May Day weekend sees us off down to the Forest of Dean for some more orienteering. This time Jordan is with us, so we have two rooms in the Travel Inn.. the boys and the girls.

Mark is seriously debating buying a tent for these weekends away. Julie is not so sure about it…lack of sleep, grumpy kids and too much noise….how can that be a holiday, and more than that, how can you run well on no sleep !

Saturday saw the Webster Orienteering relay team, of Mark (long leg, 4.5k), Jordan (medium leg, 4.1k), and Julie (short leg, 3.1k) taking our first relay challenge. It was around a part of Lincoln University; a lovely area with a lake, and lots of open running…. only for the fittest…!

We finished a creditable 10th out of 18 teams, with the star performer on the day being Julie who managed to romp home 7th in her leg !

Keep up the running Julie, it is paying dividends.

Tuesday night now see us orienteering training at West Notts college in Mansfield. It is run by Catherine Hughes who puts on an enjoyable hour and a half combining fun, fitness, orienteering skills and chat about our recent runs. With the lighter nights it has been great for getting outside and practicing around the college grounds

My New Year resolution was to try to become a more proficient runner, and I set myself a target to be able to run 5k by Easter. I managed it. With a little help from my hypnotherapy friends and the motivation of seeing slight improvements each week in my orienteering times, I did my first 5k run on 7th April. Since then I have run several times, and it is making a massive difference to my ability to keep going in my orienteering races.

Today we decided we would enter the Robin Hood marathon fun run. It is only 3k, but the day is a fantastic event and any friends and family that care to join us can take advantage of the Experian marquee, with all the perks of the day.

Who knows, by then I might be up to running 10k !

Sunday April 26th… the final day of my hypnotherapy course. All the case studies handed in, practice hours complete, and now we wait to find out if we have passed, and can work on the unsuspecting public !

It has been a fantastic year that has changed all of us in many ways. The three main changes for me have been having the confidence to go and get a new and exciting job, changing my eating habits and therefore losing quite a bit of weight, and losing my anxiety over Christmas.

Next year’s course starts on 14th June, covering counselling and psychotherapy, so a few weeks off before I start that.

Here is a great picture of Jordan orienteering. Is he making sure nobody has seen him at that control ?

So, in my attempt to be organised, I have bought us some tickets for the panto; Brian Conley in Cinderalla at the Royal Centre…. Oh no I haven’t….Oh yes I have !

We are going on a PGL holiday at half term, in Devon. Jordan has been on one before, but the rest of us haven’t. It looks like we will be able to try all sorts of new and exciting (read cold, wet and scary) new activities, like quad biking, abseiling, kayaking, archery, and even a spot of orienteering if we feel we need our fix.

Mustn’t forget to pack lots of changes of clothes !

I am determined this year to be well organised about Christmas, to avoid the stress and anxiety that accompanies this great time of year for most mums I’m sure.

I have started some hypnotherapy to help me to be more relaxed about the event, and so far so good, but it is a long way off yet.

I actually made my Christmas present list at the weekend, so I can see the task ahead. We went to a lovely Christmas craft fayre at Arnold Hill school, and I actually bought 3 or 4 presents, some cards and gift wrap. A good start already.

We will be having mum and Tony for the run up to Christmas day and for a couple of days after. I need to contact Andy to see if we will get together again over the Christmas period sometime too. We have done it the past 2 years and it has been fantastic.

Mum has offered to buy panto tickets for us all again this year. I must get them booked up if we are to get a good date.

Tonight our group met to practice some of the new stuff we have learnt in our last class. We are comfortable with our learning to date, having seen success with standard PMRs, deepeners, and suggestions for sleeping, self confidence, nail biting, and simple cases of anxiety. We have now learnt rapid induction techniques, which we really need to practice but we are quite cautious of at the moment. We had some good practice tonight, but really need to keep it going.

I am having some hypnotherapy from the group to help me to cope with the anxiety and stress in the run up to Christmas. I hope it works !