrot, chips, banana.
• Shoes.  He’s not walking yet, but he’s nearly there.  To help him on his way to full mobility, we’ve got him a pair of slipper-ish shoes to wear whilst he’s taking his tentative assisted footsteps.  With a steadying hand or two, he can walk, and there are moments when there’s no physical reason for the handholding.  Around and about the house, there are the odd moments, say when he’s standing, holding onto the sofa, when he forgets he can’t stand on his own, and lets go of the sofa; there follows a couple of seconds of standing before the brain kicks in saying “Oi, you can’t stand yet”, and down he goes.  It feels like one day he’s just going to ‘decide’ to walk, and he’ll be off.
• A temper.  He’s turned into a proper little person, with good moods and bad moods, and times when he’s happy to sit playing with a cardboard box, and other times when he needs constant interaction.  When he’s in a bad mood, and he doesn’t get his own way, we get the full on “laying on back kicking the floor” screaming ab-dabs.  Our usual reaction is to smirk a little, wait for him to ‘get over it’, and then carry on.  It rarely lasts for long.  We keep telling him he’s a little early for those terrible twos we keep hearing about.  He doesn’t seem to care.
• Words.  Just a few, but the available vocabulary seems to grow each week.  He has recognisable versions of ‘Hello’, ‘Bye bye’, ‘Mama’, ‘Dadda’, ‘Harry’ and ‘Brother’, as well as a  very expressive ‘Oooh’, which can mean a number of things, including “That’s new”, “I want that”, “I’m excited by that” and so on.  We also get nodding and shaking of the head, although not always in the right places.
• Waves.  This is a real charmer, and he knows it.  If he’s being cheeky and wandering off somewhere where he probably shouldn’t be, he’ll try to buy some time by giving a little regal wave on the way out.  Strangers in the street get the same treatment (sometimes accompanied by his ‘hello’).

In general, he is a happy, inquisitive little soul.  He’s growing in personality all the time, and acquiring new skills at a blistering rate.  I’m well aware that just about every parent in the land would say something similar of their own offspring, but I make no apologies for that.  Our boy is special, because he’s ours, and we love him to bits.