What a good weekend. Saturday morning we set out for Portsmouth for my graduation ceremony. My mum, Victoria’s mum, my brother Simon, Ellis, Elsa, Victoria and me. The ceremony was held at The Guildhall. Wearing robes immediately gives one a sense of superiority! Had my photo taken after waiting in a looooong queue. Victoria tells me they all cheered as I crossed the stage to shake hands with the principal (or whoever it was), but I didn’t hear them. Still I must admit to feeling very pleased and proud of myself and Vic did keep telling me how proud she is of me.
We had to leave pretty quickly afterwards in order to get to Dorset and then Bristol before the end of the evening. Simon and went back to our house in Worthing. Simon was due to fly back to Cameroon the next day although as it happened his flight was cancelled for 24 hours. The rest of us drove to Bradford Peverell and Victoria and I left the children with Wendy and headed off to Bristol.
Our hotel was lovely. Victoria’s face was a picture as we arrived. She was so overexcited! Even better, we got a free upgrade to an Executive Suite. The only down part of the evening was that our restaurant meal was very expensive and marred by a drunken rowdy bunch of blokes. We had to get our money’s worth so went swimming at 10:30 at night and I used the steam room and sauna. Our bed was huge. Victoria and I didn’t see each other all night we were that far away, me in the east wing and her in the west wing of the bed!
Even though Victoria wanted to stay in bed and have a lazy morning, I persuaded her to come swimming with me again at 6am and then support me as I set off on the half marathon. There were far more people taking part than I had imagined. Around 10000 in all split over two phases. My start time was 9:30. It was a beautiful day. I have never seen Clifton Suspension Bridge before but the run took us out under it and back again. It was a great atmosphere and I really enjoyed it. Victoria waited outside the hotel to cheer me on at around 11 miles and I finished in 1:47:15, my best time yet. I got a medal and everything!
We went to Bath and had tea at Sally Lunn’s before driving back to Dorset.
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