Blossoms in Forest Hill, Dearie! + a long view of the London Marathon

Stunning cherry tree opposite Eliot Bank Primary School

equally wonderful with its autumn colours

Other blooms and plants:

 Barkin' birch

A long view of yesterday's London Marathon – the closest I got to the actual race:

Red balloons at the start on Blackheath can 

just be glimpsed through the gloom above the tree on the left

London Marathon (today): good luck to the wine runners

Balloons mark the start of the London Marathon at Blackheath – the speck above church is either a helicopter or a fixed observation point, perhaps. 

Good luck to the various wine people running in the London Marathon to raise money for charity:

Sally Easton MW: leukemia 

Sally Bishop: children with cancer

Madeleine Waters: breast cancer

Ben Miller: hearing dogs for deaf people  

It is unusual to see the balloons marking the start of the marathon so clearly from Forest Hill as normally leaves block part of the view but this year everything is so late.

Tuesday 23rd Update:

Sally Easton flew round course in 3:33:19.

Support Sally Easton's London leukemia marathon

Sally Easton MW@Domaine Navarre, Roquebrun

I was with Sally Easton MW in Saint-Chinian this week and was well impressed by her dedication in preparing for her first marathon – the London event on 21st April. Wednesday morning's weather was foul – driving heavy rain and high winds. No sign of the storm that had raged all night abating anytime soon. Despite this Sally was out running 5K before breakfast and the very full day of visits we had ahead of us. Incidentally as the Baumards consider my questions to be inquisitorial I would be fascinated to know how they would describe Sally's persistent and probing questioning!

Here's why Sally is raising money for Leukemia Care:

'I'm running to raise money for blood cancers. Not particularly high profile, apart from Leukaemia, probably, but dad died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and mum is living with myeloma. The easy bit was choosing the charity for which I've taken up this physically challenging (hugely) and intellectually (surprisingly) driving project.

Target time 4 hours.

Forecast on current (Jan 1, 2013) training: > 5 hours.
Work to do...

I'm grateful for your sponsorship, as is Leukaemia Care.

I'm writing an occasional blog:http://purplerunning.wordpress.com/'

You can sponsor Sally here.