Millie is very taken with farm life. She asked me to retrain.

Since leaving Imperial at the end of March, lots has changed in my life, not least being fortunate to have abandoned the regular commute. The downside of this is that without my commute, I am finding no time to write. In fact, as it happens, I am writing right now from the train, on one of my rarer sorties into London.

Setting up a new business is somewhat consuming. This has not really come as a huge surprise, I knew what I was getting into, but nonetheless I don’t think I realised quite how much my time would be reduced for little things like blog writing. The good news is that things at Onside Analysis are shaping up nicely and we are very excited about what is on the horizon; we really think that putting the hard graft and effort in here will lead to some exciting results in the not too distant future.

But, back to my life, adding in the work with MDC and other activities (the most recent being my very enjoyable coaching course), what time is left is very little. Poor Wendy and the kids are struggling to get  my attention, albeit as always without complaint, but clearly my priority needs to be spending what time I do have with my family rather than indulgently writing to myself and the handful of other kind people who every so often read these words.

I’m not immodest enough to think that anyone will care all that much about this. Whether I write every week, month or just a few times a year doesn’t have any cosmic repercussions. Interestingly, when I look at the traffic that visits my site, when I used to write rarely I had a lot more readers of the blog than when I wrote every week. This might suggest that increased frequency has come at the expense of quality, or that if I write too often people finally become aware that there is nothing of importance being said. Either way, the extra commitment of writing regularly for a diminishing readership is unappealing.

My big little boy is 2!

All this said, it’s important to say that it’s not going to be the end of the blog altogether, as it is still a very enjoyable way to spend a train journey. Also, I still have plenty to write about. Since my last post I have been busy on my football coaching course (where I have learned plenty); been lambing for the second year in a row (once again a very enjoyable experience); been to the Crucible to watch the snooker (including a great view from the commentary box courtesy of Willie Thorne) and had little Harry H’s magical second birthday. These have all been exciting experiences, that if time permitted would provide plenty of material for writing about. Such things are going to continue, so there will always be things for me to write about.

For now I’ll just observe what fun we had, and draw to a close. The train is pulling into the station you see, and another busy day (for which I am already an hour late) is about to get going. I’ll see you when I see you, and post this blog when I get the chance…

Boots and ball

Despite my enthusiasm, people who know me might suspect that coaching will not be for me. I would guess that people might think I would not particularly excel at teaching people to do something, especially if they don’t get it first time. You see, amongst my friends, I am not renowned for my patience.

My reputation is not without cause. I am happy to acknowledge that a lack of patience is a serious flaw in my personality. The good news in this is that my intolerance is not universal. The bad news is that sadly, the people who are most precious to me, Wendy, the kids and my family, often bear the brunt of this behaviour. It’s not that I get on with my family less than others, it’s just that if you spend a lot of time in the company of the same people, you tend to become hyper aware of things that annoy you.

Of course, while it might not be a suitable defence, I might argue that sometimes my response is not without provocation. Anyone who has young children will realise that however much you love and adore them, they know exactly how to press the buttons to wind you up. Some people (like Wendy) are better able to deal with it than others (like me).

And don’t get me started on the dog. Just come on a regular walk with me and watch my stress levels rise. Anyone who has not looked after Mtani will argue that dogs can’t be malicious or deliberately misbehave. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has looked after her for a few days who hasn’t quickly reviewed their opinions. In fairness to her, a lot of her misbehaviour is just “being a dog”. This doesn’t really make it much easier to deal with, for example if after calling her for more than 15 minutes, you traipse through the undergrowth into a stream to find her gnawing on a dear carcass it is hard to not be a little cross (that was last Saturday).

Regardless, I do realise that amusing as anecdotes about the causes of my stress may be, actually being there and experiencing it really isn’t fun for anyone. All I can say is  I’m aware of it, and I am trying to encourage myself on a daily basis to respond better to these little episodes of adversity.

