I won’t lie—things have been really busy the last few months, and I’ve found myself two months behind on writing this blog. This month’s post will be short and sweet, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t manage to cram in some adventures.
**Mountain Biking and Coral Reef Waterpark**
Early on, we decided to get some more mountain biking in before the bad weather set in. To make it extra enjoyable, we tried out the Coral Reef Waterpark opposite the bike park. The marketing team had done a smashing job of making it look amazing, so our expectations were high. However, the reality was somewhat of a letdown. The whole place was tired, with new paint needed everywhere and rust marks leaking into the pool. The overwhelming stench of chlorine made our eyes so sore we could barely keep them open. The queue system for the flumes was pretty terrible; at one point, Stanley and I stood for 45 minutes for one flume, and you only get 1.5 hours for your time slot. The price was high too—around £47 for the allocated time. It wasn’t our best experience at a UK water park, but the kids did enjoy themselves. Give them water and some flumes, and they don’t see the bad.
[Coral Reef Waterworld](https://www.everyoneactive.com/centre/coral-reef-waterworld/)
**Pickleball Fun**
In October, I tried Pickleball with one of my oldest friends. We hit some balls on the golf range first and then headed straight to the court. Both of us were blissfully unaware of the rules, so we made up our own mixture between squash, table tennis, and tennis. It was hilarious to see us trying our hardest around a court we later found out was for four people rather than the two of us. But we had so much fun that we rebooked! The whole morning was a great way to keep my eye in with golf, get some exercise, and laugh a lot with an old friend. My immaturity crept back with our stupid sense of humour.
**Rickie’s Annual Golf Day**
Mid-October, the weather was still surprisingly kind, and with that in mind came Rickie’s annual golf day. Plenty of alcohol and laughs were had with the guys I used to play with every day. This day single-handedly takes me back to my late teens and early 20s. My game seemed to improve after a few beers at half-time, and I started to pull my weight in the scoring department. But on a charity day with this much love and laughter, who cares about the golf?
[Gift of Golf](https://rnj-giftofgolf.com/)
**Expanding Our Online Presence**
To add to our online presence, I started looking into doing some podcasts and joined a team called GoingOB podcast. These guys are from Scotland, and we’ve produced a few episodes. I really enjoyed myself and realized I’m not too bad at it. I love to talk, and this came easy to me. Whether it’s any good to listen to, only time will tell, but I’m enjoying it as it comes.
You can find us on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@GoingOBTV), iTunes, and Spotify.
**Medical Procedures and Borough Market**
I had a couple of procedures that required me to travel to Guy’s Hospital in London. I’m not going to talk too much about this, but I did post a short video on our channel showing the tube being removed from my stomach through my nose. Yuk! It was horrible and there for 24 miserable hours. But after it was removed, we visited Borough Market, where we tasted some incredible foods and saw an abundance of food selections. We didn’t know what to eat! More videos are on our YouTube channel. In the end, we had a lovely day.
**Halloween Festivities**
Halloween is a huge event in our house, and with half-term landing smack on it, we could have our decorations up early and enjoy them for longer than a week this time. Stanley obsesses over Halloween and often asks for different animatronic props every year. Jon and I organize a street party and invite all the neighbours to come and enjoy soup and snacks for dinner out front with smoke machines, scary music, and hot food served next to the van. Our neighbours really embraced it this year, with many dressing for the occasion. It was a huge success, and we can’t wait to make it bigger and better next year.
The half-term was full of Halloween activities, culminating in our big party on the last day. October felt like a quiet one, but looking back, we managed to achieve a lot with plenty of friend and family time.
