Back in training

Usually I come back off holiday refreshed and raring to go but unfortunately my break was quite a test as the boys did not sleep well during our stay in Richmond/Twickenham. I think Sara and I averaged about four and a half hours sleep a night.

I had committed myself to not going running and concentrating on looking after my boys and my nieces despite being near the beautiful Marble Hill Park, so I had not been running for almost two weeks.
I was really looking forward to the gym today and doing a 10km session on the treadmill but yesterday I stood on a shard of glass at the Riverside Festival in Leicester, which went through my trainer and punctured my foot.
I scrapped my gym plans and it felt pretty sore walking to work today.
I'm not going to run tomorrow, I might make it out for a road run on Thursday. It is all hugely frustrating.
Before my holiday I achieved a PB for 5km of just under 24 minutes. I now feel less confident about doing it again soon.
I have read conflicting reports of how quickly we lose fitness, but I'm guessing with a sore foot and at least 16 days without training it's going to take a while to get back to where I was.
I'm really finding running a psychological test as well as a physical one. To that end I'm really surprised how much the activity has got its hooks in me.
Last week I decided to blog more, mainly about my progress so I could keep a diary, and follow a running challenge between now and my next holiday in eight weeks time, in order to improve my speed and lose some more weight.
It hasn't started well, but on the plus side, things can only get better!

Twins update

It's been more than a year since I last blogged. This is largely because life with twins doesn't slow down.
The challenges change and I'd be the first to admit life with two boys aged nearly two years old is far more interesting and rewarding than life was at the start when the main aim was to keep them clean, fed and alive.
I wrote an article for the Leicester Mercury -
http://tinyurl.com/6hx8yce - about my first year as a dad, choosing to look at the big numbers involved rather than a wistful look back.
It's almost a year since I wrote that article and life hasn't been as simple as taking last year's numbers and doubling them. Some things have gone - babygros and formula milk - and some new things have been introduced like wellies and a child-proofed house.
The boys are now walking, saying their first words, eating us out of house and home and sleeping in little beds and no longer in cots.
This development has proved to be a huge transition and, at the start, quite stressful as two little boys run riot around their bedroom, enjoying a new found freedom.
Things are settling down with that now thankfully.
During the day we are are having to find more and more activities to keep them occupied too, often heading to Leicester's play parks and watching them tackle the slide and giving them a push on the swings.
It may sound like hard work but it's far better than being stranded at home with them all day, so we are making the most of the good weather and getting out.
The rewards during this time have been seeing their confidence grow as they walk and climb, hearing their new words, which seem to come daily, and seeing the interaction between the two brothers.
Socially, Sara and I feel able to go out together a little more, and in the next couple of weeks I'm heading to Berlin again to watch my beloved Hertha play - the third time since the boys were born so I can't complain. I've even escaped to watch Leicester City a couple of times but yet to make it back to Sincil Bank to cheer on the Imps.
So the twins update as they approach their second birthday is that they are still hard work but life is suddenly very rewarding.

Leicester, I know you got soul

It was the music scene which emerged from Mod and just refuses to die. Northern Soul -even its name is cool. And this week I have learned that I'm living in a city and county that took the music to its hearts. OK, Manchester had the Twisted Wheel, Wigan had the Casino and Stoke boasted The Torch. But Leicester, and Leicestershire also had a major scene going on.

Currently I am reading Paolo Hewitt's book: The Soul Stylists. The work details the early days of Mod, or Modernism as it was known, from the Soho jazz scene in 1950s and brings things right up to date, explaining how music has led fashion and vice-versa.

Northern Soul, bluntly, is black american soul music with a heavy beat and bassline and a fast tempo. Tamla Motown and Atlantic Records were famous labels linked to the scene.

The section of Hewitt's book about Northern Soul reveals some memories from Leicester people who were there when the whole scene took off. It revealed that Leicestershire was a hotbed of Northern Soul activity in the 60s and 70s. A club called the Lantern in Market Harborough was hugely popular, but there were other big clubs and events here too. There is a Youtube clip of a dance at the Nottingham Oddfellows working men's club in Leicester City Centre. The footage is grainy but the atmosphere and dancing shines through.

I have arrived at this point in musical education via my well-known Mod obsession, which all started by chance really. It was 1988, and it began when I saw Quadrophenia for the first time.

Initially, I wasn't that impressed by the music, but the film shook me to the core. The scooters, the clothes, the love interests and the behaviour of the youths in the story all had a profound effect on me. For a while I thought I was the lead character, after all, I thought I shared most his problems.

I was living in a student house at the time aged 18. The weekend after I saw the film I went home and nicked my dad's green parka, and spent flamin' ages trying to pick off cement from the sleeves to make it presentable (my dad is a builder). Mum lent me £19 for a Ben Sherman shirt (which I think I still owe her, sorry mum) and that was it. I had started my journey into Modernism.

Soon after I bought my first Small Faces tape - from Poundstretcher in Lincoln. I had never heard of them but the cassette had a target on it. On the strength of the symbol I had bought a life-changing piece of music - even if it was a greatest hits compilation. I think it was on sale in Poundstretcher because the track listing was incorrect. It said the complete collection but appeared to have a track missing!

I took a part time job in a perfume factory. The staff there rolled their eyes when I tried to ask them about The Small Faces and their songs.
I will never feel like a proper Mod because I was not born in the late 50s/early 60s nor spent my youth enjoying amphetamine-fuelled all-night dancing at Jazz clubs. However, the fashion and music has had a deep effect on my life, and following the mod ideal is a way of life. Since following the music I have discovered bands like the Who, Small Faces, Paul Weller, PP Arnold etc, etc

Now I am learning more and more about soul and the Northern Soul scene. I went to two allnighters last year - including one in a former Stasi boat house in East Berlin. The dancefloor had a river running through it (It is called kiki blofeld's in Kreuzberg - look it up!).

Northern Soul is an amazing sound that I could never get bored of hearing. Now I want to find out more about the scene on my doorstep, its history and its future. If you read this and have memories of the glory days of Northern Soul in Leicestershire please contact me - I'm hoping to write something about its history for the Leicester Mercury's Chronicle series in the near future.

Also I'd like to mention this. I know nothing about it but I'd like to let people know it is on:

THE VENUE presents .. NORTHERN SOUL & MOTOWN NIGHT 8PM - 2AM - FRI 4TH SEPT@ THE VENUE THURMASTON LEIC LE4 8GR - TICKETS £6.50 / £7 OTDSPECIAL HEADLINE DJ KEV ROBERTS ......TICKET ENQUIRIES TEL 0116 260 2007 / EMAIL sammiewilson1977@hotmail.co.ukCLICK THE EVENT HERE ............


NORTHERN SOUL & MOTOWN NITE
HEADLINE DJ ... KEV ROBERTS
Location:The Venue
Time:9:00PM Friday, September 4th