Back to the coaching. It turns out, in a professional environment or with strangers, the feedback I have received from various different appraisals really doesn’t record any stress or impatience in my dealing with people. And actually I have had some experience teaching, both in academia and in a work environment, and it appears that overall the people I have taught have given me lots of great feedback. Of course, like everything in my life, there is plenty of room for improvement, but at least I haven’t been a complete flop.

So let’s see how tomorrow goes. I’d love it to be a success, because I love the idea of helping people to enjoy the beautiful game as much as I do. And if as a coach one day I do manage to come across and help to coach a player who can be a better player than I ever could, all the better.

I’m sure Wendy wants me to succeed too, after all not only is it the first of three Sundays that I am giving up to do this coaching course, it is also our sixth wedding anniversary. My wonderful wife has put up with my quirks and foibles for the last six years, almost never complaining. What a very lucky man I am.

If somehow you’ve missed it, my little brother has recently been making himself somewhat of a media superstar.

As most of you know, over the last year, Jon and a team of fantastically talented and generous film makers have been working on his documentary film “A Life Worth Living“. For any first time readers (I think this might be flattering myself to believe that such people exist), ALWL is a film about Jon’s road trip around the UK and continental Europe, meeting other adults living with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy leading inspiring lives.

The great news is that the project has been a great success. Whilst we are continuing to work to raise the funds that the project needs for the distribution of the film, and taking the production through the final phases, I have now seen the final version of the film and it is a great piece of work.  With the first invitation-only screening of the final documentary due next month, and another screening in the Houses of Parliament in July it is almost ready for public viewing. A short 6 minute version taken from the film is below.

Unfortunately, the key word in the above paragraph is “almost”. Because of the constraints of the film festivals that Jon and the team are entering the documentary into, we are not permitted to hold a general-admission film premiere in advance, or even sell any DVDs, until the festivals are complete.  The good news is that if you can just wait, you can pre-order DVD’s from the site.

Fortunately Jon has not let these hurdles stop him from spreading the word about DMD and raising the profile. In the last month, Jon has been on both Channel 4 news at 7pm (see video below)  and Embarrassing Bodies. For the charities that have supported the project and that support sufferers and families of this condition (the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign and Action Duchenne) this has been fantastic exposure.

And for Jon there has been some excellent feedback too. Everyone I have spoken to who has seen the clips has said what an inspirational person Jon is, and what an incredible achievement the film is. I couldn’t agree more, and I am very proud to have someone making such a difference in so many people’s lives as my brother. Indeed, weekends like this one, where a chest infection has meant that Jon has had to cancel a trip to the Netherlands for a screening and a talk at a company that has supported the project, come as a stark reminder of how restricting Jon’s condition really is, given how much he normally achieves.

The superstardom won’t stop here I’m sure. On the back of his recent media appearances he has been invited by Airbus to give a motivational talk to their managers in Toulouse: a gig usually reserved for some very high profile speakers. I really hope this is the start of many more exciting things to come that ultimately raise the profile of Muscular Dystrophy and ultimately help to raise funds for a very worth cause, improving many people’s lives in the future.

Without even completing a single week sitting at my desk working on Onside Analysis business, Easter crept up on me and threw lots of bank holidays my way, curtailing the working week.

The Easter Bunny was kind

This year we had a real Easter treat, not only did the Easter Bunny visit, but more excitingly (at least for us grown ups, and I think even the kids) our good friends Sandra and Steve visited us over the Easter weekend, as part of their visit from their home in Boston to a friend’s wedding. I met Sandra and Steve in the 6 winter months I spent during my Ph.D. studying at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Sandra was one of the housemates of a good friend, Sarah, who I met playing football, and who happily introduced me, a geeky English maths student,  to her wonderful group of friends.

I often wonder what makes a great group of friends, and I think throughout my life I have been pretty lucky in this respect. I would say I have 3 core groups of friends in my life, and that is without counting some wonderful friendships I made at Smartodds. First there are my very close friends, who I met at school, most of them at Vale School who I have known since the age of 5. Second off are my University friends, most of whom were all flatmates from our first year halls of residence. Finally, I have my Wisconsin friends.

Of Sarah’s house, I am in regular touch with most of them, with Sandra and Steve, Michelle and Tyler, and Kate also having been over to stay with us in the UK. I am yet to convince Sarah and Dan (and their little Will) to make the journey across the pond, but in truth I think with the number of people who have been kind enough to visit us, it must be our turn to head over there. Plus we have babies to introduce now. I haven’t yet met Will, or Michelle and Tyler’s Muriel, and Millie and Harry are yet to meet many of the gang. Sadly, not everyone is based in Wisconsin any more, with the housemates now dispersed over a number of states, making the logistics of the visit (at least with young children) a little difficult. Add in the fact the my poor American friends get very limited holiday time (10 days a year is considered generous), and organising such a meeting becomes hard.

The good news is, even though we don’t see each other very often, when we do it is lovely to spend time with all of them. You can tell that friendships are strong when, after a lengthy time apart, you can pick up like you saw these people last week. That was exactly what it was like with Sandra and Steve, and we had some lovely time exploring our area, and in particular visiting English pubs and eating English food.

There are pirates in Cornwall

As soon as Sandra and Steve were on their way, we went for our own Easter holidays, down to the Sands Resort in Newquay, North Cornwall. Now, if you have young children and your life revolves around them (as ours does), I simply can’t recommend the Sands highly enough. It was a wonderful place with so much for the kids to do, kids clubs, fantastic (young) children’s evening entertainment, and all less than 5 minutes walk to wonderful beaches. The added bonus was services like baby listening that allowed us to have grown up time and nice food in the excellent hotel restaurant every evening. On the other hand, if you are at that equally wonderful stage of life where it is yours to enjoy and does not have to fit around children’s routines, then I’d strongly suggest the Sands is not for you. We watched on the Saturday night that we were there as a young couple drove up in their car for what looked like a romantic evening away. I would only say I hope they liked room service and each other’s company, because I’m sure that sharing meal times with squawking children was not exactly what they had in mind.

I was surprised by quite how much I loved Cornwall. While I am not always the most relaxed person, and sometimes the constant demands of looking after children can exacerbate my impatience, the wonderful setting and fantastic active Cornish way of life helped me to adjust to the situation (albeit after a day or two). We were also incredibly lucky with the weather, and although we had rain on most days, they were true April showers, and were interspersed with plenty of lovely sunny periods. I was also surprised by how quickly we got there – I was anticipating a journey of over 6 hours, and our driving time was just over 4. Not as far as you think! All in all I can see us spending a lot more time there as the kids grow up, enjoying active holidays all the way!

But all good things come to an end. Well holidays at least. So here I am, back in the real world. Millie has returned to school, and I’m finally looking at an open road ahead with Onside Analysis. That should keep me going until the next holiday, and there’ll be plenty of blogs in between.

Actually, despite the impression from the first paragraph, I am probably working harder than I have for quite a while. I have a lot to do, and my business partner Rob is relying on my contribution, and I just love getting my teeth into a challenge like this. Sometimes the hard part is switching off my computer in the evening and finishing for the day.

Before I go on holiday, I think it is time to write a blog, and I thought I’d write a few words on my adjustment to my new life. In fact, last week was not really a typical first week, as I spent most of the time in Derbyshire and Manchester, the latter half of the week being at the SoccerEx conference, a gathering aimed at officials, clubs and companies in and around the football industry. It was a very interesting week, and once again we had noticeable interest in our ideas and business, but it really did make us want to go away and really focus on spending the next few months building the products to demonstrate the ideas that we are promoting.

Millie and the boys for Danny G's birthday

Regardless of how interesting the week away was, it did not really feel like the start of a new routine, largely because what we were doing was not what I expect to be doing on a daily basis. It was a week away from home, followed by a lovely weekend, with a trip to London Zoo with the Stratfords and the Greaves to celebrate the super Danny G’s birthday, before going to see my Mum and Dad on Sunday, just before my Mum’s birthday this week.

The new week has been different, and I have slowly been getting used to my new role, my new environment, and not having to commute for more than 3 hours each day. And I’m enjoying it very much! Actually, given the flexibility of my position at Imperial, it probably has not yet sunk in, as there were often weeks where my supervisor was away, and I didn’t go into the office very often at those times. It still feels like maybe next week, or in two weeks I’ll be back to the old routine and having to curtail the exciting work that I am getting to do now, to pick up some other components of a job that someone else determines are the most important.

One of the strangest things to get used to is seeing more of my children. In fact, my days have not been much shorter, given that I am working so hard on the new business. However, it being the Easter holidays means that both of the children are around pretty much all the time, with both school and their regular extra curricular activities postponed for the duration. What does that mean in practice, well a lot more noise than I am used to, but also both of them popping into Daddy’s office every so often to say hello, or having lunch with them as well as breakfast. It is those little things that are really nice.

Other things that I am noticing are changes in the children. Harry for one is developing his speech every day and has started singing; he even tries to copy Millie when she is counting, playing hide-and-seek for example. And they are playing together more and more, and as a parent I’m not sure there is anything more heartwarming than seeing your children having fun together, independent of you.

Another factor that I am particularly enjoying is Millie’s entrepreneurial spirit. Recently Millie has taken an interest in buying things. But while we are in a hugely fortunate position, for us it is very important that she learns the value of money. It seems very early for lessons like this at age four, but with a continued desire to do things to help Mummy and Daddy, and the want to spend money, Millie has started doing the odd thing for a little bit of pocket money each week. For every day she lays the table in the morning, and makes her bed and folds her pyjamas she receives 10p per task. It normally works out at about £1.00 a week. Not mega-bucks but more than enough for a 4 year old. But she has started negotiating trying to get more money in return for doing more jobs. She has offered to clean the car twice this week, and to wash the windows 3 times. The latter she reasoned was because they were dirty. Her downfall was because she mentioned that the reason for this was because had been licked, by her. In a way I wanted to reward this incredible innovative approach, but as a parent I can’t reward her for going around licking windows.

Of course, when Millie goes back to school and term time begins, it will change again, and I’ll get a better idea of what my routine is really like. It might be lonely after this holiday time company. I might have to speak to the postman every morning just to get some human interaction. But in truth, I’m sure it will be just fine, and I can’t wait to push this project on!

Jacob Stratford and Millie sharing the love.

Today instead of writing more words about nothing in particular I am going to simply put up a picture from last week, when we had a house full of friends over for Friday night. It was lovely to catch up with everyone, with a special visit from our friends Mike and Rach who were over from the US. Getting together as a big group is something that we get to do far too rarely. Sadly, the night ended somewhat prematurely with Millie succumbing to the sickness bug, requiring a major clean up operation, but not before lots of fun had been had by all.

And in addition to this limited offering, if you really are suffering withdrawal symptoms, you can find a lengthy post about sports analytics that I wrote for the Onside Analysis blog. Please have a read and feel free to share it with anyone you think might be interested.

Once again I am beginning this post on my morning commute. However, this is likely to be my penultimate train penned blog because I have only one week left at Imperial. It is hard to believe I will have been there for nearly 21 months.

The decision to first apply for, and then accept, a position at Imperial was not an easy one. When I resigned at Smartodds in November 2009 with a six month notice period to serve, I was unsure of what would come next. There were only two things that really interested me; work that I felt could provide me with the same degree of autonomy as I had been fortunate enough to experience at Smartodds (at least in the earlier days). However, the two options were quite different. One was running my own business, the other was returning to academia.

I certainly had ambitions of managing my own business, I just lacked conviction on exactly what it would do. I had ideas that it might realistically be statistical and software based, but also harboured more innovative start up ideas, whilst realising that I lacked the experience or network to make such fancies succeed.

I also knew that there were many things I enjoyed about academia, and realised I would benefit from the change of environment and refreshed ideas and research methods that a sojourn back in such a post would offer. In the end, perhaps feeling overwhelmed by the steps of setting up a business I decided to go for academia.

I applied for a couple of lectureship positions, well aware that my application stood almost no chance, as (strangely in my opinion) published journal articles are really the only measure that are given any weight when shortlisting candidates. Of course, I heard nothing back. When I saw the advert at Imperial, I applied immediately: it seemed like the ideal opportunity. A position with an excellent professor, specialising in research methods very much aligned with my Ph.D. research, in a department and university that have an excellent reputation. Perhaps the real appeal however, was the fact that it was a short fixed-term contract. If returning to academia really wasn’t for me then there would be a natural way out at the end. And by applying and going through the recruitment process it didn’t mean I had to take the job.

Probably a large part of the reason that my application was successful was down to a lack of pressure. Like everything I do, I went in to the interview well prepared, but I certainly wasn’t desperate to get the job. I was therefore able to relax in the interview. Add in my experience at Smartodds, and the fact I had done many interviews from the other side of the table, and I probably wasn’t the usual freshly qualified postdoctoral candidate.

For whatever reason they offered me the job. Coming out of interview I had the feeling it had been a success, but I wasn’t expecting a job offer within a few hours. I remember getting the message while on a train, and I still remember not knowing what to do. It is very flattering to feel wanted, but I did have reservations that if I didn’t take the opportunity to start a business now then maybe that opportunity would not arise again. In the end, Wendy seemed so genuinely pleased for me that I had the offer, that her enthusiasm rubbed off and I took the plunge.

21 months down the line it is clear that academia is not the way forward for me. Perhaps partially my heart was not ever fully in it, but I like to think that I worked hard and tried to engage myself in the work. I am happy with my contribution, and have certainly enjoyed aspects. One of the great things was the removal of any managerial responsibilities, allowing my time to be dedicated to my research. While I enjoy being a manager, it has been nice to actually have the opportunity to learn new things, but then also put them into practice on challenging problems. Certainly for my personal development the role has served a purpose.

On the flip side of this, it has sometimes been frustrating to be in a position which carries practically zero authority. Of course, by working hard and doing the job well, people begin to realise that you can make a contribution, but naturally that takes a long time to build up, and the sphere of influence is limited. This has been particularly frustrating when watching the huge inefficiencies and bad practices endemic in much of academia.

Another aspect of my decision was my lack of desire to be involved in the politics of being a successful academic. Of course all jobs have a level of politics, but for whatever reason the politics of business feel more natural to me.

I guess part of this is the realisation that to excel in academia you must typically specialise in an incredibly limited area. This is not surprising, given that your role is literally pushing the boundaries of human knowledge in your chosen area. There are other possibilities: some people are happy to forego being the leading expert in an area, in return for being able to focus on broader research or even teaching (non-academics may be surprised to realise just how much teaching is considered an necessary inconvenience rather than an important part of the role). Others truly are geniuses and can be leading experts in a multitude of fields. (Relative) mediocrity does not appeal to me, nor does obsessive research into a very narrowed field, but regrettably experience has taught me there are many many people more intelligent than me in academia, and so I am never going to fall into the genius class.

Undoubtedly other factors have influenced my decision. As much as anything, my unusual career path has meant that I have never really felt like I have fitted in at Imperial. I don’t think I am really very different to my postdoctoral colleagues and peers, and certainly have no delusion of being “better” than them, I am simply a little bit older and therefore a bit further down life’s path. For example, I live outside London and at the end of the day or week, my overriding desire is not to get to the pub for a beer, but to hop on the train to be back in time for my kids bedtime. It was also never the plan to move to Cranleigh for a life of commuting back into London. Who knows if my reasoning is influenced or reinforced by this consideration. Perhaps if the University of Surrey in Guildford had a thriving statistics department my hangups with academia would dissolve.

The good news is, in fact, rather than stifling my ambitions of company ownership my time in academia has allowed it to grow, but more importantly to focus. The result is Onside Analysis, and I am desperate to throw myself into this full time now, rather than just the hours here and there at evenings and weekends that I have been able to give to date.

Of course, the challenges of running a business will be plenty, and I do not underestimate them. But that is the subject for a future post. Regardless, I am excited. And here is hopefully some indication that this is the righ choice for me: my six months notice at Smartodds really dragged, with nothing to keep me going than my day job. On the other hand, I told Imperial I would leave at the end of my contract more than 10 months ago, and for the last 6 I have known Onside Analysis will be the next step. But this time has flown by. Why? Because every spare moment I have I want to work on Onside Analysis stuff.  Which leaves me with just 3 words. Bring it on!

To keep to my regime of 52 posts in a year, I don’t want to fall too far behind one post a week. As it is now Saturday night and I haven’t written since the middle of last week this is therefore overdue.

At the Sports Quiz with England Powerchair footballer Stevie Smith and his signed shirt which I won at the auction

Like a broken record, I am very fond of telling this blog and anyone else who will listen just how busy my life is right now. But really it is. Since I last wrote I’ve done the following: attended the Muscular Dystrophy sports quiz; turned 34; been to the washup meeting for the quiz; been to watch West Ham v Watford and met with Muscular Dystrophy Campaign to begin their IT strategy review. That’s on top of my regular day job at Imperial, where I have been desperately analysing the data from the huge lung cancer cohort study ready to hand in the final report before I leave in 2 weeks. Oh, and then there has been the work on Onside Analysis stuff, although in truth I haven’t moved that on significantly this week.

When you actually write it all down it’s surprising how much you can do in a week. To complicate matters further, on my birthday last Sunday Wendy started with a nasty bout of tonsilitis that largely wiped her out for the beginning of the week. Somehow she struggled through Monday, but by Tuesday she was shattered. Just in time for Tuesday night when Harry picked up a sickness bug, which saw him throwing up throughout the night and all the next day. Nice.

Because of all this, sleep has been somewhat lacking this week. With Wendy pulling the regular Supermum shift, somehow looking after the kids while I’ve been at work, with one of them being very sicky, even when she felt awful, I thought it was only fair that I did the Tuesday night shift with Harry. Following this with a night out at the football, at a ground with a far from ideal crowd dispersion strategy, it was another late night on Wednesday. By Thursday afternoon, at 4:30pm my energy just ran out, so I stopped, and hopped on the train, deciding it was time to spend a little time with the kids. I guess I realised this week that sometimes it is ok to just slow down a little. Something has to give, and there is no point killing yourself trying to keep going. Any ideas of fitness work were long gone this week until I did a session this morning. When my trainer Max gets back from his 3 month trip to Australia at the beginning of April, it is going to be very painful….

So here I am waiting for a takeaway, wanting to write down some words, yet with little in the way of creative resources to provide anything worthy of more than a minute of other people’s attention. But it would be silly not to write down a couple of words about what a fantastic evening we had last Thursday at the Sports Quiz. Once again the evening was a great success, raising over £36K net profit for the charity. The venue was once again fantastic, and just like last year it just feels like an incredible privilege to be in such a prestigious venue as Lords. Our table was lucky enough to have Steve Collins, the rather hard boxer from our youth, sitting with us as our celebrity. He was a really nice guy and, as with all the celebrities again, very obliging and generous with his time and celebrity. All in all another fantastic evening for the charity, which was made even better by the hugely amusing navigation home provided by our good friend Adam. Thanks Jimmy for the lift – I hope the navigation was as amusing if you were driving (and sober) as it was to us in the back who’d had a few drinks. And while I’m at it, I need to say a big thank you to Mum for being our babysitter until late into the night, letting both Wendy and I enjoy a rare night out together.

For me, each year is marked by significant dates which act as milestones, prompting me to take an explicit look at how my life is progressing. Typically, these are the dates that you might expect, including New Year’s Eve, my birthday, family birthdays (especially the kids birthdays), our wedding anniversary, Easter, August bank holiday and Christmas. The 29th feels like one of those extra days, where I should be doing the same.

The wonderful Wendy, (2nd from left) as drawn in Millie's portrait of our family

Taking a snapshot of what is going on right now in my life, Onside Analysis is taking up a large proportion of my focus and attention, along with working very hard to wrap up work at Imperial, and providing what little support that I have time for, for the “A Life Worth Living” project. On the blogging front, I am doing well so far at keeping to my output rate to achieve the promised 52 posts in a year. It is undoubtedly a busy time, and one that would not be possible without the love and understanding of Wendy, supporting and encouraging my projects and never begrudging the extra time that it is taking up, often at the expense of time spent with her. The 29th February then is a day to appreciate and say thank you.

Reflecting on my life over the last week or so, one conclusion that I have come to is that it needs more football! Of course, adding anything to my life at the moment is somewhat problematic, given the main thing I am lacking is time. However, a very strong case can be made that as football will be the core business of our work at Onside Analysis it is a business requirement  that my football knowledge is good. In fact, it isn’t imperative, given that my focus will be primarily the technology and modelling side and my business partner Rob is a football encyclopedia. However, when networking and building relationships as a director of a football scouting and performance analytics company, people expect a decent level of knowledge, so I will be working hard on that.

Football was such a huge part of my life growing up, and up until the end of (my first period at) university, I played a lot, at least 3 or 4 times a week. If I wasn’t playing football I was watching it. However, as life moved on, I played a bit less, first retiring from international availability (sadly with no caps), then with a few social 11-a-side teams, then just in a 5-a-side league, until slowly, it all dried up. The commitment of playing (and training) was very hard to sustain with young children. And sadly, with it, the number of games I watch has seriously diminished, meaning my level of knowledge certainly needs a boost.

On a day to day basis, this means that as part of my working day, I will be reading more sports sections and reports of newspapers and websites, and watching more games on TV. I’m also going to aim to get to one live match a week (midweek evenings where possible), spread around the many premiership and football league grounds in easy reach of home. I have also registered for a coaching course and a performance analytics course, and will be driving my fitness sessions around football based exercises (I tried this yesterday and it was great fun and a good workout – I’m feeling it today). Having begun down this track it has made me remember how much I love football, and how happy it makes me.

Lizzy Greaves and her wonderful family. Will the fascinator be jumping too?

Away from my own life, I have been quite impressed by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign’s marketing to make the most of this leap day for fundraising. They have been pushing a campaign called “Make Today Count”, especially for the day, designed to encourage people to use the additional day to raise money for their cause. The initiatives that they have been encouraging include asking employers to organise charity focussed events on the day or raffling off the extra day as a day of holiday. On a more personal level, people have been asked to do local collections, and various events have been organised, including a group sky dive. This challenge has been taken up by my good friend Lizzy, a very active supporter of MDC (she ran the marathon with me for them, the.first year that I did). It is her first ever sky dive and as such a brave thing to do, but what better way to mark the day, and not let it pass you by. If you are a supporter of MDC (or would like to be) please consider supporting Lizzy by sponsoring her here.

For me, because of work commitments and a lack of holiday from Imperial before I leave, I’m not able to use the day to fund raise. However, tomorrow will be the MDC sports quiz which we have been building towards for many months now. I am hugely looking forward to the event and will make my contribution to the cause there. As for today, how will I make today count? Well I’ll start by posting this blog, and then I’ll crack on with my day job and try and cross off a few more tasks on the route to my final day on the 23rd March. It’s not exciting but it’s necessary.

Regardless, I’ll keep the message of the day in mind. “Make Today Count”. When you see the challenges that some people face every day it’s good to be reminded not just to take another day for granted. It’s a great message for the 29th February, but an even better way to try to live everyday.

Hoping for pirates in Cornwall

But that is an aside, and not yet the source of my existing excitement. Is it the fact that I am about to finish my current job? No, actually that just fills me with dread and panic as I realise how much I have to do before I leave. Rather, I am excited this week because we have just booked a holiday. After looking at Spain, the Canaries, Dubai, Florida, Italy, Malta (the list goes on) we finally settled on our destination: Cornwall.

It appears, since the arrival of the children, that planning and booking holidays is a much more complicated task. Gone are the days of finding something exotic or exciting or just plain relaxing, a few weeks before we want to go. Now we have so many more considerations to take into account: what is there for the kids to do? (This a much harder question in the winter or spring, and, it would appear, with younger children). Can we reasonably adapt a routine to get our children to function on a day to day basis (that pretty much rules out jetlag on a week’s holiday)? Is there somewhere for the children to sleep where we won’t disturb them in the evening?

Paradoxically, the whole exercise of being so specific about our wishlist is that it then becomes hard to be excited or enthusiastic about the possible choices, because nothing is 100% perfect, and so any choice seems to be a compromise in some way. Trawling through Tripadvisor, for every few good or excellent reviews there is one that is the polar opposite. There is also the lack of spontaneity: having researched so thoroughly it feels like you know exactly what is coming. If, like us, you enjoy surprises, it feels unlikely that the resulting holiday will provide anything unexpected (unless it is bad).

Another thing we are finding to our cost, is that it is so much more expensive for four than for two. Now, we are fortunate enough to have disposal income, but still everything has a value, and some of the prices that we have seen during our latest search are way above reasonable value. Prohibitively so I would say, but given that holiday prices, more than many other things, are driven by supply and demand, people must be paying. It doesn’t help that we are now restricted to school holidays (as we will be for at least the.next 14 years). I’m guessing the key is to book much earlier, but Wendy and I have not yet adjusted to that yet.

Of course, what I really should be celebrating here is how lucky I am to be able to go on holiday. Many people in the world would have no idea what a holiday was. Even amongst those who do, we are supremely lucky because we can afford choice. This is very much an over privileged first world problem. The reality is though that I live in a first world country. It can be hard to remember the wider perspective. Struggling to book a holiday can seem a pain, in the same way as a broken wine fridge or intermittent second oven has caused me anguish in recent months.

One exception to recent holiday booking difficulties have been holidays where we have friends or family with us. Knowing that our children will be delighted with the company no matter where we are means we can choose something more aligned to our own tastes, and concentrate on relaxing. And of course we get the added benefit of good company when the kids are otherwise occupied. Our last two holidays, in France last June with the Willeys and Greaves, and in Mallorca in October with Grandma and Grandad Turner have been excellent.

Cornwall

But enough of the problem, and more of the solution. At least the solution for this time. The Sands Resort in Cornwall. It looks tailor made for young children. And we know that if they have a nice holiday then we’ll have a nice holiday. But something about it particularly appeals to me. It seems like there might also be the opportunity for us to kick back a little when the kids are asleep. Okay it is Cornwall, and it might rain all week, but it appears there will be enough to do regardless. And for some reason I can’t really explain, holidaying in the UK appeals this time around.

So there you have it. I am excited. How much of that is excitement for the holiday ahead and how much is because our evenings of searching are now finished (for the meantime) I don’t know. The holiday isn’t until April so if the excitement abates I’ll know it’s the latter. Until, then I’ll try to not get distracted by the impending doom of trying to fit 21 months work into 1 months time…..better get on with it then.